new ford chassis coming???

Golden_HVAC wrote:



If you look up the Ford Towing Guide, and look on page 21, you can find the Transit GCVWR - it is limited to only 12,000 with the 3.7L gas V6 or 13,500 with the inline 5 Diesel. They do not list the Ecoboost with a Transit cab and chassis. Why I have no idea why they will not put the best engine in the cab and chassis.

2015 tow guide

Good luck!

Fred.

The Transit that I drove had the 3.5 L V6 Ecoboost in it. Maybe it's just not listed in the towing guide. Scroll to the bottom of THIS PAGEfor available Transit engines.

Ford and GM pickup cab and chassis have been used in various motorhomes. I haven't seen a Dodge (or Ram) since a company called Scotty used a 3500 cab and chassis for a class C motorhome.

Ram also produces some approximately comparable chassis cabs. Not the Promaster van based units, which are a lot lighter duty than the E-450, but the Ram 4500/5500 series trucks are generally similar. Particularly if Ford got rid of the E series vans chassis units, I would imagine (hope?) that Ram would offer a motorhome-oriented variant of theirs. At a simple level, this would involve little more than offering a cutaway cab and bucket seats, rather than just a closed cab with a bench seat.

I was under the impression that the E series cutaway would be produced through 2019. I imagine by that time Ford will have available a Transit product that will be comparable in GVWR. GM still also has the 4500 Express chassis, although with a much lower GCWR.

Ron,

So ... should I invest in Provan Industries (Tiger motorhomes) stock? ;)

:) well....

Modern day, lighter weighted version of that.

ron.dittmer wrote:
The industry is reverting back to the 70's & 80's.

Hmmmm ... do you mean reverting back to what we owned for awhile many years ago?:



The main trouble with this rig was the coach was big, heavy, and built on only a one-ton 3500 GMC chassis ... whereas our modern cutaway van based Class C is based on a 14,050 lb. GVWR E450 chassis (I don't know if this is considered a one-and-a-quarter ton chassis or a one-and-a-half ton chassis.). The weight of our good old "chassis mount" RV, as it was called, probably full-time taxed the one-ton chassis too close to the limit for my margin of comfort. I like chassis overkill a bit over and above manufacturer's specs ... it's the way I'm wired when driving with a lot of weight I'm responsible for.

ron.dittmer wrote:
pnichols,

I think the days are numbered for the 26-32 foot class B+ & C on a cut-away van chassis. The industry is reverting back to the 70's & 80's.

Maybe not. Here they have discovered that the Light Japanese Trucks are good at the 31ft level. You can put heavier Japanese or European Trucks, but not a great demand,many like the easy to drive European cutaways as you call them. Unfortuntely most have poor towing capabilities, the Sprinter is rated at slightly over 4,000lbs or not recommended for towing. IVECO Daily based one vary from 8000lbs to 6,600lbs

pnichols,

I think the days are numbered for the 26-32 foot class B+ & C on a cut-away van chassis. The industry is reverting back to the 70's & 80's.

I guess I'm confused:

Don't long (29 foot to 32 foot) Class C motorhomes for the U.S. market usually require chassis GVWR ratings in the 14,000-15,000 lb. range? With no E450(Ford) or 4500(Chevy) van cutaways available eventually after the various new lighter-service chassis mentioned in this thread take over in the U.S. - how is this market segment going to be addressed?

This is notwithstanding that some of us don't care for a Class C motorhome being built on a chassis that winds up being continuously weight-loaded to 90+% of it's capacity by the coach ... that's why we bought a small Class C (24 feet built on an E450) with a GVWR rating well above the coach's average running weight ... for more load-handling-safety and systems-ruggedness margins during the life of the motorhome.

I probably missed something in the above discussions mentioning how, for instance, in the future Ford was going to deal with both the 14,000-15,000 GVWR van cutaway market plus enough horsepower plus better fuel mileage?

.... and BTW we, and probably many other folks, don't care for those world market cab designs with a big step-up into the the cab because the driver and passenger have to sit on top of the main engine underneath them.

IMHO, the classic U.S. van style and shape are just that ... a classic, and all that's needed is better fuel mileage along with adequate horsepower for the GVWR required by the various-sized Class B and C markets.