Best 5th wheel toy hauler for extended vacations?

[Rockwerx]

Just curious as to who makes a toy hauler that would be suitable for living in for 3-6 months at a time. My wife and I are looking now to learn more about them and possibly purchase one in the next 2 years.

So far I have looked at a few but many of them are setup for big familys to go out for a long weekend. Some of them have a lot of flash but are not the best overall quaility once you start looking at them close. My wife and I are not quite sure of our needs and wants but I have a few things that we believe we would want.

Pretty sure we would want a 14 ft garage to haul either 3-4 quads or 3 mountain sleds. I have only found a few models that have a 14 ft garage. Some of them have lots of shelves and some have none. Lots of models have electric beds in the garage.

I can not understand why consumers of these products don't demand some very simple things that used to be common on camping trailers. After looking at many of the floor plans and some at dealerships we only found a couple models that actually have a closet to hang your jacket. Only one of them had a place to put your shoes or boots after walking in the door. I would rather have a closet in the garage to hang my gear than to have an extra beer fridge for instance.

Anyway, looking for lots of feedback positive or negative with what your experiences have been using a toyhauler.

 

[KawisakiRider]

You don't like the cyclone?:d

 

[Throttle*Queen]

We looked at some raptors and they were gorgeuos. I agree it is hard to find one with everything that is best for your needs. We found a few that had a slide in the master bedroom and therefore it had storage and like a "walk-in" closet feature! I hope you have a big truck though, we have a 2007 2500HD GMC and when we went 2 a few dealers they wouldnt even show us the big tri-axle (14ft garage) units because we didnt own a one ton dually! They are pretty heavy units sometimes.

 

[arff]

We have a Raptor great toyhauler for our use.

A few things to think of.

Built in generator(they are great)
Large fridge
Electric awning
Good stereo
Large bathroom with good shower
Fuel cell
AC
Heated underbelly or heated tanks

My 2 cents

 

[Rockwerx]

Thanks for the help so far!

I am trying to be objective in my elvaluation of these types of trailers. Like I said, it is very easy to get caught up with the flash of some of these units (they all looked very nice!) and overlook some basic needs that one may have. I am not new to camping and RVing but I am new to the toy hauler market.

Many of the models I looked at online would have been great if they had changed a couple of things or given us the option of a custom made unit. One thing on many high end machines that took them off our list was a split up bathroom. We don't appreciate the sink being outside of the toilet area for instance. Put it all in one room...toilet, sink and shower or shower/tub combo. Space is always at a premium almost like a yacht so an efficient floor plan goes a long way when you are camping for more than a long weekend!

So far we have looked at 3 models other than pics of many others on the www. Fusion, Raptor and Envy. I still want to look at an Enduramax and a Recon. The Fusion seemed to have a few nicer options (maybe a slightly higher end series from Keystone) and slightly better fit and finish at the few we looked at. The Envy had a very nice plush interiour also and a King size bed which was nice. It only had a 12 foot garage but the garage was outfitted very nicely with huge overhead cabinets...seemed to be a pretty high end unit. I think that it was the most plush of the ones we checked out.

All of the models had fuel stations. Some models had an extra large fridge which we liked. All had 5500watt Onan generators although one had a 4000 watt Onan. I believe one would want the 5500 watt or possibly even larger if the unit had 2 or 3 AC units (one RV I saw had 3 AC units!).

I think that the Enduramax floor plans fit our needs/wants (except for no extra large fridge...maybe it is an option though) but I want to see one first. The one I want to look at has a raised kitchen. It seems to open up the whole floor plan as it pops out with the master bedroom closet and overlooks the double slide living area. You can also open up the walls to the garage if you want more room.

Has anyone figured out how to haul a small 11 foot boat in the garage as well as their quads? One of my friends wondered if the electric bed might hold one, but I doubt it is designed for the weight to be there when traveling. I used to haul it over top of the truck cab and hood when I was towing our last 5th wheel trailer. It worked great but I don't have the energy I used to so I am not too keen on building a boat rack for our truck.

 

[mudboy]

Take a look at XLR by forest river. That is what we ended up getting. Looked at all of them and this one seemed to fit oour needs the best. It had the all in one bathroom. Very good quality. BUt heavy. Next truck will have to be a dually

 

[tfitz]

