Payload, is there a right answer?
Well, I've learned a lot of stuff here, and I would like to thank you all for lots of valuable input and discussions. I want to make sure I get this right, assuming there is a right answer. Tru...
Forum Discussion
Our truck is a 2006 Ford F350 long bed, single rear wheel crew cab with the King Ranch option package and camper package. This made it weigh (unloaded and empty of everything, even people) 7860 lbs. total. This is called the Gross Vehicle Weight, or GVW. I weighed it at the local CAT scale at the Flying J, with a full tank of fuel and no tailgate.
Factory Specs:
Rear Wheel (each) 3525 lbs.
Our tires (each) 3650
Rear Axle 10,000
If you do the math our rear wheels together have a 7050 lb. capacity, so this becomes the limiting factor, not our tires or axle ratings. The actual truck specs showed a rear max weight of 7000 lbs.
Our truck's rear end empty weighed 3140 at the scale. Subtract that from 7050 and you get 3910, or the most payload that I can safely load onto the rear of the truck. Now this does not take into consideration that I might have been slightly forward on the scale or the curvature of the earth or some other nonsense, so I am happy using this number. However, there is a document that came with the truck that quotes a maximum camper weight of 2815. Huh? Buzzkill! I felt comfortable that I would be close to that weight (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
The truck is rated to carry 11,500 pounds gross weight, so we are close to that too. Our camper is predicted by the RV gurus to have a weight somewhere between that of a toaster and the space shuttle. My best guess was just over 3000 lbs. The scales told the story in the end.
After a year of camping experiences and stuffing the camper full of stuff it weighed out to about 3200 lbs. This is about 1000 lbs. more than the "dry weight" claimed by the manufacturer and includes a full complement of fresh water, extra battery, 6 gallons in jugs, 400 lbs of passengers, and backseat gear. When traveling I usually leave the water tanks empty and try to dump black and gray asap. This decreases my weight significantly and results in much better handling. I do prefer the truck heavy if encountering high winds however.
With my numbers and make/model/year truck I would not want to go any heavier. This is why I chose the Wolf Creek 840 over the Arctic Fox 811. There were a few other models by other manufacturers in that weight range but for various reasons we preferred the WC. With the StableLoads (upper and lower) there has not been any need for further suspension mods. The truck settled only 1-3/4 inches! Very happy with the outcome. We would not have been happy with a heavier camper and I would have been second guessing myself from then on.
This is a process we all go through. It is not always easy to get a good idea of how things are going to turn out in the end. Due diligence is the recipe for a positive outcome. Do the math, listen to all the viewpoints, don't trust the salesmen, and seek truth. If it feels right it probably is. If it feels like too much it probably is, but you've got to be honest with yourself and resist camper envy/fever. Good luck!
Factory Specs:
Rear Wheel (each) 3525 lbs.
Our tires (each) 3650
Rear Axle 10,000
If you do the math our rear wheels together have a 7050 lb. capacity, so this becomes the limiting factor, not our tires or axle ratings. The actual truck specs showed a rear max weight of 7000 lbs.
Our truck's rear end empty weighed 3140 at the scale. Subtract that from 7050 and you get 3910, or the most payload that I can safely load onto the rear of the truck. Now this does not take into consideration that I might have been slightly forward on the scale or the curvature of the earth or some other nonsense, so I am happy using this number. However, there is a document that came with the truck that quotes a maximum camper weight of 2815. Huh? Buzzkill! I felt comfortable that I would be close to that weight (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
The truck is rated to carry 11,500 pounds gross weight, so we are close to that too. Our camper is predicted by the RV gurus to have a weight somewhere between that of a toaster and the space shuttle. My best guess was just over 3000 lbs. The scales told the story in the end.
After a year of camping experiences and stuffing the camper full of stuff it weighed out to about 3200 lbs. This is about 1000 lbs. more than the "dry weight" claimed by the manufacturer and includes a full complement of fresh water, extra battery, 6 gallons in jugs, 400 lbs of passengers, and backseat gear. When traveling I usually leave the water tanks empty and try to dump black and gray asap. This decreases my weight significantly and results in much better handling. I do prefer the truck heavy if encountering high winds however.
With my numbers and make/model/year truck I would not want to go any heavier. This is why I chose the Wolf Creek 840 over the Arctic Fox 811. There were a few other models by other manufacturers in that weight range but for various reasons we preferred the WC. With the StableLoads (upper and lower) there has not been any need for further suspension mods. The truck settled only 1-3/4 inches! Very happy with the outcome. We would not have been happy with a heavier camper and I would have been second guessing myself from then on.
This is a process we all go through. It is not always easy to get a good idea of how things are going to turn out in the end. Due diligence is the recipe for a positive outcome. Do the math, listen to all the viewpoints, don't trust the salesmen, and seek truth. If it feels right it probably is. If it feels like too much it probably is, but you've got to be honest with yourself and resist camper envy/fever. Good luck!
