I recently went back to the local scale for another weigh in for both my truck and camper. The last weigh in was eye-opening, but I had an extra passenger and lots of extra gear that we normally don’t take. This time I would go to the scales by myself with just a normal load.
Here are the results: without me, the truck and camper weighed 9,820 pounds. With me, the combo weighed exactly 10,000 pounds. This was with a full tank of gas in the truck and a fully loaded camper with full propane and fresh water tanks. Not too shabby. If you recall the GVWR of my F-250 is exactly 10,000 pounds, so this puts me exactly at the weight limit for my truck. But with my wife I will be slightly over, but I’m not going to say by exactly how much. I value my life!!! LOL!
This also means my Wolf Creek 850N truck camper weighs about 3,300 pounds fully loaded (a previous trip to the scales confirmed that the weight of my truck is almost spot on to the official listed weight of 6,700 pounds). This also means that with an official posted “wet” weight of 2,328 pounds, my camper has put on an additional 1,000 pounds of weight. No doubt, some of this weight has come from numerous modifications and enhancements, but the rest has come from food and camping gear. As you can see, it all adds up quick. The old pearl of wisdom that says to add 1,000 pounds to your camper’s weight when calculating the total weight has really held true for me.
My RV is underweight by almost 1,000 pounds. I have a small class B+/C with an E450 engine. Once on a 5 hour drive, I had passengers and all of their stuff and coolers full of food and ice and the RV actually handled better with the extra weight – not so many problems with the wind on the highway. Wondering if there is anyway to improve the stability of the drive when I don't have the extra weight on board.
Great question, Teri. There are a few things you can do. Does your RV have sway bars on both axles? That can really improve how your RV handles. Another option are Stableloads. These are placed in your leaf springs and engage the overload spring at all times. If you don't have either one of these, you might want to research them more and perhaps give them a try. Good luck, and let me know what you do.
Thanks, I will research these things.
Way to go! Would love to know how much our motorhome weighs