Well you guys are in the same boat me and my wife were, we looked at toy haulers for well over a year before we finally pulled the trigger on one. We had some of the same issues with toy haulers as you do, except we have a family so we wanted lots of sleeping room. Our favorites where the Inferno buy KZ then the Cyclone by Heartland. We really liked the Cyclone and probley would have bought it but they discontinued the floor plan we liked this year so we were out of luck there, so we bought a Inferno.
Overall we really like the trailer. Instead of having a 14' Garage we got the rear bathroom option, and extra storage. A big selling point for my wife was the loft having stairs going into not a ladder. A big selling feature for me for long time bush camping is that the unit is fully self contained with built in 5500onan gen, 125gallons of fresh water, 2 100L fuel station and enclosed heated under belly.
I am not sure how some people get away with it but our trailer is 14,000lbs dry weight, so by time I load it with 125g of water, all our junk a 1200lb rhino this thing is getting extreamly heavy, I pull with a F-450 and am very close to being over weight, so that is the only down side I see with it

 

[KawisakiRider]

Not sure about some of the other models but I looked at a 3950 Cyclone HD by heartland and it had fully inclosed heated under belly with pass through storage you could fit a couch in!
Also upgraded insulation and dual pain windows.
The sales man said it was good as is until -20, don't know if that's true but if it is you can camp well into November if you wanted to. It also had all the other features of the previously talk about RV's.
As others have stated 14 000lbs dry, I have to wait to buy one until I get my next truck I guess, lol.

 

[waka]

The Open Range toy hauler is really nice and has R38 insulation in the floor and the roof... they have lots of the same features but with the four season option you are laughing

JMO of course

Waka

 

[Rockwerx]

Thanks for your input everyone!

The latest toyhaulers are all very nice and I can see how they would be great for families! Some of them you can sleep 12 people...that would be chaos! We think that 6 would be enough for our needs.

I like the idea of 2 100 liter fuel cells and also the larger fresh water tanks. I saw a pressure washer in a unit when I looked last year. That would be nice to wash the quads off before loading them up. You could also wash the truck and trailer...or the kids if they were really dirty! lol

I saw a pic today of an RV that had a small dish washer...that would be a nice luxury for long weekends or if you had a good water source.

There are many nice features on some models that may justify their higher cost. Things like remote control landing gear and leveling jacks might be a nice option.

I saw that some have electric awnings that will close if it gets too windy. I wonder if they will close if it starts snowing! lol Which brings up a question. Do the slide outs need the awnings over them? Are they there to protect the slide out or keep the elements out or both?

I am sure I will find out more about these cool new trailers as I keep looking. Thanks for the input as nothing can compare to real world experience.

 

[green-horn]

You are right about your assumptions:d and yes it is for both Keeping the majority of crap off the slide because when you retract it it comes into the trailer for travel. {3feet of snow inside kitchen not a good idea} Skies the limit with trailers nowdays but consider what you are going to pull it with and where are you going with it. {We use to love camping in provincial campgrounds now TOO BIG}

 

[Rockwerx]

You are right about your assumptions:d and yes it is for both Keeping the majority of crap off the slide because when you retract it it comes into the trailer for travel. {3feet of snow inside kitchen not a good idea} Skies the limit with trailers nowdays but consider what you are going to pull it with and where are you going with it. {We use to love camping in provincial campgrounds now TOO BIG}

Gotcha! We were thinking the same thing...getting into the places we love may not be possible if we go to a 40+foot unit. For the most part we like to go and find a place in the mountains where we can camp and stage our machines from...but some of our favorite places we would probably have to find a new campsite if we go any bigger.

I tow with a 2008 Dodge 3500 with a modified 6.7 Cummins turbo diesel...no trouble with lack of torque and hp...it is putting out around 450hp and almost 1000 ft/lbs of torque to the wheels. It is so nice to be able to play with loads like the semi does! My truck is also getting double the fuel economy modified over when it was stock...dang engineers that figured that burning twice the fuel to have cleaner emmissions should be shot! But that is for another thread.

Right now I tow a 5th wheel flat deck trailer with our old camper on the back for our toy hauler. Loaded with the camper and 2 quads it weighs in at 12,500 lbs. It works great for now and I can haul many cool toys with it (sometimes all at once!), but we want something a little nicer for traveling in style at some point.

Sounds like we should add slider awnings to the list. One dealer was trying to tell us that he would never have them because he felt they would be subject to damage from wind. I am thinking he was wrong about his assumption, but I will keep looking for drawbacks to having them.

I was checking out the Open Range Rolling Thunder toyhaulers on line. Wow, they sure seem like a high end unit! Lots of very nice features...especially the excellent insulation that they have. They seem to be very well thought out for extended living. The cloesest dealer for them is in Red Deer, so it may be awhile before we can view one. If I do though I will give a report on what I find out.

They sure want a lot of money for these things! If you do some price searching you can see what I mean! Anyway, lots to choose from and lots of things to weigh out back and forth. I found many of the same units priced both high and low. If you start digging into the list of options you can sometimes figure out why they are priced so different.

