Cardinal RV Club

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to your form and also new to 5th wheels. My wife and I are retired and for the last 10 years we have been RVing. We’ve had four motor homes and full time for a little over a year. Three years ago we bought a cottage on a lake in Minnesota to be by our family. About a year ago we sold our MH and thought we would be done with RVing. Last winter was the first time in 10 years we were in Minnesota during the winter. Now I remember why we got out of here.

We’ve been looking at Cardinal’s and are thinking of either the 30ST or 34ST. Our dealer only has the 30ST in stock and my wife likes it. I feel we would have extra storage in 34ST under the 5W, resulting in more storage in the pass through, but I’m not sure of it.

We plan to be out 6-8 weeks during the winter. My wife has a electric scooter, not real large but we need to find a place for it. There might be room in the pick-up, but again we don’t know that for sure.

We want to order one or the other in the next two week so we can get it time to do some test runs around here before taking off.

What your thoughts on storage?

We also will need to buy a pick-up that can handle the 5th wheel. We are hoping that we can use a ¾ ton, either a Chevy or Dodge diesel that will fit into our garage. Suggestions?

Any thing else we should consider?


Thanks

Jim and Jane

TravlerII,

Welcome to the Cardinal RV Club! There are several members who have the units that you are asking about! They will be able to answer better about their experince with each!

The GVWR weight which means the weight of your trailer loaded with your clothing, groceries and fresh water and holding tanks with fluids in them is approx. 14,800 for the 30 TS and 14,110 for the 34TS.

The 3/4 ton vehicles will handle either trailer but the configuration of your vehicle will determine how close to the limit you will be with the weight. What I mean by configuration is the gear ratio of the rearend, and whether automatic or manual transmission, two wheel drive or four wheel drive as well as body style, regular compared to quad cab and etc. The chart listed below has information on all vehicles so you might also look at 1 ton vehicles for comparison if a dually (DRW) is not of your liking look at the 1 ton single wheel (SRW).

I have included a link to an Rv dealer in my area who has a chart for towing load ratings for 1999 thru 2006 vehicles. The 2007 vehicles may be a little different!

http://www.brawleysrv.com/

http://www.brawleysrv.com/tow.html

I hope this helps with your decision?

Don

If your wife has limited mobility (needs an electric scooter), you need to take into account the steps inside a 5th wheel. My wife has bad knees so we ordered a 32FKR travel trailer. 5th wheels are great but she couldn't handle the inside steps several times a day. Our OPEN floor plan can even be used with a walker if needed. Good luck with your search and welcome to the club.

Hi Jim, We bought a new Dodge 3500 daully with the 6.7 cummings we have had it in the shop 6 times. The dealer said they are having alot of problems with this new engine. We are only getting about 13 mpg around town. always got around 19 mpg with last two trucks. We went on a trip last month pulling the 5th wheel we got as little as 7 mpg the best was 10 Good luck with what every you buy. Chuck

Traveler II,
Welcome to the club!! You've come to the right place for some great answers to your questions.
We have the 30 TS. My wife and I really enjoy this unit. Lots of open space makes it seem larger then it is. The only downside is that you can't get to the fridge or the cook stove with the slides in. I have seen some posts on this site suggesting things that we can do to the table to leave a walkway to the rear of the coach.
I don't know how much more storage space the basement has in the 34 TS but we feel when the time comes we can full time quite comfortablly in the 30.
We pull ours with a 3/4 ton diesel and it handles it very nicely. 11 to 14 mpg towing. I did add Timbrens to help level it out when towing and will add a Trail Air pin box in the future to help smooth out the bad roads.
If I were to get another truck I would probably opt for a one ton to give me a little more pin weight but I don't think I would go with a dually unless I went to a 36 footer or a quad slide.
Enjoy the journey to your decision and keep us posted!!

Thanks to all of you for the great information. My wife and I are heading of to the North Shore of Lake Superior for the week. It will give us some time to think about all we've learned over the last 6 months of studying 5th wheels.

At this point we are thinking we will order the 30 ST and a one ton diesel, we are leaning towards the Chevy.

The trip is as much fun as the destination.

Traveler II wrote:At this point we are thinking we will order the 30 ST and a one ton diesel, we are leaning towards the Chevy.

I have not heard how the 2007 Chevy is doing with new Diesel Particulate Filter yet, but it is the only one of the big 3 diesels which has the same basic engine (6.6 Duramax) as the previous years. I have the 07 classic (no DPF) and it has been trouble-free for the first 10,000 mi and most of that towing. It's only shop visit was for scheduled maintenance. The allison trans also works very well in combo with the engine, I believe you would be very happy with that truck choice, I am! MPG has not been great but it is slowly climbing now and I do tend to use the available power quite a lot, so cannot blame the truck. Pretty much 10 MPG pulling and 17 empty.

campswithcritters wrote:I have not heard how the 2007 Chevy is doing with new Diesel Particulate Filter yet, but it is the only one of the big 3 diesels which has the same basic engine (6.6 Duramax) as the previous years.

I think this Particulate Filter in gong to be a real thorn in the side of the new diesel trucks. Thanks to low sulfur diesel, and the DPF, Ford and Dodge had to increase their engine displacement just to maintain approximately the same HP and Torque of previous years. And of course filters clog so now you have a restricted exhaust. Then to remove the ash from the DPF the big 3 inject fuel into the exhaust to burn the ash like a self cleaning oven, more wasted fuel.

Rob

All this makes me very happy that I have an 04.5 LLY Duramax engine in my TV. Get 17 around town, 12 towing and up to 22 on the open road.

Rob & Cathy wrote:

campswithcritters wrote:I have not heard how the 2007 Chevy is doing with new Diesel Particulate Filter yet, but it is the only one of the big 3 diesels which has the same basic engine (6.6 Duramax) as the previous years.

I think this Particulate Filter in gong to be a real thorn in the side of the new diesel trucks. Thanks to low sulfur diesel, and the DPF, Ford and Dodge had to increase their engine displacement just to maintain approximately the same HP and Torque of previous years. And of course filters clog so now you have a restricted exhaust. Then to remove the ash from the DPF the big 3 inject fuel into the exhaust to burn the ash like a self cleaning oven, more wasted fuel.

Rob

That is what they call the regen cycle. Heats up the exhaust to burn out the soot. This is the part that they are having problems with.

Thanks for the information.

The Diesel Particulate Filter is the reason I purchased the 06 Dodge 3500 dually in May.

I had a little experience with scrubber filters required by EPA on a nut roasting system at work and they were a problem to begin with and never got better. The filters would plug up and then if you did not notice the slight elevated system pressure they would start a fire!

I hope they have better results with the pickups emmission systems as they go forward.

Don

Tim wrote:All this makes me very happy that I have an 04.5 LLY Duramax engine in my TV.

I suspect that a lot of new buyers will be looking for pre-DPF models and current owners will forgo an upgade and keep what they have.

Rob