nitro882

That is awesome. That rig deserves its own build thread. We need more info and pics…..

Thanks, We bought the RV in Knoxville. Never been to the area before until last week when we picked it up and it is a beautiful ares for sure. I imagine its really nice in the spring and fall. We plan to be back in late April into early May, we cant wait to go back.

Here is my beast we just picked up recently. It’s a DRV JX450 toy hauler. 46’ long and weighs just under 21k empty and 24k fully loaded. So far I’m seeing about 8 towing but it’s been mostly in the smoky mountains. The Duramax pulls this load great and has no trouble maintaining freeway speed even on the steep grades in the smokies.

Congrats on the new RV and truck. What are your plans for the RV? Are you going full time? Where do you plan on going? We just got our first 5th wheel last week and have moved into it full time. At 46' Its by far the longest thing i have ever towed but im taking it easy and doing ok with it. If there is one piece of advice i can give, If there are any doubts just stop and have your wife spot for you, a set of walkie talkies is a good idea as well and will really help a lot. There have already been a couple times where i could not see what i needed to and had to have my wife spot, the first day we were pulling into a harvest hosts at dusk and i could not see the right wheels well when taking a right hand turn. If i didn't stop and have her spot it i would have run the tires into a 2' deep drainage ditch that in my mirror looked like flat grass. Also needed it on the right rear when pulling out of a pull thru spot a couple days later. The park was tight and having spotter there to watch the right cornet making sure i didn't take out the light post was a good thing since there was no way i could see it. Here is a shot of my new rig.

I think on the fuel economy question there is a LOT of variables there. Terrain, cargo, driving style etc can all play a big role in what you get. That said here is how mine has been. In Florida where i live its pretty flat and on a straight freeway trip unloaded i can see as much as 22mpg out of my Denali DRW. City is like 13ish for me. Towing my 5th wheel im getting 8-9.5 depending on terrain. We just picked up a new DRV a little over a week ago which weighs 24 k loaded and i got 8 going thru the smokies on the way back to Florida and as the ground got flatter the mileage went up. The truck can pull tho, that i can confirm. I did not want for more power for sure even up some of the 7% grades. Def usage. I have like 9k on my truck now and ive filled the tank twice in that time. I just filled it at the pump in Sevierville TN last week and towed my RV about 700 miles back to Florida and it moved 1 bar on the gauge. Given that my first tank of def lasted like 6000 miles i wont be filling it for a long time. I dont know if this is good or bad useage since this is my first diesel truck but it seems like it does not use much to me. Tech seems plenty easy to use but thats a subjective thing. I am a computer networking engineer so tech comes easy to me. One suggestion i have is a Banks idash. GM did not do the best job on the gauge package and its nice to know how close you are to a regen and stuff like that. I find GM is pretty aggressive with the regen on this truck. Unloaded im doing a regen about every 200 miles or so which seems like a lot. With the RV its tow its like 600.

I too find the lack of a 12v port annoying. I have a Garmin RV GPS and a 360/rear view camera system for my 5th wheel. Both came with 12v ports. I ended up getting the hard wire kit for the Garmin and wiring up a 12v port for the camera using one of those fuse taps mentioned earlier in this thread. On the two internal fuse panels i only found one fuse that was switched power and it was one of the 3 legged ones so i had to get a tap for that off Amazon..... Patiently awaiting availability of the upfitter switch kit for a Denali.

Just dont use Zebart or any other hard rubberized coatings. They will do more harm than good. Krown or fluidfilm would be the way to go. Eric O explains it pretty well. If you are near him maybe have him do your truck with fluidfilm.

@pioneer1 What did you end up doing?

That has not been my experience. The sealed units on my 2014 1500 Silverado didnt even make 30k before the lowers were smoked driving on the crappy roads in New England, truck was 100% stock. Dealer replaced them under warranty and they were smoked again before the truck hit 60k. The 06 1500 i had prior to that had a fully greasable front end and i didn't put lower ball joints in it until the boots tore at like 150k. That truck is still driven by my nephew and has over 300k on it now. Other than the ball joints i put in at 150k and the wheel bearings that i replaced twice the rest of the front end is still original and it still passes a state inspection annually and in Mass they will check the front end.... When it comes to the 24, yea mine were dry too. Dealer did not touch them at the first oil change either. I ended up giving every zerk a few pumps of Lucas Red N Tacky like i did every time i dropped the oil on that 06 i previously mentioned.

My fix for GM’s lack of gauges….

Add this to the list off dumb things GM did with these trucks, the gauge package is at the top of my list…. . I have the same truck in the GMC flavor and it was setup the same way. I have read they fixed the invisible trailer thing on 2024 and i have also read that it’s still ball pull only. Hard to know what to believe. Also dumb that the TPMS only works on some trailers, nothing with an axle to truck longer than 82’ or something like that and the sensors are not comparable with heavier trailers. I expect neither feature to work on my 46’ 5er when we get it. so much for “pro grade”

I'm guessing your in Canada? I find the commentary on the RAM to be interesting down here where i live in Florida we have lots of tow trucks built on RAM 5500 chassis, they are quite common. It also seems like in the states the RAM is the most popular truck for hotshot truckers who do massive miles with heavy trailers in tow.

I bet you will be happy then. Mine rides way better than i expected it would, its only harsh over real square edge bumps.

One other thing, before you decide on anything i would do test drive that Chevy even if you don't buy it. From what i gather from your first post you have an F450 now and the GM 3500 is not going to have the turn radius that the F450 has. It will be more in line with what an F350 would be like, AKA a bus..... I know lots of folks prefer the 450 for that turn radius so its something you will need to determine if you can live with not having it.

I think it depends on a few things. Thing #1 how badly do you need a truck at the moment. Thing #2 how important are the Denali Ultimate features to you? I think the answers are simple somewhat simple. If you need the truck near term and are indifferent to the "ultimate" features that cannot be had on the Chevy pull the trigger on it. Like you mention the strike could be an issue and DRW trucks are still in high demand and hard to find on a lot. If you are desperate for the truck it might be time to strike while you have the opportunity. If you don't need the truck near term and not having the Denali "Ultimate" features are a deal breaker then you many need to take your chances and wait. Like you i may still have a Ford on order and no updates on when. Last I heard from the dealer last month odds were quite high that Ford was going to cancel the order and have me place an order for a 2024 which i told them i was not interested in doing. I have already been in line since last Oct when the books opened and i'm not doing it again. They have not been in contact since and i don't expect them to be, I told them i bought another truck so at this point they know im just done. I was in a slightly different scenario where i needed a truck since i need a DRW and did not have one at the time. For us we decided the "ultimate" features did not rank higher than our dislike for the interior color on the truck and i pulled the trigger on the first regular Denali i could find that was available for purchase. We could have afforded to wait a little bit if we wanted the Ultimate but we hated the color and i didnt think the massage seats were worth the extra money to wait over getting one that was on its way that we liked. Had there been a Chevy HC available i would have had no issue with that truck either. I actually like the dash layout of the HC slightly better. The DRW market is still pretty tough. I have a friend looking for one now since his F350 just got totaled out. Nothing on the lots anywhere and anything in transit is already spoken for just like it was in May/June when i bought mine.