Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 2002 Chevy 5.3 liter Z71 towing package

Well I am probably asking the same question again or something another person has asked but has anyone pulled a 5-6000 pound camper with this truck-engine combination? We are looking at used campers and the 24 foot, 5-6000 pound variety seems to be "not to small" for our intended use. The truck only has 92,000 miles on it as I had a company car when I was working. Retired now the idiotic thought that we would pull a small house across the country popped into our heads again. I have to wonder if the motor is big enough to pull something of that weight on a steep grade.

Your owners manual will have the exact specs on what you can tow safely. If your truck can do it, you need to get educated on using/buying the right tires. The truck is only part of the equation. The right tires are an equally important but often overlooked aspect.

RAS

did not think about tires.

To me the most important question is can you stop it if your trailer brakes failed or became disconnected. The 5.3 may not provide a lot of engine braking.

This spring I was involved in the hauling of your weight specs/truck package using a 24' hauler full of residential furniture on several trips of 350 miles[one way].
2005 GMC sport/hauling package.
It was basically all downhill when loaded, from mountains of VA to SC coast.
It honestly would have been a push if we would have been going in the opposite direction loaded.
Just my .02

Bringin in all new mattresses to the condo after Black Biker Week in Myrtle Bch???😄💩👦🏾

My experience with tow ratings has been that they are seriously overinflated for marketing purposes. Halve whatever the manufacturer's tow rating is and that will put you ballpark for what the truck can handle for long distances. You can push that to maybe 75% of the tow rating if where you are going is gentle, smooth, and has few hills. Add in hills, altitude, frequent starts/stops and 50% of the tow rating is pushing it.

Towed a 23' boat that was within your weight parameter with the combination you're refering to for six years without any issues. I made 10 trips+ a season of roughly 120 miles each direction. No problems passing people going up hills in Michigan, could accelerate up to 70mph fairly quickly in tow mode. Boat trailer had surge brakes, no issues stoping even on wet roads.

Back in 2003 I bought a 2003 GMC Sierra, extended cab, 1500 Z71, it had the 5.3 Vortec (4 speed automatic) and had 3.73 gears in the rear end. At the time the heaviest camper that I was pulling was our hunting camper, it was a small single axle camper, weighed about 3100 pounds or so. When I hit the big grades it was like the truck had no guts about it, it slowed down and until it down shifted to 2nd gear it was loosing speed fast. After it downshifted to 2nd gear it would start pulling hard. As far as stopping I never had any issues since I had the brake controller and electric brakes on the camper.

All that being said, personally I wouldn't want to go out on a big cross country trip pulling a 6000 pound camper with that 5.3 truck. Yea if you are careful it would be doable, there are probably worst towing and camper combinations out there, you see people towing those campers with little SUV's all the time. Pulling and stopping are a few things but another thing to consider is does the truck have the transmission and oil coolers? How hot is the transmission going to get while climbing those big mountains?


I traded my 2003 GMC truck in December of 2005 for my current truck, a 2006, Chevy 2500HD 4x4 crew cab with the Duramax and the Allision transmission. Of course you know how that truck pulls, it could pull the GMC and the camper up the same hill faster than the GMC could ever think about pulling the camper uphill.

It depends on you gear ratio in the differentials. The 5.3 is plenty engine geared properly and the truck has plenty of brakes to handle it, it all depends on the diff's.

A full-size 1/2 ton pickup from any manufacturer will pull and stop a 5-6k # trailer/camper just fine, just slow down a little. You're not going to pull an 8% grade @ 80, in fact, you're probably not going to pull flat and level @ sea level @ 80. When you do top a grade, plan your speed accordingly for dropping down the back-side so as not to white-knuckle yourself or your wife, or worse, have to use a run-off ramp. Set your "tow/haul", watch your RPMs to make sure that the torque converter is locking up and staying locked and watch your transmission temp gauge if you have one. In my last 1/2 ton I'd just pull the shift-stalk into 3rd (direct drive) so that the transmission didn't even try to get into OD. @ 70MPH it'd run ~3200-3300RPM and create far less heat in the transmission because it'd stay locked up.

Regarding tires, my 1st thought would be to hop on craigslist and buy a 2nd set of wheels and then equip them with a mild/hwy tread set of Load E's. Load E's on a 1/2 ton are rough enough when air'd up, no sense in adding an aggressive tread that adds noise and reduces MPG while also throwing rocks.

