Input from y'all

I'm going to upgrade to a 3500 hd. Thinking of srw but I was wondering if I could get personal experience with the dually. How much trouble with parallel parking and fitting in the actual space. Engine breaking input.
Steep grade handling? And lastly,
I'm going to be purchasing certified used. Unless someone knows of a great deal on a used truck. My 2005 Silverado 2500 hd LLY Duramax Allison Crew cab long bed has to go.
Thanks for the input


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Carl,

If you look at duallies, I think you'll find the hips stick out about the same distance as the mirrors.

My RAM dually won't do well in a compact parking space, so in some places I have to park further away from the store or office I'm visiting. But it's really not much different from what I had to do with the GMC SRW I had before the RAM.

In my experience, its not the width, but the length. I can fit in most spaces width wise, but with my 8 foot bed, and crew cab chassis...its really too long for most places parking spots.

For its use with towing my larger fifth wheel it just the ticket though.

carl.swoyer said:

I'm going to upgrade to a 3500 hd. Thinking of srw but I was wondering if I could get personal experience with the dually. How much trouble with parallel parking and fitting in the actual space. Engine breaking input.
Steep grade handling? And lastly,
I'm going to be purchasing certified used. Unless someone knows of a great deal on a used truck. My 2005 Silverado 2500 hd LLY Duramax Allison Crew cab long bed has to go.
Thanks for the input


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Click to expand...

I bought a 12 mo old truck, a 2015 in Oct 2015 from a friend. It's a GMC 3500 CC LWB Dually. While I own a 5th Wheel
(40' Cyclone triple axle currently), I would not own a SRW truck of any weight rating. Dually is the ONLY way to go. Especially for Safety,Stability, and Control in any conditions, DRW makes the difference.

WB

My 2009 GMC 3500HD CC long bed dually is my daily driver. If the parking lot isn’t full, I’ll take two spots (lengthwise) to park or go out to the emptier sections. I take it through the outside teller slots at the bank, too. Use the mirrors for backing in to spots along with the warning sensors and it’s easy. Mine does not have the turbo brake or use the cow pee additive, but handles the road and hills just fine.


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Like anything else it take getting used to. The length makes it steer in close quarters like a bus. Once you get used to it you can park it almost anywhere and nail the duallys between the lines. I do stick into, forward or backward, into the forward or backward adjacent spot, but I don't go far enough into it to not let a car fit into it. I do let the back end stick out about a foot or so. I generally look for parking spots that I can back into and let the rear hang over the grass. If my wife is with me, I use the wider handy cap parking spaces parking at an angle. When the driving lane between the parking spots is tight, I look for an end one far out and walk in. This has not happened but a few times.

Back in February we switched from a 1-ton SRW to a dually. We live in a city of about 1M people and I take the dually downtown now and again. It's doable. As stated, if your mirrors fit then your hips will fit (but watch you don't cut the turn too much). In parking lots I tend to park midway or all the way to the back as frequently the outer duals will be pretty much touching the parking lot lines on each side, plus poking into the space behind (or sticking out if I'm parked against a fence or wall, for example).

Would I rather be tooting around in one of our two sub-compact cars? Well sure, some days. They are relatively easier to park and use half the fuel. But what do I normally choose first when I run errands? The dually!

Then there's the towing. The eight foot bed is great - love the space. My wife says riding as co-pilot she really has a hard time telling there's a big trailer behind us. Definitely the towing experience is really great.

Our DRW was our only transportation and we were able to go pretty much wherever a car would go. It did take a short time to get good on turns and parking, but once you adapt it’s not an issue. Parking a little further away in lots is a good idea, and in parking garages, I always looked for an end spot or next to a pillar. I most always backed into parking spots; the backup camera made it easy for me. I also folded my mirrors in when parked.

I have a SRW 3500HD 2017 diesel that I pull my 4200 cyclone with. If you are looking at Chevy then there is little difference between the srw and drw other than the extra tires. Ford and Ram have more configuration options. Engine breaking feature works great and has more than enough power. That all being said I chose that truck because I only pull Rv once a month and it’s usually in state. I like not having the extra width for the 90% of the times I drive it. I also have a couple of DRW trucks in my company both of which are missing parts of the rear fenders. I upgraded and added air bags and also higher load range tires. If you plan on doing a lot of long haul driving than do the dually. If not and you do some minor upgrades the srw will work fine.