I believe that some dealerships will order trailers from the manufacturer built to their specs and they will order enough units to get a substantial discount. So many of the dealers will order them with a lot of flash but not a lot of substance if you get my drift. This is where it would pay to be an imformed consumer.

It is very easy to get caught up with all the flash and gizmos but if the trailer is not designed very well it will fall apart in no time from what I have read. Lucky for us...most of the poor companys are out of business from what I have read.

Thanks again for the great input everyone! I sure appreciate the positive input from the members on this site! :d

 

[mudboy]

Washer and dryer features are nice so are the pressure washers. Just remeber unless you are at a sight that has water supply you will be going through lots. Our XLR has 100 gal water tank. being very conservative with our water supply dishes and the odd shower here and there, after 2 weeks of camping in the mountains we are almost out. You can pick up a pressure washer at crappy tire for a lot cheaper then what the dealer ship is adding to the price when looking at the trailer. One thing to consider is if you can find 2 dealers with the same trailer you can get negotiate back and forth for best price. Worked great for us.

Just remeber the bigger you go the heavier they get. They all start around 13,000 lbs dry. That is before anything is added to them. If you want 2 100L tanks add another 300lbs, 100g of water gets you to another 850 lbs, 4 quads another 2000lbs. you are now getting close to 16000lbs. No matter how much torque you have or horsepower this does not help in the fact that the sticker on your door states you max ratings for wieght.

 

[barefooter]

That's why you guys need something like this girl! Man - I knew those toyhaulers were heavy - but not that crazy heavy. Myself - I wouldn't tow anything over 12K with a SRW truck, and I think 14K is pushing for a dually. It's not the hp and torque - it's the brakes that matter. I think we get a little spoiled in Alberta with no hills. Now tow one of those things through BC or Idaho - and that where things get hairy.

 

[tfitz]

I completly agree with the worry of not being able to camp everywhere, we were also very worried about this when we bought our trailer. On the RV lot it did not look that big (they had it parked next to all the other big units) but on the way home that day the wife asked if we could stop in at IKEA. Well let me tell you I that trailer got fairly big when I had to park in a IKEA parking lot on a Sat afternoon. Last week we pulled out to Thunder Lake Provincal park and are camping there for 10 days I was a little nervous about getting the trailer into the stall, it went great no troubles parking it at all we had to trim some high branchs cause the trailer is so tall. The hardest part was leaviling 3 axles.

As for the big truck thing, Yeah I would love to have a mini pete or a Freightliner Sport Chasis, evan with my f-450 with a tow rating of 24,000lbs I don't think I would like to take a trip through Idaho they have some wicked hills.
I'll see if I can get a pic of the camper in the stall tonight when I am there.

As for the question about the weather safe awning closing when sensing snow, they will close as soon as the sense rain or snow, and have a bypass so when your outside and it is raining you can still sit under it. And for the awnings over the slides, our salesman tried to talk us out of them also, he said they make lots of noise when the wind is blowing and we would be annoyed by them at night.

 

[mudboy]

Do not get me wrong we love our set up. The only other thing that I would do differnetly next time is the Generator set up. I would not get the built in Onan 5500 watt gen. The thing is noisy and hard on fuel. Basically 1L per hour. We use our 2000w honda inverter gen still. It can run for 12hrs on 4L of fuel and supper quite. next time I would just get a 3000w honda with the remote start.

 

[Rockwerx]

Washer and dryer features are nice so are the pressure washers. Just remeber unless you are at a sight that has water supply you will be going through lots. Our XLR has 100 gal water tank. being very conservative with our water supply dishes and the odd shower here and there, after 2 weeks of camping in the mountains we are almost out. You can pick up a pressure washer at crappy tire for a lot cheaper then what the dealer ship is adding to the price when looking at the trailer. One thing to consider is if you can find 2 dealers with the same trailer you can get negotiate back and forth for best price. Worked great for us.

Just remeber the bigger you go the heavier they get. They all start around 13,000 lbs dry. That is before anything is added to them. If you want 2 100L tanks add another 300lbs, 100g of water gets you to another 850 lbs, 4 quads another 2000lbs. you are now getting close to 16000lbs. No matter how much torque you have or horsepower this does not help in the fact that the sticker on your door states you max ratings for wieght.

I will have to check the GVW and figure out what my safe limits are. I believe that most of the triaxle trailers are rated at 18,000lb...the odd one had heavier axle options.

One of the reasons I bought the 1 ton dually Dodge was because they are really built to pull heavier loads. As far as towing in the hills it has no trouble pulling through steep windy logging roads or steep highway mountain passes in BC. When we went to BC with our "toyhauler" last time I stopped at a scale and the truck and trailer weighed in at just about 22,500 lbs. The truck tares in at roughly 8000 lbs with some gear like a half a slip tank of fuel and some tools.

