pulling heavy loads with a newer Chevy truck: do they all suck this bad?

i'll admit that it might have been a little bit on the overloaded side of things, but today we were using an '06 Chevy 1/2 ton 4X4 regular cab long box truck with a 5.3 and 3.73 gears to bring round hay bales in from the field.. the trailer we have holds 8 of them.. anyways, the truck just didn't seem to want to drag that trailer around the field with more than about 4 bales on it. you'd just give it more and more gas pedal an it just wouldn't go any faster and barely made it up some small hills. the truck runs fine unloaded and gets 15mpg in everyday farm/road use and it tows a car trailer like it's not even there.

as i said, it might have been at or past it's rated towing limit, but the old 350 powered 92 GMC pulled it better than this does- hell, my old gutless 351M powered 81 Ford F250 pulled it better than this thing does..

is this something with the torque management system that kicks in when it thinks it's overloaded? the truck gets stuck in sand, snow, and mud very easily- you just can't keep the wheels spinning to keep momentum going in low traction scenarios, and it acts a lot like it did today with the bales behind it. i'm thinking it might need one of those aftermarket power tunes to get rid of that stupid torque management crap that makes the truck almost useless as a farm truck- it's got 175,000 miles on it, so voiding the warranty isn't an issue and the only time it ever really gets worked this hard is a few times a summer when we use it to haul bales from fields that are no more than about a mile away so wrecking stuff from constant abuse isn't really an issue.

Dunno. My 2500HD Duramax would haul that '06 Chevy, the example Ford F250, trailer and pile of wet hay bales behind it w/o even noticing. Even if they were parked sideways with e-brakes set.

Maybe you brought the wrong truck to a towing party?

it's better in every way than any other truck we've had around here, right up until it gets hay bales behind it.

It's a heavier truck with a smaller engine.

IIRC, it shouldn't have any torque management stuff in the programming. At least, it doesn't prevent people from doing stupid things that shatter transmissions and transfer cases. (How about a magic trick: I'm going to make the dogs in the transmission case disappear! (heavy throttle jerk from Reverse to Manual Low: SNAP) It's magic...)

yup they suck.

I feel that newer 1/2 Ton trucks are very limited to their towing ability. You need to get some thing in the HD family to get the heavy hauling done IMO.

I don't think its a brand thing either, because my buddy and I hauled an enclosed car trailer full of furniture and other various crap with his dad's '04 Extended Cab F-150 with the 5.4L and it felt like we were trying to pull a steam locomotive anytime we hit a hill. Luckily between Ohio and Illinois, there aren't too many to worry about. Oh, and the ass of the truck was virtually sitting on the ground too.

When I pulled a Mahogany Runabout (aka one heavy ass boat) back from Florida to Illinois with an '05 Chevy 2500 HD Reg Cab/standard bed with the 6.0L, it pulled that thing along like it wasn't even there. I actually had to watch my speed because I would hit 70 without thinking about it.

Yup, they suck.

We had a 2010 sierra 1/2 ton at work for a short time.

Wouldn't pull a wet rag out of a dogs arse.

It felt like someone had left the parking brake on when you hit a hill.

OK, that was quote-worthy.

The 1/2 tons of today are ass candy. Cost $40k, have heated leather, iPod connection, soft suspension all designed for comfort. Back in the day, they expected you were going to abuse it and didn't want warranty claims/bad PR. Today if you want to use a truck you'd best buy the HD or commercial version. An opportunity to upsell the $40k truck to the $50k+ version. Marketing meets profitability.

Word.

Word.

Word. Three's a charm.

My xterra acts similar in 4x4 in soft sand, I'm pretty sure it has to do with the throttle limiter below certain rpm. I use 4lo, and if you care for the trans in that truck is use it in those situations.

novaderrik wrote: i'll admit that it might have been a little bit on the overloaded side of things.

I think you nailed it right there!

Round bale = 1,200+ pounds.
Trailer capable of handling 8 of them = 3,000 minimum, probably significantly more

By the time you load up 4 bales you're talking well over 7,000 pounds! With the little 5.3 and soft converter it is not surprising that it's licking it's nuts. The problem isn't torque management, it's a lack of! It's a 4X4; put it in low range and let torque multiplication help with the work.

Jeff

the most gutless truck i've ever owned- my old 351M powered 81 Ford F250 with 3.23 gears- pulled the loaded trailer better than this thing does, and we experimented with putting 2 bales on the top of the trailer (total of 10 of the things) with that truck since the trailer was new to us at the time and we wanted to see what we could get away with. it wasn't fast, but it moved when you commanded it to..

the truck in question has the "W/T" package- which essentially means that it's the commercial version of a 1500HD.. so it's allegedly got all the good suspension stuff along with the HD electrical and cooling goodies, except it was ordered with the 5.3 instead of the 6.0 because it was originally owned by a large potato farm conglomerate with locations in several states and used mostly to commute and haul light loads from one location to another. it just flat out sucks once it gets more weight behind it than a loaded car trailer.

and i was using the low range on the transfer case in the field- it didn't help. at all. it just mocked me and didn't go anywhere at anything resembling "speed" no matter how much i pushed the pedal down. i blame that on the torque management and fly by wire setup that thinks it knows better than i do what i want it to do.. maybe by next year i'll have an 8.1 swapped into my trusty rusty old 87 GMC and i can show those bales who's the boss..

The problem with most engines today that in order to get good horesepower the torque has been moved up so far that they have very little low end.

This is why diesels work so well.

I have seen 90 hp engines out pull 140 hp engines because they had more torque at 1200 rpm.

Iceracer is correct, most of the newer engines, while having better HP than the earlier, have most of their power up higher in the rpm range. The old engines were better lower down. Displacement matters for pulling power, bigger almost always does better. Diesels do work better for pulling, compression and hair dryers rock.