We finally took the trailer out for a weekend 6 months after we bought it.
Glad to report everything went pretty smoothly and was uneventful.
Some observations from our trip:
1) I could tell the trailer was behind me when driving. Anyone claiming otherwise is either full of it or dangerously oblivious! I felt plenty comfortable driving (first time with a trailer other than bringing it home from the dealership) and the truck did its job fantastically. Was never "white knuckling" it - even on the way out there which was pretty windy.
2) I had a basic Curt WDH from the dealer that they set up with a little friction plate for anti-sway. I did not have the anti-sway piece in place for this trip as I wanted to see what it would be like. It definitely felt like the trailer would wag the truck ever so slightly but nothing big or scary even as trucks went by. This was more noticeable when moving at higher speeds. the WDH spring bars were in place. Just required more attentive driving.
3) We stopped by a CAT scale on the way home. I weighed 3 times but unfortunately, they were slightly incompetent and lost the 2 reweighs, and the wife was NOT going to wait through me doing them again (apparently, we were there a full hour). The 3 scenarios I wanted to weigh were 1) truck + trailer w/WDH, 2) truck + trailer w/o WDH, 3) truck only. I only got the first one this go around – will have to try again later. The weights were as follows:
Steer Axle: 4880 (Front GAWR: 5200)
Drive Axle: 4760 (Rear GAWR: 6200)
Truck Total: 9640 (Truck GVWR: 10000)
Trailer Axles: 6540 (Combined GAWR: 8800, Trailer GVWR: 9660)
As noted above, the truck was close (360# under) but not over its GVWR. We noticed that the truck would rock up and down a lot from any bumps to the point that my wife was getting motion sick – we bought her Dramamine for the ride home. Is this typical of a bumper pull? Would a fifth wheel have the same issue since the truck carries the weight very differently?
4) “Pull Through” sites are still very tight and not ideal for a long truck/trailer combo it seems. Maybe a fifth wheel would have faired better, idk. Ended up running over the edge of the ring around the firepit so the next morning (we got in around 9pm) I went out and bent that back into shape and cleaned it all up. The backside road to get to the pull through site did not give very much space at all and still called for a pretty tight turn radius to maneuver into the spot. Successfully parked, unhitched, leveled the trailer, then went to plug in shore power and realized I had to pull forward another 6 feet to reach to post haha. Good practice
30A Extension cord has been purchased.
5) They say you should check the wheel pressure and lug torque pretty much any time you stop and will be going again. Well I was dutifully doing this, pressure was always good. I have Load Range E tires but they are considerably overkill for my trailer (came with LR Ds) which I filled to 70 PSI (only needed 65 PSI to match the OEM gear) so that there would still be a little give for added suspension to the trailer. The lug torque on the trailer tires though surprised me. There was always at least a 1/16th turn or more on every lug before hitting the 125 Lb/ft I had set the wrench to. Made me feel much better knowing I was re-tightening them back down but also had me concerned, what if I had a longer run between stops? Is this to be expected?
We had the trailer pretty modestly loaded (really just kitchen gear and food). All of our clothes and my tech stuff I am never without were in the truck with me and I had a FULL compliment of tools in the truck (picture below). Next trip I will put more in the trailer since it was pretty underloaded and the truck was closer to its limit.
Now that I got a little stick time in the trailer, planned upgrades (lol).
-I already have the ParkPower kit to have a detachable shore line power cord, that will probably go in tomorrow (what type of sealant should I use around the inlet?).
-I also bought some peg board and accessories to clean up the pass-through storage considerably. I do not have a fifth wheel but there is still a sizable amount of space that I can utilize in there.
-I want to wire up a 12V circuit in the passthrough to put a simple light in there as well as mount and power the repeater for my trailer TPMS system (which I have not yet installed for this reason).
-It was down to the low 30s but not freezing at night and high in mid 50s during the day, the furnace was on full time for wife and baby (18 month old) comfort and we did in fact kill one of the 20# tanks on the trailer. I think I am going to get 30s just to have some more juice available. We were grilling too with my Weber Q2200 modded to use the quick disconnect on the trailer, so that also contributed to the usage. I will still always have a spare 20# in the truck just in case.
-Not as urgent but down the road I want to get 2x or 4x 6V batteries for extended battery run time and maybe an inverter to allow some boondocking. Would also look into solar panels, automatic transfer switch, and anything else that makes sense as part of the project. The batteries I found that look good are $280 a pop so this is a NOT urgent one haha.
-Going to want a 2nd TV for the bedroom, that is easy enough
-The storage space under the bed is a pain to access due to the 10” memory foam mattress we already put in the bedroom (heavy) so I have a mind to either remove the panels and make it open below the bed to store stuff there as needed, or make a door/drawer to make it more usable.
-If I get REALLY bored, I may consider modding the trailer to a 50 Amp shore line and Power Center but this is least likely to happen, I think.
That is the end of report, feel free to offer feedback or advice.
Thanks for reading!