Best Truck for New Camper?

Jimster wrote:
allygerry: I have a Jeep with manual 4X4, which I use a lot; I didn't know that manual 4x4 selection was an option on the F350 - assumed the shift-on-the-fly was part of one of the option packages. Thanks also for your suggestion on the second alternator; we were surprised during our rental experience of a F350 and Adventurer 86SBS that it took a fair amount of driving with a single "heavy-duty" alternator to fully charge our camper batteries after several days of usage and little driving.

Unless something has changed, the stock second alternator is not set-up to charge on its own on a secondary circuit. The computer controls both alternators and only kicks in the second when the load demands.

I have had the Shift-on-the-Fly setup on all three of my Super Duties and have been very satisfied with it. With the hubs set to auto you have the ability to QUICKLY throw it into 4WD if the situation demands. Such as suddenly finding yourself in soft sand or mud without having to stop to lock in the hubs (stopping sometimes means you can't get going again without lots of work). To give a bit of perspective, I am a hardcore off-roader in my Early Bronco, running trails up to and including the Hammers and have also wheeled the SuperDuty several times as well.

I didn't dig very much but it appears that once you get to a certain trim level with Fords the Shift-on-the-Fly becomes mandatory.

Op while I agree that your desired camper is probably best served by a DRW, Ford offers many GVWR/payloads packages and the max payload listed for an 2016 F350 SRW CC 4x4 is in the 11300/4270 package. Throwing this out there so that people know to check the payload of the actual truck they want instead of simply thinking there is only one across the line up.