Hi aqualung,

Thanks for the response and for the GREAT information/explanation! It's actually making sense to me now. You also brought up great points regarding the insurance and legal side of things that I didn't think about.

I'd characterize myself as a conservative person who would error on the side of caution so that helps with matching campers to trucks. Your spreadsheet idea will be useful determining what items will actually be loaded into the camper.

Thanks again for the great insight. This is a great forum with many helpful people.

Regards,
Charles

P.S. Now I can use your information to convince my wife that I need a bigger truck!

Hello,

We're looking to join the truck camper world but I'm having trouble understanding how to match truck to camper particulary in regards to payload. At this point we have neither a truck or camper yet, and from the recommendations, selecting the camper first seems to be a better starting place.

From my understanding, a deciding factor for a match is a camper's approximate wet weight compared to a truck's payload capacity, is this the basic rule?

Assuming this is correct, here's an example of my confusion using Lance 825 and Toyota Tundra only as an example (I don't mean to bash a company or anything, just trying to explain the confustion).

On TC Magazine site they list Lance 825:

Dry Weight: 1,755
Wet Weight: 2,640

On Lance's website they list the same dry weight of 1,755 and claim it's light enough to fit on a Toyota Tundra. However the highest payload config for a Tundra I came up with was around 2,090lbs (Regular Cab, 4x2 Tundra Long Bed, 5.7L, V8).


Is this just a case where it's safer not to put that camper on a Tundra?


I guess in short, my question is once you select a camper, is it a 'MUST' to then select a truck that will cover the approximate wet weight?

Or "going by the numbers", do most people exceed the payload limit?

Sorry for the long post...

Many thanks in advance,
Charles