Travel Light TC

[pcaffrey]

Has anyone here had or have any thoughts on Travel Light truck campers, I see they are makers of some light weight hard side campers compatible with short box trucks. Looking for a weekender unit but not a pop up.

[Travels_with_Yo]

exhaustipated wrote:
I must be the only happy and satisfied owner of a Travel Lite 960RX truck camper on this Forum. Over the last six years I've had the camper since buying it new from a dealer in January of 2012, I have never had anything go wrong with it and everything works and it hasn't fallen apart. I did have to replace the roof a few years back but that was because of my negligence of not maintaining it properly. I realize that from late 2012 to early 2013 Travel Lite experienced a heavy turnover ratio of qualified employees due to Management. In their haste to replace those workers that walked out on them they hired poorly qualified and unskilled laborers who didn't know what the hell they were doing and that is again Management's fault, thus producing shoddy campers and after five years it still sounds like they are putting out shoddy campers. After reading all of the negative comments on this post I don't think I would ever buy a Travel Lite again so I should be happy that mine is still holding up with no problems.

The labor force issue with Travel Lite extended into 2014. We bought a Cobblestone travel trailer (made by Travel Lite) and it was plagued by assembly and construction issues. The gas and electric water heater was installed with the wire loom for the electric side still taped in a loop behind the water heater, laying on the floor, not connected to anything. Since this was on the backside of the assembly, the repairing dealer had to cut a panel out of the bedroom wall to gain access. The refrigerator was installed into a large cavity beneath the kitchen counter. No effort whatsoever was made to duct heat away from the evaporator and out the vent. It just sat there in this big open space. The fridge wouldn't get colder than 50 degrees but you could fry an egg on the counter top 🙂 All the cabinetry hinges were loose and when I tried to tighten them, discovered that 90% of every screw was stripped out. Then later discovered that this was due to the heavy duty cardboard pressboard they used in the assembly. Very cheaply made and assembled by drunk chimpanzees. Also I was surprised to find a 3500 lb trailer riding on a 3500 lb axle with tires rated for a total of 3520 lbs. This was one of the many reasons we gave up on travel trailers completely. The TT we owned prior to this one and the one we owned after this one weren't any better 😞

[aruba5er]

I purchased a new 840Srx in March and we just got back from a 5000 mile trip. Worked good except for a small gas leak at the 2 burner stove. Easy fix. Only complaint is how do you keep the bathroom mirror and bathroom door shut. Appears to be well made. (Time will Tell}. The nameplate says its 1860# with standard equipment. Really weighs around 2600#. Standard eq does not include micro, ac,fiberglass sides vs alum.and i'm sure more. Truck handles it well though. Got tired of pulling ny 30 ft fifth wheel and this is a pleasure to drive and park.

[exhaustipated]

I must be the only happy and satisfied owner of a Travel Lite 960RX truck camper on this Forum. Over the last six years I've had the camper since buying it new from a dealer in January of 2012, I have never had anything go wrong with it and everything works and it hasn't fallen apart. I did have to replace the roof a few years back but that was because of my negligence of not maintaining it properly. I realize that from late 2012 to early 2013 Travel Lite experienced a heavy turnover ratio of qualified employees due to Management. In their haste to replace those workers that walked out on them they hired poorly qualified and unskilled laborers who didn't know what the hell they were doing and that is again Management's fault, thus producing shoddy campers and after five years it still sounds like they are putting out shoddy campers. After reading all of the negative comments on this post I don't think I would ever buy a Travel Lite again so I should be happy that mine is still holding up with no problems.

[jcb1967]

I am having issues with a used 2017 Travel Lite 840SRX. Too bad I did not do find this forum before I made my purchase. I purchased this camper from the original owner three days before it was a year old. It appeared to be in excellent shape until I got it home and found several problem areas I had missed. The most serious being a loose tie down anchor bolt. I have tried to get assistance from Travel Lite customer service by email and phone contact with their, "Customer Service"rep.
Their excuse for not helping was that I was not the original owner. I even offered to drive to their manufacturing plant in New Paris Indiana if they would do the repair. Their answer was fix it yourself or find a repair service. The problem is that the eyebolt nut is not accessible. I am still working on a solution. Any suggestions? Driving with a loose anchor tie down is obviously very dangerous. I am stuck with the camper now, but will take every opportunity to advise other about the extreme low quality of these campers. Hopefully, I have learned a valuable lesson, once again. This will be another costly one. I am looking forward to the day that I can purchase a quality made truck camper.

[SidecarFlip]

Travels with Yoly wrote:

pcaffrey wrote:
Yoly, Thank you for this post and I have read your others as well. I was looking at a few used travel light T/C due to pricing but don't want to get into a nightmare issue and don't have the resources to buy new. We have a 3/4 T truck and trying to get a feeling of weights. What did you get for a camper. Thank you.

We returned the Travel Lite 770R to the dealer in NC where we bought it. They understood our concerns with the 1/2 ton Ram 1500 and the weight of the TC. They took it back and basically refunded our money. Then we purchased the Rayzr FK from the same dealer for around $8,500. Two weeks later, we decided we couldn't live with the negative design traits of the Rayzr so we traded it in on the Adventurer 80RB. The dealer only gave us $6,500 for the Rayzr ($2,000 depreciation, or about 18% in 2 weeks) !! For what it's worth, if you have a 3/4 ton truck, the additional weight of the 770R probably wouldn't be a factor.

