earthman wrote:
That's funny, I would have said that a conventional motorhome isn't a 'turn key' situation, well not when you have to drive it off a campsite every other day at least, to buy supplies or visit another town/attraction for example,....constantly having to put away the kettle, toaster etc and swiveling seats can be a pain. I know what you are getting at though, the loading/unloading the camper unit can be a royal pain I guess, we would aim to do it straight away when we arrive at a campsite and reload at the end of the holiday.
Great pictures by the way, I do like those B class American motorhomes, I watch a few people on YouTube who live full time in them.
What I meant by "turnkey" was that with a class A, B or C the whole vehicle is designed to be a camper and you are buying 1 thing - a dedicated camper ready to go. With a demountable you are buying 2 things - a pickup truck and a separate camper. So some effort is involved in matching the two, and remember the pickup truck was not actually designed to be a motorhome. So it just takes a bit more effort making sure you get the right combination and correct accessories installed. Having spent a number of years on the US truck camper forum there were a surprising number of people who bought an unsuitable pickup truck then installed a non-matching camper and as a result went through a whole series of expensive modifications before eventually upgrading to a heavier duty truck. The situation is simpler over here because but there are still things to consider such as the following - there are more things to consider if buying 2nd hand too:
Getting uprated tyres - this may not be necessary, but if carrying a lot of weight on the rear axle the average passenger car tyres a pickup truck comes with are probably not the safest bet - LT rated tyres are a good upgrade (I run BF Goodrich AT-KOs - load range D LT tyres).
Suspension - does it need to be beefed up at the rear, e.g. by fitting air bags? However airbags are not a cure-all. A badly overloaded truck or one with camper whose centre of gravity is way behind the rear axle, may be made to look OK by pumping airbags up to a high pressure, but that isn't reducing the rear axle weight or the bending force on the chassis.
Cab clearance - modern trucks tend to have higher cabs and the camper may need to be raised to clear it. Especially true if mounting on a Land Rover.
Centre of gravity and load bed length / camper length - this is easy to get wrong. One way around and you end up with a gap between the back of the truck cab and the front of the camper. More commonly people buy a double-cab truck and fit too long a camper so a lot of the weight is behind the rear axle. Pump the air bags up to make it level and the weight of the camper hanging off one end of the chassis and the engine, transmission and cab at the other put a lot of stress on the chassis roughly where the load bed meets the cab. There are pictures floating around of truck with bent or snapped chassis at that point (often D40 Navaras). So it is very necessary to look critically at the potential combination of truck and camper to ensure you won't be compromising the vehicle's strength (and its handing) by having the camper's centre of gravity too far behind the rear axle.
Tie-downs - you need some way of securing the camper to the truck. This is also affected by what you intend to use the camper for. Pickup truck chassis are designed to flex; demountable campers are often not designed to flex. Drive in twisting terrain causing a lot of chassis flex (which will be exaggerated if you have reinforced the rear suspension reducing its compliance) could cause damage to camper or tiedowns. I know one guy tore a tie-down out of his camper on an offroad coarse in Arizona. Those who do a lot of 4x4 trails in the US have not only spring-loaded tie-downs, but tend to reduce their tension when offroad so that a corner of the camper can lift in the load bed rather than cause damage. I.e. attempting to replicate the sophisticated three-point linkages in expensive overland campers on Unimogs etc.
Handling - Unlike a B-class, you have a fairly heavy box mounted high up and this does affect handling. You can't (or rather shouldn't) hurl it around corners like a van. This is also true offroad - obstacles need to be tackled slowly because of the inverse-pendulum of the camper on the back. Not a problem, but something to be considered.
Charging - often the 12v trailer socket from the truck has fairly small gauge wire and quite a long run resulting in a voltage drop and reduced charging. This is something else to consider, especially if running power-hungry devices like compressor fridges.
So all these things need careful consideration and a build-up of knowledge before purchase, where-as with a B-class RV you can probably just walk in with your credit card and expect to get something that works with minimal brain power expenditure.
Re the loading and unloading at campsite - experiment with it. We never unload at campsite and find that with some planning leaving the camper on when we visit locations is not a huge problem.
Steve.
but no money to do it lol.