Is this camper too heavy?

[tealboy]

A friend emailed, bought a New Artic Fox to go in his 10 year old f250 and the camper weighs 2500 lbs. I don’t know the capacity of his truck or really much about these campers but it struck me as being too heavy for his suspension. He also plans to attach a trailer to the back of the truck and pull his UTV and motorcycle in an enclosed trailer. The tow capacity is about 9000-9400 but I think his problem will be the weight of the camper and then worse, added tongue weight from trailer.

I may be wrong, really have no idea but strikes me as being problematic.

Fixed typos, sorry. Darn spell check.

[burningman]

And you don’t know if he’s already got that stuff. All camper trucks need that.
I wouldn’t (and don’t) use a hitch extension. Besides, an AF 865 is only a 9.5.

[Bedlam]

You didn't factor in bed mat, tie downs, turnbuckles, heavier hitch, extended tongue or receiver extension...

[burningman]

Airbags or overload springs, bigger tires if it needs them, maybe a sway bar and some Bilsein shocks. It won’t be $4000.
I did it with just the airbags and bigger tires.

Buying a dually is a better plan. I’ve had four or five of them since then and that’s what I’d really recommend... but that 250 can do it. They do it every day.

The trailer he’s talking about isn’t going to be any significant load on the truck.

[jimh406]

burningman wrote:
I could get that F250 into shape for that job for a lot less than $4000. A couple times I carried a heavier camper plus heavier trailer with an F250 from the Pacific Northwest to Nevada and back with less than that into the entire truck.

Cool, what would be your solution?

[burningman]

I could get that F250 into shape for that job for a lot less than $4000. A couple times I carried a heavier camper plus heavier trailer with an F250 from the Pacific Northwest to Nevada and back with less than that into the entire truck.

[Bedlam]

My truck weighed about 7000 lbs on the rear axle with just the camper and closer to 8000 lbs with the trailer hitch on the rear. If the F250 is 2005 or newer, it has better brakes, frame and suspension than previous years. If the truck already has 18" or 20" OEM wheels and the camper package, it will need a rubber cargo mat, camper tie downs, turnbuckles and upper and lower StableLoads to just carry the camper. To be able to tow a heavy trailer behind that, you also need the SuperHitch Receiver, SuperTruss extension, heavier dampened shocks, air bags or additional springs and 19.5" tires and rims. The rest of the truck can handle the load, but you have to put about $4k in upgrades to make it safe and handle well. If your friend does not want to put so much into his truck, he needs to sell it and buy a DRW truck - There is no going around either spending money to upgrade select truck components or the entire truck.

[tealboy]

Ok. This was helpful. Carrying capacity of the truck is much more than I realized. It is a 865 no slide

[centerline]

No a 2500lb load is not too heavy for a f250... when I was using my f250 for rv purposes, I had an old 11.5ft caveman camper that fully loaded weighed 4100lbs, and I still pulled a 5000lb boat behind the pickup.. no problems at all at highway speeds and usually faster... but doent expect a pickup and camper to take corners like a sportscar...

[jimh406]

Your friend is wanting to do pretty close to exactly what bedlam did for a few years, but he did modifications including heavier shocks and 19.5 tires/wheels and stableloads. That will be a few thousand dollars of modifications to "get" by. As others have noted, even a short Arctic Fox is closer to 4000 than 2500. No doubt your friend would likely to be over the tire rating even before adding extra tongue weight. Rear tire blowouts aren't fun.

[trail-explorer]

DutchmenSport wrote:

Really? Chevy S10? OMG. ... It was a V8, manual transmission.

Someone swapped in the engine if it had a V8. S10s never came with a V8.

4.3L V6 was the biggest they came with from the factory.

[trail-explorer]

tealboy wrote:
A friend emailed, bought a New Artic Fox

Arctic Fox truck campers weigh way more than 2500 lbs.

[Grit_dog]

You don’t know which model, but if it says AF on the side it’s 4000lbs min. The 865 May be a shade less.
There are 1,000,000,000 discussions on this here. Find the model and start reading.
Lots of opinions and facts
Short fact, I haul a short AF on my 10 year old 3/4 ton and I’m comfortable with it. YMMV

[mkirsch]

Realistically, a 2500lb camper is no issue for any F250, even if it exceeds the manufacturer's GVWR of the truck. It will be within the tire ratings, and any sag can be mitigated with suspension aids.

HOWEVER, the camper does *NOT* weigh 2500lbs. That is the bare empty no-option weight. After adding optional equipment, and all his camping gear, the camper will exceed 3000lbs and may weigh as much as 3500lbs.

At that point, your friend will need to be concerned with tire capacities. At 3500lbs, the truck's rear weight will be around 6500lbs, which is 500lbs over the combined weight rating of the rear tires.

Even at 3000lbs he will be right at the limit for the rear tires, which leaves *NO* capacity for a trailer's tongue weight.

[Kayteg1]

2500 lb camper +700lb of supplies and gear is not much for F250 if you can put COG 1/3 way of the bed length.
That is possible with 8' camper, but not with 10', so such information is crucial.
Some with trailer.
If you can hitch trailer with no extension and tongue is 100lb, no problem, but 500lb on extension makes whole different story,.