I have a 97 F150 XL. I just bought a camper for it, and relized I was WAY overweight. I think I need to upgrade my truck. I am looking at getting a 99-2000 F250 Super Duty, 5.4 litre V8, extended cab, short box, 4X4. I know what the listed curb weight is, but this is way below what the actual weight of the truck is. What I want to know is, does anyone know the ACTUAL weight of this truck (or one like it) with 2 people, and a full tank of gas. Just trying to make sure that it can (legally) take my camper loaded with gear.
Thanks, Karma

 

Karma
I didn't have a F250 sd sc but I did have a 2002 F350 sd sc 4x4 with 5.4 gas with me and my cap and a full tank of gas it weighted 7000 pounds and I could go to 10,000 which was 100 pounds over loaded. So if you wanted to stay legal you could load 2900 pounds in the truck. Now back then a f250 gross weight was 8800 pounds or 1100 pounds less then mine.
I got rid of the truck because it no longer fit the family and now have a F250 crew cab that grosses at 10,000 pounds the same as I did with my old F350 so I went down in truck size and stayed the same in gross weight. I can carry 2350 pounds in the new truck and the old one was something like 2600 pounds the difference must be in the engine weight. For what I use the truck for now it works and so far the diesel is much better on fuel then the old gas truck. Mileage with the gas was 10-12 in the city and 14-16 on the highway with most of it at 14 on the highway. The new truck gets 14 in the city and seems to be getting 18 on the highway. These are hand calculated mileages.
If I were going to carry something heavy like a camper I would get the F350 with 430 gears but that is just me and my next truck is going to be a F350 lariet crew with 430 gears and 26000 pounds of carrying capacity with a flat bed 14 foot long and 4x4. The rig will do anything I need done on my small ranch and I will still have the F250 to go places with the family.

 

Thanks for the reply. Let me see if I understand your post though. You currently own an F250 super duty, crew cab, with a diesel engine. The truck is rated (GVW) at 10,000 lbs. You can legally carry 2350 lbs. So your truck weight 7650 lbs? That seems a bit high. Is the same truck in the U.S. rated to carry more than the same truck in Canada? From what I have read, the listed GVW on an F250 Super Duty is 8800 lbs. The listed curb weight for an f250 super duty is 5440 pounds. Does that mean that your truck's extras (4x4, crew cab, diesel engine) add an additional 2210 pounds?
Thanks,
Karma

 

i dont think they ever made a superduty that light unless maybe a chassis cab.

 

My F350 Fully Loaded SRW FX4 Crew Cab weighs 6,600 lbs at the scale every week.
2,000 lbs puts you on the helper spring. I have had over 3,000 lbs in the bed. Truck squats very badly. I am going to install Ride-Rite air bags soon.

 

Karma
My F250 is a 2006 and they have pushed the Gvw's way up on the trucks. The 8800 pounds you talk about is what the old F250's used to be. My 2002 F350 gvw was 9900 pounds and I just took it 100 more to make it 10,000 and never had problems with it. The old F250 gvw was 8800. The new ones are F350 gvw of 11400 for a single rear wheel configuration and the F250 gvw is 10,000 ford finally got the idea we put weight in these trucks and has acted accordingly. My crew cab weights more than my super cab but as to what the truck weights right now as it sits I don't really know as I have not weighted it yet.
As to how much you can put in the truck I haven't found out yet, but my old F350 sd sc 4x4 srw 4.10 gears 285 tires 5.4L I did gross 10,000 in the truck and 8,000 with the trailer on the back and it pulled it just fine but did like gasoline real good too. I see no reason why I couldn't do the same thing with the new diesel and get better mileage to boot. As to going down on the springs never was able to get my F350 to squat that bad and I have a brother who is a contractor and we did load this truck a few times and we also loaded way to much hay on it to go down the road and it never squated so I don't know how to get it to. Me I don't think I would buy a gasoline engine right now, but after January 2007 that is a different story when the EPA crap engines hit the market. I don't think I would pay 8-10,000 dollars for a diesel engine. That kind of money would buy a lot of gasoline before you even start using your own. I don't know if the average person could ever get there money back on that cost for the engine. Seems like a good way for the EPA to get rid of the little guy using diesel engines.

