newbie buying a truck camper

You should post over in the truck camper section of the forum. Very knowledgeable people there.

PinkLeopard wrote:
We have a Chevy Silverado K1500 LT that can tow 10,000lbs. We are looking to buy a camper for it and have found an 8 ft, no slides 1998 Rocky Mountain, made in Canada.

How can we tell if we can manage this with our truck?

Thanks for your help!

Payload range for a 2009 Silverado 1500 is between 1,530# to 1,975#.
Assuming yours is to the low end of that (4WD, LT etc) you need to figure out EXACTLY how much you can carry.
That yellow sticker on your door pillar will tell you the exact capacity of YOUR truck.
Then subtract the weight of driver, passengers, the dog, full tank of fuel, tools and other stuff in the truck from that sticker number to see what your remaining available payload is.
I suspect it's under 1000#.
Not sure there are any campers out there that light, especially when loaded up.
BTW, TOW rating is irrelevant in this discussion - you're not towing anything!

Allworth wrote:
What year is that "K" series??

His sig says 2009.

What year is that "K" series??

Depends on how much the camper weighs and how much payload your truck has..

What's the little sticker on your drivers side door jamb say how much you load in your truck? It'll look like this, but have a number on it for your specific truck.



"tow rating" means nothing when you are hauling something in the bed of the truck.. ;)

Agreed - tow ratings have nothing whatsoever to do with payload capacity for the purpose of finding a truck camper.

My suggestion is to forget about tow ratings and check AVAILABLE payload. that's the total weight of the truck as loaded for travel subtracted from the GVWR. The camper should weigh less, fully loaded, than that figure.