Spoken like someone who hasn't actually towed anything substantial with the gladiator. I've towed our aliner and now the 23 foot nobo and it does great with a wdh. Only needs a little more power to be really perfect but for 23ish foot trailers under 5-5.5k pounds the gladiator is more than adequate once you add a wdh.
I'm not sure which one it is honestly but no it wasn't loud when I was backing it up at any point. I picked a pull through spot at the campground but I have to back it into my driveway and when we stopped to eat I had to back up about 200ft at pizza hut to get out of their parking lot. I couldn't hear anything.
So true, I love how these diesel guys think they got something special but my buddy has been kicking himself since he bought one. The maintenance cost and the price of diesel really doesn't offset what a Max Tow package can get you. He tows a 4300lb camper with his diesel and gets around 16.5 mpgs which is better than my 11 but heck my gas is . 89 to $1.00 less than diesel.
Your truck will be fine, as you already know, with that light a rig - of course you have to consider frontage for power/drag and so on, but I can't see a problem. Max tow even if you reduced the safe towing numbers due to lift and tires, you're still within a decent margin of safety.
I've gotten high 13s to all but 14 towing 5,000 pounds with mine.......... it done fine.
Exactly, I think for what it is it does and great job, you just gotta stay within the limits and drive a smart speed. Like you stated earlier, don't go 85 mph and for sure I'm staying 65 or less when I'm towing. I'll get where I'm going. I have considered maybe buying a set of 33's to toss on to pull the camper with but I'm not sure if it's worth the Hassle of removing the 37's and tossing on the 33's
Just observations over the years - you can sort of tell who is going to be reasonable with towing and speed and loads and such............
Sway is mostly controlled through tongue weight so I'd think getting that up will help a lot. The 3p hitch will help the truck move as one for the semi-suck and wind blows but a badly loaded trailer will still try to sway and move you around. Also make sure you aren't over distributing the weight forward or you will take too much weight off the rear tires. In the picture it sure looks like you might be a bit over distributed but it could just be the angle.This is my first post here. I'm a little late to the party, but I only recently traded my '16 JKU Rubicon for a NOS '22 Gladiator Overland. I picked up an Airstream Globetrotter 23FB last week and towed it home to eastern Iowa from Columbus OH. I have the stock FCA brake controller installed and the GT came with a Blue Ox Sway Pro. My Overland has a 6k tow rating. The GT is 5300lbs dry with a 590lb tongue weight. I've been towing with all kinds of tow vehicles and trailers since 1987, so I'm conversant with the subject. I've towed a Scamp 13 with an '81 Scrambler (both new in the day) to a '94 34' Airstream tri-axle behind an Excursion. Here's my observations of the Gladiator/Airstream/Blue Ox SwayPro:
I left the Airstream dealer, hit the freeway and almost immediately encountered the onset of a sway event. Knowing that the tongue weight on the GT is only 9% instead of the desireable 12-15%, I headed back to the dealer. We aired the rear tires up to max (only 40psi,) dropped the hitch ball on the drawbar one hole, and cinched the chains up one link. Dropping the hitch ball was to try to increase the effective tongue weight, dropping the chain link was to put more weight on the Jeep chassis, and of course airing the tires up was to make the sidewalls more stiff. I stopped twice more on the 500 mile trip home to cinch two more links up on the hitch. I should mention that I drove home in 30mph side winds with gusts to 45mph so they were about the worst conditions you can tow in. The truck had plenty of reserve power and the OEM brake controller was remarkable in its seamlessness.
The end result is that I could safely do about 58mph max, but I got it home just fine. I like to tow at about 65mph normally, so it's do-able at 58mph with the SwayPro. I have options. I could continue to try to find the sweet spot for the Sway Pro, abandon the radials it has on it for 8ply truck tires, and try to pack the trailer for more tongue weight. (I was also winterized, so the trailer didn't have it's load of 39 gals of fresh water on board which I've read on these trailers helps.)
I opted for the "easy button" solution. I bought a ProPride 3P hitch I found used locally for $1200. I'll get it set up and in play and report back what the difference is.
I noticed that I may have been a tad over-distributed in the photos too. The ProPride will extend the tongue about 14" and add a couple of hundred pounds to the hitch weight. It'll work out.
Let us know how the 3p works, I've been interested in trying one, I've used a blue ox and now an equalizer and the equalizer is much better than the blue ox but the 3p just seems so cool to me.
What was the noticable difference in the equalizer compared to the blue ox. I've been pretty pleased with my blue ox so far but I'm always looking for something better
Will do. I've never had a setup that was inherently so light on the tongue, so I've never needed one. Most of my towing over the years has been with Reese Dual-Cam setups and one Andersen which was amazing. But I thought I'd give it a try. The 3P hitches are pretty cool... and in my set of circumstances, make sense.
Less porpoising and slightly better sway control. I believe the tapered spring bars just let it move up and down a bit more than I liked over bigger bumps. I don't think it was buy a new hitch levels of difference personally as I think the blue ox was probably 90-95% as effective but since I was buying a new hitch I went to the equalizer to give it a try and have been happy as well.
I appreciate the honesty on it. I guess I'll stick with blue ox then. The way the guy at Blux Compass Charleston set mine up it's towing like a champ now. It didn't do bad before but this dude took some real time to explain the numbers and what he was doing to get it right. I was slightly above a 1/2 inch of sag in the rear when he was done. Without the weight distribution hitch I was at like a inch and half. Also the dual axles instead of single axle probably made a difference. Everyone told me to look at dual axles over singles.