That's why you guys need something like this girl! Man - I knew those toyhaulers were heavy - but not that crazy heavy. Myself - I wouldn't tow anything over 12K with a SRW truck, and I think 14K is pushing for a dually. It's not the hp and torque - it's the brakes that matter. I think we get a little spoiled in Alberta with no hills. Now tow one of those things through BC or Idaho - and that where things get hairy.

I guess if I get in over my head I can use the semi for our adventures. My wife probably would not like it as much as the new pickup though. It would probably get excellent fuel economy pulling even a heavy toy hauler!

As far as brakes go I have one of the best brake systems you can get in my flat deck trailer. It has an electric over hydraulic system. They work a lot better than the more conventional electric systems that run an electromagnet to activate the brakes. I noticed that some of the triaxle toy haulers only have brakes on only 2 axles...I believe they should have brakes on all axles. I did not check to find out if any of the models had electric over hydraulic brakes or if they were an option...but I will start to find out now that we are thinking about stopping this rig now and again! lol

To the people that tow these types of units already, how do they handle under your truck? I am a trucker by profession so I am aware of a few things that one may experience while towing a trailer, say in a cross wind for instance, but I am curious how well they handle and how well they slow down if you have to make a panic stop while towing with a pickup truck.

I have a generator that I purchased many years ago for our 1st 5th wheel trailer. It was a 29 ft Komfort with many nice bells and whistles...around 12,000 lbs loaded. At the time the gensets were not as quiet as they are today so I chose one that I could remove and setup away from the camp. The ones I have heard lately are A LOT quieter! Mine is only a 2200 watt unit and it is not bad on fuel at half capacity...say running a 1000 watt space heater it will burn around a liter per hour. If I am using more power it will burn about half again as much. So it sounds like it is not as efficient as some of the newer ones. Maybe I should check the valve lash on mine as it has never been touched other than oil changes and a carb cleaning.

My friend brings a beautiful new Honda generator out camping...the machine is amazingly quiet and very good on fuel also...I believe it was a 5000 watt model. I am a big fan of Honda equipment...they make very good machines that last.

Another friend of ours has a Monaco motor coach that has a built in diesel generator that is so quiet and smooth you can hardly tell it is running. I don't think that I want a diesel generator on the trailer though. One type of fuel for the toys and generator would be enough.

I saw one trailer that had a third 30 lb propane bottle so you can rotate the bottles easier. I am pretty sure it was in a Fusion. I looked at one that was used for a year or so and it was in pretty good condition still. I only noticed a couple of problems but they were not structural...just cosmetic so not too much of a problem.

Anyway, back to work! Thanks for the comments everyone!

 

[mudboy]

As for towing. Not an expert or anything but it tows like a dream. Once you get up and running you have a hard time beleiving it is back there. Our hitch came with the air ride air bag on it. No bounce to the truck or jaring issues felt. As for stopping wellllll leave lots of room. I drive very defensivly when towing this unit, leave lots of room for braking and always on the look out for other morrons or wild life . But when brakes are applied she comes to a stop pretty good. 6wheel and 6 brakes holding it back.

 

[Rockwerx]

As for towing. Not an expert or anything but it tows like a dream. Once you get up and running you have a hard time beleiving it is back there. Our hitch came with the air ride air bag on it. No bounce to the truck or jaring issues felt. As for stopping wellllll leave lots of room. I drive very defensivly when towing this unit, leave lots of room for braking and always on the look out for other morrons or wild life . But when brakes are applied she comes to a stop pretty good. 6wheel and 6 brakes holding it back.

Good to hear. That is what I would expect from running many different tailer truck combinations over the years. Yes you have to leave more room in front of you when towing. I like to hear about things like your new airbag hitch. Is it on the trailer or on the truck? Many of the toy haulers I have been looking at lately have some kind of pin dampener mechanism...I did not look very close at one yet to see how it worked, but it may be a good option to consider if it works and is reliable. I doubt they would dampen as well as an air bag system.

Many years ago we went from a 13 or so foot bumper pull Beachcomber (fiberglass lightweight trailer) to a 29 ft Komfort 5th wheel trailer. Believe it or not, but the truck rode 100% better pulling the 12,000 lb trailer. The design of the 5th wheel puts the load onto the truck rather than cantelevering it from the rear bumper. My wife could not believe the difference in ride as the little bumper pull trailer used to shake the crap out of my 81 Chevy 4x4 and the 5th wheel rode like a dream.

 

[mudboy]

Trailair
This was on the trailer when we bought it. Ride was extremly smooth. Added the air bags only to help level the truck out. Did not make a difference with the handling of the trailer. After you hit a bump or on a bumpy road, if you look in the rear view mirror you can see it moving but hardly feel anything on the truck