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I pulled with a SRW for my 23 years on the road. Last two years upgraded to 3500 SRW standard 6.5 foot bed. Never had a problem with stability but mostly had 36 footers. My first rig was 40 feet.

We drove about 35K per year and pulled around 8K.

Several months ago I traded from several SRWs to my first DRW. My experience is generally it is too much truck - until I hitch my 16K# Bighorn.
I suspect with time and miles I may over-come that feeling - however that feeling may take awhile as its only used when towing.

Bought our first DRW just before we bought our LM 365 17 months ago. It’s a 2015 Ford SD 2WD. Love it, my daily driver. Just park a little further away from everyone. Runs like a champ, just turned 80k! Gets around 12 towing and 16-17 on the freeway cruising!


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Enterprise allows you to rent dually pickup trucks. Rent one for a week and drive it around so you have an idea of what is like to get a dually. From my experience a dually is no big deal and don’t plan on going back to a srw. As far as parking I always no matter if I’m driving our Jeep or truck park far out as to stay away from other cars to prevent door dings.


have a good day

Eric

Dodge 3500 dually long box,, daily driver, does require some fore thought. Went to the haunted house and they were parking people in the field, told the guy parking us to give a little space between us and the next car so I can get out. Regular parking we park further out where there is more space and enjoy a little exercise.

I don't know about Chevy and Ram, but the new Ford F350 SRW will pull a 18kGVW trailer because they increase the combined weight to 28,000. I am thinking of trading my 2012 F350 to get that added towing ability because my next trailer will be close to !8K GVW. I am restricted to SRW because a dually will not fit in my garage with my other car. Also DRWs are not very good in the snow as a SRW. Also the SRW is a stable as a dually if you get the Ford option rear stabilizer bar which is standard on DRW. I believe Ford was able to increase is CCW because of the aluminum body which allowed them to increase the frame strength while maintaining the same weight.

Having a drw pickup is not as bad as it may seem. We do have to park further out where ever we go but the walking doesn't bother us. We do take up two spaces in most cases length wise but then again a smart car or slightly bigger can still fit in front of us. My wife was initially a bit apprehensive about driving it but took to it quite well and even has a better time backing it than she did our srw. Dually's do lose traction quickly when empty.

I do not know if it is just us but everywhere we go it seems we have wind. A drw is hands down better than a srw in the wind. I do not care what anyone else says different about that. We got caught in a Nebraska blizzard a couple of weeks ago and loaded our dually did not have any issues on the ice pack. As you are probably aware there is a huge payload difference and towing capacity difference between the two. Some folks will upgrade the axles, tires, brakes suspension etc on their rv for safety and piece of mind, but will not upgrade their pickup. I do not get that. Good luck in your search.

dually everyday. We have a 2017 Ram and we love it. This is our 3rd dually, I wreck the first one when I hit the rear of a semi, total the dually. We replaced it with a 08 Ram and last August traded it in with 275,000 miles on it.

Drive the dually every place we want to go, no issues parking or in cities. When we go some place I'll ask the wife what she wants to take and 9 out of 10 times it is the Ram. It rides nicer then her Huyandi and has heated seats (which she loves).

One thing you may want to consider is the gearing. Before we bought I talked to a factory rep at the Columbus RV show. I told him what we would be hauling and he looked it up and suggested the HD Aisan transmission with the 4:10 rear end. It is setup to haul 30K lbs. During our summer trip to Dauphin Island, Al. and Pensacola from Ohio we averaged 9.9 MPG while towing 19,500 lbs. I would always drive around 65 mph or so, but I tried to keep it under 2000 RPM on the tech.

