Overweight??

Good Morning, we have a 31 ft class c with 1 slide. Dinette, couch and rear queen like you are looking at. We have 800 lbs cargo capacity which is not much but workable. Puts us pretty close to max gross weight all the time. Watch those tire pressures!!

Dave

Our non-slide 31-ft has sofa, dinette, walk-around queen (short 75" length). All that plus a pantry and a single "lounge" chair. It seems to take the "thirty foot" range to get that.

I haven't seen a survey but I'd guess many (if not most) of us do not weigh their RV's. And I'd venture that those who do, find them heavier than expected.

So, I think your only defense is to weigh the coach you're interested in. Even empty, you can get an idea what the weight distribution is. You can estimate by examination (position of tanks and storage areas) where weight will fall when you load for travel. Don't forget passengers!

But YES, some RV's are born at or over weight and some are also built with lopsided weight distribution. Rolling your candidate coach across a truck scale at least gives you a starting point.

I didn't weigh ours for several years. Found that it was pretty close to max. Luckily my tire pressure guesses were pretty close.

Hi Moisheh,

I do have a queen bed, sofa and dinette. I also have nearly a full size shower on the passenger's side with the water closet on the driver's side.

I have weighed mine, including doing each set of wheels by themselves.

I have no slides and I'm nearly above capacity, and the driver's rear dual was not over axle capacity but was over tire capacity. So near that I changed the rims and tires to get myself into a comfort zone.

Be careful about length to wheel base. For the 176" wheel base 26 feet is 55% (ideal), 28'5" is 51% (ok), and 31 feet is 47% (not good). Anything below 50% is MUCH harder to drive.

E-450 tops out at about 14000 pounds. Class A chassis with a V-10 is, if my memory serves, 22000 pounds.

For what you seem to want I think a small class A may be more appropriate.

From what I've seen, most 30'+ Class Cs ride on a 208"+ wheelbase.

Hi SRockwood,

If they do then there may have been an after market modification to lengthen the wheelbase.

I don't have the weight figures anymore on a previous 2004 Winnebago Class C Minnie 29B on E450 chassis it was a little short of 30', it had 2 street side slides bedroom & living room couch with dinette on the curb side and RV queen bed in the rear slide. This plan was also available when they changed the name from Minnie to Outlook and also the Itasca Spirit. I liked this unit and was sorry after I sold it and made a mistake of trying a class B. Dick

The Ford label in the door frame of ours say 158" and the one from Jayco says 218." There's a label from an outfit called Sellers that says they did the stretch. In addition to the 60" wheelbase stretch, there's at least that much behind the axle.
MorRyde does a lot of the stretches.

Moisheh: Look at the Forest River 2861S. It has what you want. The floor plan is in the Forest River Forester and Coachman Sunseeker. There are a lot of used unit out there.

Current E450 GVWR is up to 14500. I think the change happened in 08.

Some manufactures will show you what the OCCC on the website. Some can't because the number of models and possible configurations with options will not allow that without a complex database behind a configurator program. If you can get it, the WWV (wet vehicle weight; the weight of the RV with gas, water, and LP tanks full) is helpful data point. Note that the OCCC does not include water.

My opinion: All three numbers, GVWR, OCCC, and WWV are useful. I am not sure but thought that after 2008 the OCCC is required on the passenger door. A dealer should be able to provide the WWV and maybe even axel weights for the WWV. If all the numbers are not available a part of a test drive should be a visit to a local weigh station with a full tank of water so you have a good set of data points when loading the first time. You want to fill the water tank and test the system before purchase anyway.

Shamless plug for my favorite brand of RV. Lazy Daze has a 31' that might do you. OCCC 1,836 lbs; WWV 13,162 lbs; UVW 12,664 lbs
floor plan