Make sure your company didn't delete the transmission cooler (some corporate rigs they'll do this because they positively forbid towing). Install a trailer brake controller and then either a 5th-wheel plate or load-distributing hitch and enjoy the ride.

This^^ we quickly realized that 70MPH was the MAX speed we wanted to hit , not the average.

Yup...

I towed the same boat with a 350ci Yukon. The hills from Clare to Cadillac were a b!tch. The 2002 w/3.73 and tow/haul mode made a world of difference.

My 28' bumper-hitch camper is ~6100#. I pulled it exactly once as I bought it to park on a permanent lot at a campground. I have an '11 F250 diesel w/factory trailer brake controller etc. I didn't buy a weight distributing hitch for the 1-time I was going to pull it ~200mi to it's final destination. I set the cruise @ 67 and it felt safe and secure. However, if I was going to pull something like that regularly, I'd have an equalizer hitch and doubt I'd drive any faster. The camper catches a LOT of wind and is far more top heavy than say a big load on a flat-bed.

We were pulling a 24' enclosed V trailer with all of the towing bells & whistles, fully loaded with stacked in the carton furniture averaging 5800# per load. Any speed much above 70 the trailer was driving the truck.

The 6.0 with a 4.10 rear end, maybe.

Honestly, I’m sure it’ll tow it fine. She’ll just be huffin’ and puffin’ to get up the hills. Get a good hitch that can throw some weight forward and a anti sway set up.

Give it a go for a bit and see if you want to upgrade your truck.

Folks today are funny. Gotta get em a diesel 350 with DRW to haul groceries.

For several years, I did tow-n-show with this exact combination for a skid steer attachment company. The trailer claimed to be 2,000 lbs, to which I'd add another 2,500 to 4,000 lbs. in equipment. My territory was Kansas City to Rochester, NY, and the truck handled that load fairly well. Steep grades in the Appalachians would find the tranny kicking down early, and the tach running at 4,500+. At first, it was disconcerting to hear the engine scream like that, but I got used to it. Perhaps it didn't bother me as much, knowing it was a company truck...

Anyway, they gave us the same 5.3/Z-71 combination in 2000, 2002, and 2003 models, and they all ran flawlessly. Granted, we ran them from brand new until 60K or 70K miles, so one wouldn't expect problems driving mostly highway miles for a relatively short time. Still, the trucks handled fine so long as the loads were balanced correctly. Just thinking out loud, I'd surmise that the camper weight wouldn't hold you back. However, my loads weren't shaped like a big box: the wind resistance of a camper would have to add extra strain that I never experienced.

A time or two I actually towed a skid steer + attachment for short distances, and that was more than the 1/2 tons were up to. The engines would get the rigs moving, but the suspension & brakes (and trailer brakes) were straining pretty well.

Having driven those 3 trucks, and also owning a 2000 Yukon XL with the same engine/gearing, I became a fan of the 5.3 engines. Were I able to buy a clean truck of that vintage that had maintenance records, I'd feel pretty confident in its longevity. Any 5.3 after 2006... not so much. I've detailed my nightmare with the AFM system enough times in other posts.

Also, I did run some E-rated tires on a different 1/2 ton Yukon, and had them swapped out after 400 miles. In an unloaded truck, they just beat me to death. Additionally, the TPMS couldn't be reprogrammed (at least in a 2007) to view 55 PSI as normal, so the stupid light was going to stay on as long as I had those tires. If I was looking at doing enough towing to warrant having a separate set of E tires on hand just for towing, I'd honestly just start looking at 3/4 ton trucks. Just one guy's $.02.

FC

What Mountain10MM said: Half the vehicles manufacturer's rated weight (not half the receiver hitch manufacturer's). I've been towing for over 40 years, and that's my rule of thumb.

It's not so much the weight people want to tow that's popularized the HD trucks outside of "work-truck" status. It's the speed at which folks want to tow their heavier loads. Interstate speed limits in the West are 75-80 and 2-lane roads are 65-70MPH with a good percentage of folks running 5-7MPH over that. 65MPH with a 1/2ton running a 75%+ of it's tow rating is plenty fast, but sure doesn't seem so when almost everyone on the road is running 15-25MPH faster than you are.