Bigfoot Truck Camper reviews sought
Hi everyone, I'm new to the site. We presently have a older 11.5 ft. Alpenlite and live in Alaska. We are temped to "upgrade" to a 2500 series Bigfoot 10.4 mainly for the 4 season capabilities. ...
Forum Discussion
I've only owned my new to me 2001 Bigfoot Camper since January but I am very pleased with it. A couple of things I would consider...
1. If you are tall you may have issues both with head height and bed length. I'm 5'6" and I am fine with the height and bed but I do wonder if someone who is over 6' would have the same experience.
2. Holding Tank Sizes on mine are nearly equal (22 gallons for grey and 18 gallons for black or something close to that) which means my grey is constantly filling before my black. My solution is a twist on gate valve so that I can shuffle between the tanks if necessary.
3. Door height and ladder can be an issue as well. My F350 Dually is 2 wheel drive so it doesn't have a high ride height yet the default scissor ladder my camper came with is barely tall enough for the application. On level ground the ladder is fine but if you get into one of those campsites where the area behind the parking spot slopes down you can end up with some very sloped steps. I think at some point I will see about adding another step to the ladder to assist with this problem.
4.If you are going to have your camper built, DEMAND they use stainless steel screws and bolts for all exterior applications... I literally wrote an e-mail about this last night to Grant. The original owner lived on the coast for 14 years and stored the camper outdoors and the end result is I ended up with exterior screws and bolts that have turned into dust. I've replaced all of the exterior door screws and at least half of them the threads had turned to powder and I was left with a rusty core that thankfully came out. I did have have two where the heads snapped off and there is nothing to do but angle the replacement screw so it goes around the shaft that remains. The ladder has over 60 bolts that had nearly turned to powder as well. I actually had two snap while folding the ladder which alerted me to the issue in the first place. Thankfully I wasn't on the ladder at the time because that would have been dangerous. Needless to say, it took about 2 hours to replace all 60 bolts on the ladder with new stainless steel. I'm now down to the Jack brackets and I'm still at a loss on how to tackle these. The combination of the rust and the tension placed on those screws means I'm almost guaranteed to have lots of heads snapping off when I try to remove them. Worse case scenario I will drill new holes in the brackets and pay someone to patch the old holes in the fiberglass. That will likely be this winter's project...
5. Propane efficiency I find to be extremely good. Just this past week I was on the road for business (primary use of my camper). I had the fridge running all week, heated water for three or four very quick showers plus dishes (grey tank fills fast!), used the heater for a couple of hours (up in Washington State) and even used the generator for a few minutes to run the blender. I believe I used about 3.75 gallons of propane from just one tank. I was quite surprised honestly, I really thought I would have gone through both tanks over the course of a week but it wasn't necessary.
That is my experience so far. Overall, I am extremely happy with my purchase and would certainly consider buying a new Bigfoot if I had the resources (I would demand stainless of course...). I initially set my sights on a Host Mammoth until reality of the weight and finances set in. I like that the Bigfoot is light for my 7.3 F350 Dually and find it comfortable to drive.
1. If you are tall you may have issues both with head height and bed length. I'm 5'6" and I am fine with the height and bed but I do wonder if someone who is over 6' would have the same experience.
2. Holding Tank Sizes on mine are nearly equal (22 gallons for grey and 18 gallons for black or something close to that) which means my grey is constantly filling before my black. My solution is a twist on gate valve so that I can shuffle between the tanks if necessary.
3. Door height and ladder can be an issue as well. My F350 Dually is 2 wheel drive so it doesn't have a high ride height yet the default scissor ladder my camper came with is barely tall enough for the application. On level ground the ladder is fine but if you get into one of those campsites where the area behind the parking spot slopes down you can end up with some very sloped steps. I think at some point I will see about adding another step to the ladder to assist with this problem.
4.If you are going to have your camper built, DEMAND they use stainless steel screws and bolts for all exterior applications... I literally wrote an e-mail about this last night to Grant. The original owner lived on the coast for 14 years and stored the camper outdoors and the end result is I ended up with exterior screws and bolts that have turned into dust. I've replaced all of the exterior door screws and at least half of them the threads had turned to powder and I was left with a rusty core that thankfully came out. I did have have two where the heads snapped off and there is nothing to do but angle the replacement screw so it goes around the shaft that remains. The ladder has over 60 bolts that had nearly turned to powder as well. I actually had two snap while folding the ladder which alerted me to the issue in the first place. Thankfully I wasn't on the ladder at the time because that would have been dangerous. Needless to say, it took about 2 hours to replace all 60 bolts on the ladder with new stainless steel. I'm now down to the Jack brackets and I'm still at a loss on how to tackle these. The combination of the rust and the tension placed on those screws means I'm almost guaranteed to have lots of heads snapping off when I try to remove them. Worse case scenario I will drill new holes in the brackets and pay someone to patch the old holes in the fiberglass. That will likely be this winter's project...
5. Propane efficiency I find to be extremely good. Just this past week I was on the road for business (primary use of my camper). I had the fridge running all week, heated water for three or four very quick showers plus dishes (grey tank fills fast!), used the heater for a couple of hours (up in Washington State) and even used the generator for a few minutes to run the blender. I believe I used about 3.75 gallons of propane from just one tank. I was quite surprised honestly, I really thought I would have gone through both tanks over the course of a week but it wasn't necessary.
That is my experience so far. Overall, I am extremely happy with my purchase and would certainly consider buying a new Bigfoot if I had the resources (I would demand stainless of course...). I initially set my sights on a Host Mammoth until reality of the weight and finances set in. I like that the Bigfoot is light for my 7.3 F350 Dually and find it comfortable to drive.