Sounds like they 'evened up' with your on the TC and made up the diffreence on the Rayzr.

I don't much care for the Razyr or the Willet design either. With me, the whole point in any TC is having the cab over bed separate from the rest of the unit.

I don'r see the Razyr being a big seller and 8000 bucks for a TC with no cabin over bed seems like a wad. Heck, my Palomino was only 2 grand more and it has a cabin over bed and everything else too as well as some room inside. Even has a wet bath.

RV's do have a very steep rate of depreciation which is why it's better to buy used but make it an informed buy, not a knee jerk buy.

[Travels_with_Yo]

pcaffrey wrote:
Yoly, Thank you for this post and I have read your others as well. I was looking at a few used travel light T/C due to pricing but don't want to get into a nightmare issue and don't have the resources to buy new. We have a 3/4 T truck and trying to get a feeling of weights. What did you get for a camper. Thank you.

We returned the Travel Lite 770R to the dealer in NC where we bought it. They understood our concerns with the 1/2 ton Ram 1500 and the weight of the TC. They took it back and basically refunded our money. Then we purchased the Rayzr FK from the same dealer for around $8,500. Two weeks later, we decided we couldn't live with the negative design traits of the Rayzr so we traded it in on the Adventurer 80RB. The dealer only gave us $6,500 for the Rayzr ($2,000 depreciation, or about 18% in 2 weeks) !! For what it's worth, if you have a 3/4 ton truck, the additional weight of the 770R probably wouldn't be a factor.

[pcaffrey]

Yoly, Thank you for this post and I have read your others as well. I was looking at a few used travel light T/C due to pricing but don't want to get into a nightmare issue and don't have the resources to buy new. We have a 3/4 T truck and trying to get a feeling of weights. What did you get for a camper. Thank you.

[Travels_with_Yo]

We also tried a Rayzr FK (full kitchen model) in an effort to find something that would allow us to cook and eat out of the elements while we slept and entertained ourselves in our Range Runner pull behind. The Rayzr was advertised at (from memory) about 875 lbs. The CAT Scale showed it to be closer to 1200 lbs. It uses a window mount 5,000 BTU A/C high up on one wall. Running the A/C all day made me curious where all the condensate water was going as not a drop was visible outside the camper. I called Travel Lite to ask them about it and they said that there is a pan beneath the unit to collect the condensate. So I asked him then, "so where does this water go" ? He replied that it just evaporates ! If you can't see this pan, how do you know it's evaporating or simply running down between the inner and outer walls. The salesman told me that they haven't seen any damage caused by the system .... this was after they had been on the market less than 6 months and sold only a handful. I didn't trust their logic. Secondly, we had this installed on a Ram 1500 with the 3.6L Pentastar engine. Previously we pulled a 3500 lb travel trailer coast to coast (8000 miles) averaging 14.2 mpg. With the blunt front on the Rayzr we averaged 12.8 mpg at best. We sold it back to the dealer taking a loss on that experiment. There are videos on our channel showing some of the modifications I had made to both the 770R and the Rayzr FK (all for nothing). The story has a happy ending as it forced us to get a 3/4 ton and a real TC. Finished a 9,500 trip to northern BC from Georgia this spring with our new unit without a single hic-up 🙂 The lessons we learn 🙂

[TxTiger]

I looked at a new Travel Light years ago. I noticed the seams at the bottom of the cab-over weren't well sealed. I pushed up on the bottom of the cab-over belly and water came pouring out of the seams. It left the factory that way. Really poor quality.

I own a North Star TC800 that has an 8 foot floor and my 2000 F250 is a short bed. It is specifically made for a short bed truck with side storage compartment wings. I think the hang over is about 14 inches. North Stars are made to also be used off the truck, so the floor structure is not an issue. I had to raise my TC about 3 to 4 inches, so I extended the platform I made to raise the TC to the length of the TC floor, so the platform also extends beyond the length of the bed.

[TxGearhead]

My opinion...it's not so much the overhang itself, it's where the center of gravity is. Best is the COG is forward of the rear axle. Behind the axle creates issues that need careful study...rear tire capacities, unloading of the front axle, etc.

[pcaffrey]

Thanks for all of the replies and I have one more question, I have been researching here and read a lot of opinions of a 8' floor length camper on a 6.5' truck bed as the overhang being a bad thing but not so much as a 10' camper in an 8' bed, am I missing something here or is there a difference.

[SidecarFlip]

The NorthStar look alike (actually RC Wilett / NorthStar came up with the design years ago and Travel Blight (pun intended) copied (and cheapened it up).

The NorthStar Vista is a bit more expensive than the RAZYR, but you get what you pay for in a quality built unit that will last for years.

[SidecarFlip]

GeoBoy wrote:
Look at Northstar TC's.

+2 and I believe they build a RAZR clone thats actually quality built.

[GeoBoy]

Look at Northstar TC's.