jimh425 wrote:
That is small and quite a change. What are you going to tow it with?
The same VW Touareg TDI we towed our original TT with. This one will be at least 800 lbs lighter though. It tows 5,000 lbs comfortably and is rated for 7,700 (although I would never want to tow that much with it!). The one problem is that it has over 100K miles on it now. Still pretty much like new though, and no problems. Maybe after Dieselgate blows over I can get a new one.
Small = yes. One of the mistakes we made with the AF 990 is that it's actually too big. If I had gotten a SRW truck and a smaller non-slide fiberglass TC (Northern Lite or Bigfoot) I think we would still have it. The DRW truck wasn't really great for anything other than hauling the TC. A short-bed SRW super-cab would have been a lot more useful. This is a sad side-bar, but about 6-months before we got the truck we ended up with, I was offered a NEW 2012 F250 SB Supercab 6.7 diesel at a dealership for $37K. It had sat on their lot for more than a year and they just wanted to get rid of it. I have some regrets about not jumping on that.
RoyB wrote:
I have really been yearning for hard sides and being more sustained for my off-road camping in my final years here... The truck camper was always a big dream for me having lived near the high country of AZ and all of the dispersed camping around there... I guess every now calls that MELLO MIKE country haha...
This wasn't a great off-road setup. Carrying somewhere around 5,000 lbs around causes a lot of side-side rocking. The almost 12' height was a real limitation in the woods. Again, smaller would have been better. The TT will be used the same way we used the TC -- mild gravel roads at the most. We have a couple of very long trips planned to the east coast and Alaska.
jmtandem wrote:
How far would $6000 go in truck maintenance and camper storage? Sometimes keeping something is really less expensive than getting rid of it and starting all over with something new. But, if you just had the itch to get new and a TT, I can understand that as well.
Storage was running me $840 / year, but mostly I just hated going back and forth to the storage lot to get it. Having the TT next to the house will be much better. Annual registration was $550. Insurance for the truck and camper another $650 or so. So not really cheaper to keep it, but I get your point. The main issue is that it's just less work to not have to deal with all that.
profdant139 wrote:
The good news is that with an Escape and a decent truck you will still be able to get to some pretty remote areas for camping -- not quite like a TC, but still a lot of fun. (Ask me how I know!) Are you going to flip the axles or lift it in some fashion?
Escape has a high-lift axle option that lifts it 2". I may go for that, but not planning any serious off-road like you do. I enjoy your posts about where you go with your setup! For the off road I do I have a set of 17" wheels with BFG AT K02's for the Touareg that allow me some great mobility. I just sleep in the back. It's a lot more nimble than the F350 dually was, even completely unloaded. If I can't get another Touareg TDI when this one is done, I'll probably get a 4Runner.
This is an example of what we did with the old TT:
jmtandem wrote:
If I read correctly the Arctic Fox truck camper suffered no depreciation in this transaction. They sold it for what they paid for it. The Ford gasser truck, however, suffered $6000 depreciation. That is a chuck of change for something that could be used every day and could pull their new TT.
OK, full disclosure is that I did get a screaming deal when I bought the Arctic Fox TC. The guy that sold it to me took about a $9K loss in 1 year. He was loaded and didn't care. I was lucky. That's not typical, but Arctic Fox is a well respected brand and does better than some on resale in most situations. As for the truck pulling the TT, that would be massive overkill and my wife doesn't like the mostly unloaded ride. Not being able to use it every day around here was a large chunk of the problem. It's too big for me to park where I work.
I will also enjoy the 60+-% increase in mileage I expect pulling this TT. Even on my old 8' wide, 4,500 lb TT I was getting 14.5 MPG. With the Escape I'm thinking maybe around 17.
