Overloaded or wrong truck?

StirCrazy wrote:

Bionic Man wrote:
Ram doesn’t make a DRW short bed in a crew cab.

actualy the do, My niebour has one. I didn't think they did either. I am not sure if it was a custom order or what, it was his brothers that came with the new artic fox camper when he passed. I was interested in buying the camper but when I went to look at it I found ou it was a short box model.

Steve

Maga cab, not a Crew Cab. Look behind the rear door windows for an extra 6+ inches of body.

ford truck guy wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
Looks like there's a whole lot of truck camper hanging off the end of the truck. Maybe a short bed truck, and a long bed camper with 3 slides? Baja California, so add in some rough roads.

Sure looks like there’s a lot of panel in front of the rear wheels for a SB ??

At least the way I see it, it looks like a long bed

I believe the Maga cab dually is the only short bed model available.

Grit dog wrote:
Not a short bed and wth is a tope?
It broke. Either defective or the owner got too western with almost 3 tons in the bed down there in Baja. Just because the name says it, shouldn’t drive like a trophy truck…
But the supposition should be strong in this thread. Already on a roll….

You should see the comments on the original Facebook post. This is amateur hour compared to that.

"Not overloaded." Sure. My bet is that truck has never seen a scale so the owner has no clue. It for sure per its manufacturer's ratings, is overloaded. Maybe not by truck camper owner standards, but by Fiat's.

This is one where the manufacturer may just take everything and have it weighed and deny warranty. Too bad we will never know.

Shouldn't this be in TC's anyway? This truck is not towing anything.

Bionic Man wrote:
Ram doesn’t make a DRW short bed in a crew cab.

actualy the do, My niebour has one. I didn't think they did either. I am not sure if it was a custom order or what, it was his brothers that came with the new artic fox camper when he passed. I was interested in buying the camper but when I went to look at it I found ou it was a short box model.

Steve

rhagfo wrote:

Bionic Man wrote:
Ram doesn’t make a DRW short bed in a crew cab. And the minimum payload in a DRW in 2020 was over 6800 pounds. I’d like to hear more about what happened leading up to the failure.

Do you mean maximum? To get 6,800# payload would need to gas tradesman. My 2016 3500 DRW Laramie has a payload 5,411#.

The chart I found in a quick search did in fact limit the trim to Tradesman (although the gas has a higher payload, the CTD Aisin is what I quoted). I can’t find anything for higher trim levels, but regardless, the photo above wouldn’t be caused by just the load of the camper (regardless of brand of modern DRW truck was under it.

Looking at it from a physics standpoint. With a lot of rear overhang and a lot of front overhang, simply driving down the highway will cause a "rocking" front to rear of that weight, centered over the rear axle. That would cause the frame to bend slightly up and down in the middle with every "rock". But even slightly over a period of years will cause metal fatigue, and eventual weakness. And enough and it will finally break.

That is not the first picture posted of trucks with large campers breaking in half like that. Would be interesting to know how many miles it had on it lugging that camper around.

Bionic Man wrote:
Ram doesn’t make a DRW short bed in a crew cab. And the minimum payload in a DRW in 2020 was over 6800 pounds. I’d like to hear more about what happened leading up to the failure.

Do you mean maximum? To get 6,800# payload would need to gas tradesman. My 2016 3500 DRW Laramie has a payload 5,411#.

bucky wrote:
@Time2Roll The interweb says that a tope is excessive alcohol consumption. What did you mean to type?
If the truck wasn't bought new I'd say it's a salt water flood victim.

Speed bumps in Mexico are called Topes.

The difference is they are 2-3 times higher and extremely abrupt compared to speed bumps in the USA.

Hit one at 60mph and expect damage.

@Time2Roll The interweb says that a tope is excessive alcohol consumption. What did you mean to type?
If the truck wasn't bought new I'd say it's a salt water flood victim.

I've seen this photo in a few places but no follow up.

I'm betting if we saw the frame, it might be readily obvious what happened.

Of course as others have suggested, might have been user error:
- At 4900lb dry weight, it wouldn't be hard to exceed the ratings if he has full tanks and a lot of stuff.
- Did the owner weld or drill the frame to attach the tie downs?
- How is the weight distribution? There is a lot of camper hanging off the back of the truck bed. The payload sticker assumes a reasonable distribution of weight. What were the per axle loads?
- Did he hit a tope, big pothole or something else at speed?

It's possible there was a defect but it would be interesting to see some follow up with pics of the frame.