You will get used to driving the dually, parking will become second nature. I have driven the dually in downtown Cincinnati, Columbus, Atlanta, Pensacola, Mobile, Indy and several other spots, no big deal.

dave10a said:

I don't know about Chevy and Ram, but the new Ford F350 SRW will pull a 18kGVW trailer because they increase the combined weight to 28,000. I am thinking of trading my 2012 F350 to get that added towing ability because my next trailer will be close to !8K GVW. I am restricted to SRW because a dually will not fit in my garage with my other car. Also DRWs are not very good in the snow as a SRW. Also the SRW is a stable as a dually if you get the Ford option rear stabilizer bar which is standard on DRW. I believe Ford was able to increase is CCW because of the aluminum body which allowed them to increase the frame strength while maintaining the same weight.

Click to expand...

I'm going to be looking at srw's .
Are there any year model s that have any known issues from the Ford line up

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carl.swoyer said:

I'm going to be looking at srw's .
Are there any year model s that have any known issues from the Ford line up

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Click to expand...

I could have helped you out last spring !!!! We traded a '15 F350 sb, 4x4, cc, srw in on a '17 F350 dually. Yes it takes some getting used to and have to be diligent on were you park and or places your going (ie: hospital parking garages), drive -thus and gas/diesel pumps at some stations. The dually does what everyone has said, but I do miss my sb, srw. I may p/u a used 150/1500 someday to just bop around in.

Reason we went w/ the drw was due to weight of the BC. Was over on truck (which I was okay with) and over on tires which and our summer vaykay was taking us to FL in height of summer, so all the extra heat on tires being over weighed heavily on my mind, especially if the DW was driving given RV weight. So as much as I didn't want to, we bought the drw and have to say it was a smart decision. Ride IMO is still a little stiff loaded/unloaded, but again, w/ weight of the RV, the safety factor was/is well worth it. Attending a couple HL rallies here in NY, pretty much every truck was a drw, cc,4x4. Never got into any discussions as to why, but can guess as to why and probly nail it. The Fords seem to drink a tad more fuel than GM's/Rams do, but in the end, your talking perhaps a just a couple mpg's difference. All make about same HP/TQ and all have their quirks/problems/issues. Another plus w/ a dually, folks seem to give you a little more respect on the road.

This may seem odd, but I drive a semi for a livin' and can go between a single axle and twin screw w/o a problem. When it came time to go from the srw to the dually, new curveball. But same principal applies on handling which is the biggest factor. You still see many 250/350 towing RV's that are overweight for the truck, and as much as I'd like to tow our RV w/ a srw, safety is #1. If our RV was lighter, no problem. In fact, I just talked to a fella who RV's as well and when I told him what I did, he blew it off and said, "Ahhh just go with it", meaning, just tow our 16,000 RV w/ a srw. As long as we have the current coach and if the DW drives, I feel a whole lot better w/ the drw. Now this probly not what your looking for as you said you want a srw and I fully understand why (personally, I'd still like to tow w/ a srw), but if your going to tow a RV above 15,000, then you should really re-consider going w/ a drw.

Shortest Straw said:

Having a drw pickup is not as bad as it may seem. We do have to park further out where ever we go but the walking doesn't bother us. We do take up two spaces in most cases length wise but then again a smart car or slightly bigger can still fit in front of us. My wife was initially a bit apprehensive about driving it but took to it quite well and even has a better time backing it than she did our srw. Dually's do lose traction quickly when empty.

I do not know if it is just us but everywhere we go it seems we have wind. A drw is hands down better than a srw in the wind. I do not care what anyone else says different about that. We got caught in a Nebraska blizzard a couple of weeks ago and loaded our dually did not have any issues on the ice pack. As you are probably aware there is a huge payload difference and towing capacity difference between the two. Some folks will upgrade the axles, tires, brakes suspension etc on their rv for safety and piece of mind, but will not upgrade their pickup. I do not get that. Good luck in your search.

Click to expand...

On your note that people will update suspension tires and wheels. Doing all that still doesn't make the truck legal in regards to the dot sticker that the MFG put on the truck new. So this is what brought me to a wake up call.
Although my 05 can handle my 2012 landmark, ( and I've done those upgrades ) if I got into an accident I've opened the door for a lawsuit. I guess I feel lucky that nothing has happened in the past but moving forward I want a legal piece of mind. I'll be sell my 05 Silverado LLY Duramax Crew cab long bed. It's still a very reliable truck but at this point I don't think I'll risk anything anymore.

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