How much off road can they handle?

[jnelson4x4taco]

Hello all, a few years ago I got away from the EXPO community when I sold my Tacoma for a turbo Subaru Forester. I was driving to downtown Denver and wanted a more "traffic friendly" vehicle. It was a sad day and a poor decision but thats behind me lol. Im happy to say that I will be getting into a truck again

With 2 dogs currently and kids on the horizon, my wife and I are looking for a truck setup that is a little more family friendly. My Tacoma was set up pretty well and even when towing my Coleman popup, it could tackle some pretty good trails. We are looking for a crew cab power stroke with a short bed and fitting it with some sort of hard side camper. My question is, how much off road capability do they have? It would be kept mostly stock but possibly a leveling kit and 285s. I know it will be vastly different from the Tacoma but my question is, "how much?" Any pictures you guys would want to share, showing your rigs off road would be great. As always, thanks for the help!!

-Jeff

[redthies]

I like the question. Can't wait to see the opinions. I will just say, get the lightest hard side you can find if you want to do more than fire roads!

[duneyeti9]

I tried it with a pop-up (Starcraft) and hard sided (Lance) camper on an F250 4x4 and was not satisfied with the outcome. Almost any camper will compress the suspension enough to leave almost no travel, making the ride unbearable and possible damaging to the camper. Airing down the tires is not an option with such a load. If I were to attempt it with a lighter camper I would shim the camper to fit snug into the bed limiting movement and loosen the tie downs to reduce the amount of stress.

[cnynrat]

We have a '99 F350 super cab/long bed with a Bigfoot C25-10.6 camper, which is a somewhat larger setup than you are thinking about. Our total rig weighs in right at about 10k pounds packed for a trip.

From time to time we do take it on dirt roads to reach remote campsites, but it's not the primary purpose of this rig for us. In general, the overall weight and high center of gravity of a typical hard sided camper will limit what you can do off-road. They can handle a reasonably well graded dirt road with few problems. They won't handle off camber situations very well at all. As noted above, you aren't going to have a lot of suspension flex left for articulation. We find washboard roads are passable, but slow going since it feels like the camper is going to vibrate apart if you run too fast. Another point to think about is the overall height can be a problem if you are in heavily forested terrain (I think ours is ~12.5' tall).

Something to consider is that if you get a camper with electric jacks they do come off the truck pretty easily, so if you are in base camping mode you can drop the camper and have the truck by itself to take on day trips. We do that frequently, and I don't find the truck itself to be very limiting off road other than the sheer size of it doesn't work on certain tight trails.

[goodtimes]

It all depends on where you want to go.

There are light weight options out there (such as FWC's new hard side) - but make no mistake, any slide-in camper is going to be pretty close to a full load for a 3/4 ton truck. They'll go down the paved road just fine, but will leave you wishing for more suspension when the road gets rough. Even my 3/4 ton Dodge with a FWC pop-up camper (advertised at 800 pounds) wallows around pretty bad in rough terrain - of course, fully loaded with water, food & gear, it's probably closer to 1300 pounds. Long travel air bags (Firestone makes a 10" travel bag that works great) will go a long way towards fixing that issue, but you'll have to remember that you're taking a really big, really heavy, vehicle off road (at least relative to a tacoma pulling a little camping trailer), so choose your route & drive accordingly. It ain't gonna ride like a well tuned rock buggy . . .

If you're looking at short bed trucks, be careful if you decide to put a 8' long camper (designed for a long bed truck) on it. They move the weight quite a ways back - putting much more of the load on the rear suspension. It can be done (I do it), but it certainly adds to the above problem.

Really, the biggest problem I've had is low hanging branches. Of course, I'm not going the same places that I used to take my TJ.

[Regcabguy]

My '07 stock 2500 Dodge CTD choked miserably with the weight of my Northstar. With the Dodge's Carli can custom design your suspension to handle the weight and leverage your camper will exert upon the frame. National Spring,Deaver and other's work wonders with the Ford's.

[jnelson4x4taco]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, that's about what I expected to hear but to get the feedback from folks who have been there was very valuable. My wife and I are still trying to figure out what fits best for us but are definitely leaning toward the super duty/camper idea. We have family in the Phoenix area and thought if we had a truck and camper, we could make the drive from Denver and hit some dirt along the way. We know that setup would limit us in a lot of ways but we would also gain a lot as far as convenience and amenities go. Witha little one in our future, I think the benefits outweigh the lack of offroad ability.

[jnelson4x4taco]

Not to stray too far from the thread but how much would the capability differ with a small bumper pull camper instead?

[FishPOET]

I typically don't take my truck and camper on a road I have not been on before in the Jeep. Like others have stated before it does OK on fire roads but not much else. Anything starting to get off camber scares the crap out of me. I can't imagine the nightmare that a truck and camper flop would be.

[jnelson4x4taco]

Maybe my eyes are fooling me but the first and last photos there look like more fire roads. That last pic looks like most trails I would be traveling; mostly dirt with a few rocky sections throughout. Thanks for the pics fishpoet!