My boat's a mere 4000#'s with the trailer and I never once regretted getting a diesel to pull it.
Recently had a caliper lock up on my '11 F-250/6.7L (108K Mi all by me). Buddy and I were going to go ice fishing so we drive my rig to the Ford dealer and hook up my 14' Aluminum tandem axle snowmobile/ATV trailer to his '15 Ram 1500 w/5.7L/8spd. On the trailer is my tracked ATV with tub/flipover ice-house and his snowmobile. So there's 1500-1700# on the trailer plus whatever the trailer weighs. We climb a whopping 500 vertical feet over the 180Mi one-way trip. He's got the cruise set at 70MPH. He's got it in tow/haul mode and that tranny still did an awful lot of shifting. This was in March.
Fast-forward to last weekend. I hook up my 4K# boat/trailer to my F250. The boat is taller and wider than my truck. I set the cruise @ 81 into a 20MPH headwind and make the same 180Mi trip as above. Narry a hiccup, never shifted out of OD.
I have no idea what my 28' bumper hitch camper weighs nor how it's ballanced regarding tongue-weight. Just hooked it up, took it easy for the 1st 10mi or so then set the cruise @ 68, again, never shifted out of 6th, just easy hassle-free set it and forget it towing.
