much obliged
angler_2
Thanks so much for your very thorough answer, and for references back to the Forum
Per your advise, I'll be looking for a 2072 TM series during the summer to purchase by September. I havn't given up on the possibility of the 2'9" in extra length on the 3023 yet, but I'll run the magic ball-to-axle formula that rocky mntn ray or whomever else might have posted to see what the numbers say. Regardless, I'll need some really solid info to not heed your intuition on this.
Since I'm overwhelmed with work but want to be sure to grab the 0 percent financing incentive before the end of the month, I plan to purchase by this weekend, and therefore really have only two follow-up questions to your very thorough responses:
1. What should I tell my dealer about the electrical connectors for the brak controller? Is it a matter of asking them to lengthen the current wire? If so, by how much? Alternatively, since they have the wiring diagram, should I have them attach a harness so that I can later attach a wire of any length?
2. Aside from this issue, is there any reason not to wait to have the brake controller itself installed later on, perhaps at the same time that I get a WDH at an RV dealer? Or, should I take advantage of the dealership's knowledge and get it done now? (Obviously, this has to do with the particular dealership, etc., but I'm just asking if there is some special skill that any dealer can bring to this that an RV dealer cannot).
Thanks for the nice commentary on the utility of the diesel using compression. My biggest fear and trepidation in going to an automatic 4/AWD is being unable to "shift down" in a meaningful sense (it works wonders for stopping on rain and snow with my manual transmission Suburu). One more reason to get the CRD!
Don't worry about your rep. as a speed freak. I grew up in California where there used to be equally wide open spaces so I know the deal, and would tend to trust competent long haulers going 80MPH over the clueless cell phone holding urbanites going any speed. To be sure, we all need to be careful when pulling trailers, but I hope someday folks will read the Dept of Transportation reports that show how it's variation of vehicle speeds within traffic flows rather than speed itself that causes the most collisions out on the open road.
Many thanks again for sharing your experiences,
Todd
PS One last question: the '06 models are coming with lots of stability control gizmos that I can't say I entirely understand. Do you have anything beyond ABS on your '05, and if so, do they have any negative impact on being able to control things with a trailer?
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