Our 01 would do the job, but being a 3.55 geared mildly modded unit you definitely had to be on your toes driving it. Watching boost, rpm’s, EGT and pedal position when the cruise was on were the highlight of navigating this rig. Towing out here in the west is no treat. Lots of steep long grades and wind to contend with. We live at 500ft and you’ll be at 3k plus leaving town. Watching the pedal position with the cruise set was an art… with the vac controlled servo as soon as you’d hit a grade you’d start “feeling” the pedal position and disengage the cruise before the trans would “kick down” which would send the rpm’s up and you’d lose momentum. Of course as soon as you disengaged cruise then you had to watch the boost and EGT. most of the time it’d continue to pull steady, but on a couple steeps you’d simply slow down to 55ish and disengage OD and you’d continue to pull at 2200 rpm which was “zen” for this combo.

The 11 in reference was one that came in used a few years back. I brought it home for the night and hooked up the trailer for a test run. Turning on to the same 7% grade where I’ve done it 100s of time this truck was stuck in 3rd gear and 45mph was all it had. Even my 01 would make that pull at 55. Was too much disappointment to make a payment on.

Hindsite being what it is…. I love the 14 to 18 trucks, and when I saw this 3500 single long bed with a scant 18k on it, it was time to make a move. I HATE buying cars, and with todays current market it sickens me what kind of $$ they cost, but our 01 is 20+ years old. It was time. If this 17 treats us well it’ll most likely be the last pickup we buy….. and now we’ve expanded what we can tow.

We made our trek to Bakersfield and I basically hit the freeway, set the cruise at 68mph, and let er eat. I think it went over 2k rpm once as we climbed the long grade leaving town. 3.42 gear Aisin trans treated us well. I estimate our trailer at around 10k as the combined weight with the 01 was 17400.