[terry and jo]

Beachgirl,

While I can't speak to the other hitches you mentioned, I can attest that at least two or three people whom I've talked to said that Reese was one of the best for regular hitches. Like the Pull-rite, one needs to be straight on towards the pin. One person even said they were THE best. My memory isn't great, but it seems like our hitch with installation and 7-way electrical connection in the bed was just over $1000. (Now, I really need to check with the "money guru", otherwise known as Jo, to be sure.

As for the weight issue, you do need to know what our coach weighed out from the factory after building it. The sheet of paper included with the 38TKSB3 lists GVWR at 18,500 pounds, but the empty weight as shipped to us was 15,695 pounds. That is already close to one of the figures that your dealer said yours should weigh loaded. I think you posted that he said something like 16 to 17K. Well, my empty weight is at 16K.

The heaviest items that I think we added were the inverter and its four batteries and the Level-Up system.

Now, from what I gather from your posts, you are NOT planning to be living full time in your DRV. Thus, you may very well not be putting that much weight into your coach, however, you will be packing stuff for at least 6 people. So you do have that working for you. Remember that the B&W type hitch puts additional forces against your coach frame.

Now, regarding bedliners. Keep in mind that Jo and I grew up in agriculture, so pickups were a necessary way of life. In all the times on the farm and ranch, we NEVER had a bedliner. Later on, after I became city-fied, I did have one installed in a new pickup. When I went to trade a few years later, planning on switching the bedliner to the new one, I saw the damage done to the bed by the bedliner being there.

Sand and dirt still gets under the bedliner, moisture gets under the bedliner, and then the motions of the bedliner in the back tends to grind away at the paint and metal. Without a bedliner installed, one can always wash out cleanly and use touch up paint on scratches. Sorry, I won't ever have another. The only kind of bedliner that I might consider would be one of the "spray-in" types.

Terry