Help.....buying a camper

[Kodiak02]

Who better to ask than all of you with campers! We will be selling our Lexington motor home and have thought about buying a camper. We like to dry camp but will not take our beautiful motor home into those areas. Any suggestions to what is a good camper to purchase? Do you have any suggestions for needed options for it? Our towing vehicle is a F150 Ford Crew Cab short bed. All responses are welcomed.

[Richandtd]

Being new to TC's myself there is a learning curve involved when you do make the plunge but a 1 ton 4x4 diesel DRW truck would give you many options for your fun adventure I hope you enjoy the journey.

[Dave_Pete]

Kodiak, if you just want off road capability with a place to sleep off the ground, maybe a porti pottie and some outside camping cook gear for meals, with space for gear, you might check out a "truck tent" for your F150. I expect the side by side trips are warm weather only and it gets you to some wonderful places where you can stay over night.

Granted ours was a long bed 3/4 ton but you get the idea. We built a fold out platform over the wheel wheels for our queen size airbed, and sized the structure to hold four under residential bed plastic totes for organized camp gear and food. Leaving room for lawn chairs, toilet, etc. We even had that all behind an in bed diesel tank/tool box combo that took the front 2.5' of bed space! It all fit below a roll up tonneau cover. PM me for pictures.

Another option is a truck topper but the tent might give you greater interior space in height and length.

In both cases you'd keep you motor home for other travel.

[trailgranny50]

Think about looking at fold down camper installed on trailer with space for your ATV. They come factory that way and many with off road suspension and bigger tires.

[cpres]

For dry camping with a SxS I endorse a camper, I dirt bike. You will have a hard to impossible time with your truck. You could buy an older combination paired up with luck if you watch craigslist or ebay. Good luck, keep in mind water damage, camper weight vs cargo capacity of the truck.

[wvabeer]

Kodiak02 wrote:
We can not thank all of you enough for your responses! Our trust level with you is much higher than with a truck camper dealer trying to make a deal! A truck camper is not the way to go for our size truck. Thank you!

I haul a Camplite 6.8 with my 150 and a 14 ft trailer with my Wildcat on it. No problems so far. but you need to beef it up a bit for safety.

[Kodiak02]

We can not thank all of you enough for your responses! Our trust level with you is much higher than with a truck camper dealer trying to make a deal! A truck camper is not the way to go for our size truck. Thank you!

[mkirsch]

Kodiak02 wrote:
Any opinions on the Lance 825?

825 is too heavy for your truck, especially if you want to tow as well.

This is the problem with an F150. Generally speaking they only have about a 1500lb useful payload capacity, which includes the camper, supplies, passengers, and trailer tongue. The DRY Lance 825 far exceeds the payload capacity of the typical F150 by hundreds of pounds, BEFORE you get in the driver's seat, put a drop of water in the tank, add a crumb of food to the refrigerator, or hang a t-shirt in the wardrobe.

A late model F150 will have a yellow sticker on the driver's door or driver's door frame stating the maximum payload capacity.

There are things you can do to the truck to arguably "increase" the payload capacity, but at the end of the day you still might not be happy with how it handles once the newness wears off. Then you've thrown good money after bad and STILL have to choose whether you want to take a huge loss trading trucks or take a huge loss selling the camper and giving up.

People do it and are happy. Others do it and end up trading trucks. It's somewhat a matter of your personal tastes, your ability to tolerate/ignore less-than-ideal driving qualities, and your willingness to take risk.

The closer you are to being "within the ratings" the better chance you will have of being happy with what you bought once that newness factor wears off. Wasting money is no fun.

Unfortunately, there are NO fully self contained campers light enough for a typical F150 that will keep you under the rated payload capacity. Popups are not much, if any, lighter than the hard-sided campers. The only thing that might prove light enough is a very sparse popup camper from a company called "Four Wheel Campers" but even then you will be right at or a bit over the payload with the trailer in tow.

[jimh406]

I'd consider a Four Wheel Camper for the F150. Unless you load it with options, it will still be relatively light. Of course, probably better than a tent. I think you could likely continue to tow it even with this light camper.

And oh ... some of us think our TCs and trucks are beautiful, too. 😉

[Bleugoat]

I heartily recommend truck camping. I pulled travel trailers for years, but on retiring I bought the truck camper in my signature for a trip to Alaska and found it fit my camping style. If I had it to do over again I would probably go with a small hard side camper.

In order to get an estimate on the weight of a given camper model the truck camper buying guide at Truck Camper Magazine might be helpful.

The advice to get in several campers to see how they fit you is very important.

Then it is a matter of deciding if your truck can handle the weight or if you need a truck with more hauling capacity.

Good Luck.

[Grit_dog]

Not to discourage you but coming from someone who is not a "weight cop", your options with that truck are limited to zero.
If it's the 5' short bed, I'd say don't even bother looking for a slide in. 6.5' short bed helps a little, but even the lightest pop up campers will require some real suspension mods and you'll still be way over gvw.
Bottom line with the added tongue weight and towing, you don't have many options. I'm not well read on pop up campers but that's where you should concentrate your search.
You really need more truck to haul a TC.

You haven't provided much info, but if by chance you have a max tow/haul package then you may be able to handle a very light hard side but I don't think you can get the 7 lug HD suspension in a crew cab. Only seen them in ext cab trucks.

[jmcgsd]

~DJ~ wrote:
You've got a lot of homework to do. Start off by weighing your truck to figure available payload. By the time you subtract passengers, gear and tongue weight I fear you will be very disappointed in any TC you can carry.

Agreed. Since you are already towing a trailer I think your truck camper choices will be extremely limited. If it were me and money was limited I'd spend most of it upgrading to an F250 or 350 then buy a cheaper TC.

I bought the '95 Lance in my sig for a song last summer. At least in my area there's plenty of nice looking used TCs on Craigslist. There are even a few good deals on truck/TC combos.

[_DJ_1]

You've got a lot of homework to do. Start off by weighing your truck to figure available payload. By the time you subtract passengers, gear and tongue weight I fear you will be very disappointed in any TC you can carry.

[COboondocker]

I think the 650 is the lance model they recommend for half ton trucks.

You could always consider a pop up too. Outfitter, Hallmark Four-wheel camper, All-Terrain Camper. etc. Especially if you're considering getting in to remote locations.

[Kodiak02]

Any opinions on the Lance 825?