When your boat, motor, and trailer combined weight exceeds 1500 pounds, you will want to start looking at pulling solutions other than your car or small suv to pull it. On level ground, a lot of average size vehicles can roll your boat, but when you consider the tugging weight and resistance at the boat ramp when it gets pulled out of the water, extra torque, horsepower, and traction are the needed solutions. Many people decide without blinking (or thinking) that the only right solution is a big four-wheel drive (4wd) pick-up. Yes, that will get the job done without question, but there may be equally effective solutions that have much lower initial costs - and are less thirsty at the pump as well.
Once you have determined the combined weight of your boating rig, you can determine what vehicle size is needed based on the manufacturer’s towing ratings. This information will stipulate the maximum towing weight for the vehicle. The second consideration becomes ”Do I need 4wd?”. And here is where you have some choice that can affect your pocket-book - and sometimes driving pleasure.
You can justify 4wd because it provides traction when pulling boats out of the water. But a 2wd truck equipped with a limited slip or locking differential will provide the needed traction with only two wheels. I say ”if equipped” because many trucks do not come with that option. Eaton and other manufacturers demonstrate in videos how 2wd trucks with a limited slip differential have more traction than 4wd trucks without it.
If you only need your truck for boat-hauling (and not things like off-roading), save yourself lots of money by ordering your next truck with the very inexpensive ($300) limited slip differential.
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