Driving A Big Motorhome vs. Pulling A 5th Wheel

[Headhunter]

You are going to be close to 70 ft long..!!! 43 ft MH, 4 ft tow bar, 6ft bed pickup 23 ft long ? Make sure you also have an auxiliary braking system. That pick up truck is going to be HEAVY to pull and most of all STOP.

 

[Fish]

You are going to be close to 70 ft long..!!! 43 ft MH, 4 ft tow bar, 6ft bed pickup 23 ft long ? Make sure you also have an auxiliary braking system. That pick up truck is going to be HEAVY to pull and most of all STOP.

I was planning to use the ready brake.

 

[Headhunter]

My choices were for Gas .... Demco stay & play.... for Diesel .... Airforce 1. Also remember what ever vehicle you decide to use, you have to have the brake lights and turn signals set up with some kind of kit that will work from the en-biblical cord from the coach.

 

["EZ"]

I pulled my Ram 1500 4x4 for a couple years with no issues whatsoever. I use Air Force One brake system. Never had any trouble stopping!

PS: I know the slide is out a little bit. I stayed in this rest stop for a few hours to get some sleep and was parked in-between 2 tractor trailers. I ran the bedroom slide out enough to be able to walk around the bed and get in it. But not so far as to get it hit by a tractor trailer leaving. Notice I'm still inside my parking lines.

 

[MapNerd]

All good advice here. Take it slow, practice in a big empty parking lot, double check, then triple check your tow connections.

Safety first. you’re going to be huge like me. Don’t be afraid of hogging 1.5 lanes or going up the middle of two lanes to make a tight right hand turn onto a single lane road. It happens. Truckers do it for safety and you’re just as big as them.

I think other drivers totally get it. Often they will honk loudly to give me encouragement and occasionally, when they pass they even give me a #1 hand signal to let me know how great I am doing. I just smile and wave back.

 

[Fish]

First drive, around 200 yards lol.

Pulled it out of the shop and drove it up to the house. Had to bring it up to the house in reverse. I can only pull it into my driveway from the north and the shop is to the south. And I needed to pull it in to hook up my electric and water so I couldn't back it up the driveway.
Useless Frontier has a phone pedestal right on top of the south side of my driveway and my mailbox is right across from it so if I tried to pull in from the south I'd either hit the pedestal or catch the mail box with tail swing.
Wife flagged traffic of which there was only one car (I live in the sticks). I didn't really have any problems but I can tell it will be hard to get used to figuring out where the side of the road is. When I got over to let the car by I really couldn't tell where the road ended and the ditch started on the passenger side going forward, spent a lot of time looking at the mirror and camera. I'll get used to it, I have to.

I'm going to call Frontier and see about getting this pedestal moved. I'm sure they'll blow me off but I'll try anyway. I'm not sure what the purpose of it is anymore. No one out here has a landline phone. I called them to try their slow internet again a few months ago and they told me that the speeds were so slow out here that they had discontinued offering dsl.

 

[Old Bubblehead]

Great job, keep practicing. Watch you speed, these beast can move pretty fast but your safety envelope reduces with speed. Look out for idiots on your right trying to get by you prior to return to right lane. Happens all the time to me. I move left to give safety equipment room and signal to move back right after we clear. Almost every time a car can't wait and tries to zoom by.