 

I suspect the 1999 - 2000 F250 will still be overweight with your camper, unless it's very light. The newer 2005+ SD have increased payloads, and it may be out of your budget, but I'd try to get one of those.

My 2005 F250 weighs right about 6900 with me in it, so close to 6700 without a person in it. The GVWR is something like 9900 so that puts total addl weight of people, fuel, camper, gear, etc at only about 3000 lbs, and from what I've seen, a lot of campers can exceed that. Certainly with gear and people I think I'd be overloaded. If you want a truck to haul a camper, I'd buy a 2005+ F350 My thought is anything else it going to leave you wishing you had more weight capacity.

What is the weight of your camper?

 

Ace!'s question is probably the 1st you should answer (weight of your camper), and then you can "back" into the right truck capacity -- unless you also plan to change your camper to fit the new truck...

We too had a '99 F250 PSD 4x4 with the 8800 lb rating. The camper certificate said we could carry a camper of only 900#!!! Of course, that rating assumes all seating positions are filled with a 150# person, so less people = more camper capacity.

We went through another truck ('05 Chevy Dmax 3500) after the '99 trying to get ourselves "legal" (with camper on board, staying within the rated capacity of the truck). We still were overweight on the dmax by 500+ lbs, so we bought the F350 in my sig., and while I haven't weighed the whole rig yet, we should be under rated capacity by about the same amount.

There are many here (and elsewhere in the RV world) that will upgrade the truck with a set of air bags (air springs) for load levelling, and then calculate what their axles and tires can actually handle, figuring this is safe even if it's over the truck's rated capacity. We aren't willing to do that, but to each his own.

If you have a place near you that has a set of truck scales (gravel yard, or any place that sells by bulk weight), they often will give you an unofficial weight for free or little charge. I'd start by weighing your F150 empty, then return with your camper and weigh it again (if it's safe for even this small trip). That way you know the actual weight of your camper as a starting point. you might want to get a total weight and a weight on just the rear too -- tells you how much of the camper weight goes where.

Good luck and I'm more than willing to help more if I can -- we've been going thru this for a couple of years now ourselves...

 

Thanks all, for the replies.

The truck I currently have is a 97 F150 extended cab, 4X4, short box, with the 4.6 Litre V8. When I weighed my truck and camper with 3 people, 1 dog, all the gear, full of fuel, propane, and water it weighed 8228 pounds. I have overloads in the truck, so it HANDLED the weight ok, but I was over my GVW by 2228 pounds! ****!
I do have a light camper though. It is actually made for an import truck, so it is only 40" in the wheel wells. It is 8'4" and fits the truck perfect once I made a 4 inch bunk for it to sit on so that it wouldn't hit the cab of the truck. The sticker on the camper says that it weighs 1267 pounds with water and propane. That means that I had 6961 pounds worth of truck, passengers, fuel and gear. The "listed" curb weight of the truck is about 4200 lbs. But add 4X4 , a bigger engine, and the extra cab, and it is probably more like 5800 lbs. Which would leave me with 1161 pounds of gear. This probably close to what I had. To make a long story short, I am looking for a truck to carry (legally) a 1267 pound camper, and 1161 pounds of gear. So I need the difference between my GVW and the actual weight of the truck to be at least 2500 pounds.
IF you had a 99 PSD (power stroke diesel?) that weighted 6600 pounds, with a GVW of 8800. It would allow for 2200 pounds of camper and gear. I could gain a few hundred extra pounds of carrying capacity if I got the 5.4 L engine instead of the diesel. I think it would work. I've been making some phone calls to people that have the truck I am looking for in the paper, trying to find someone that has actually weighed the truck. No luck so far. The F350 and any F250 newer than 2003 will be out of my price range. Maybe I'll just have to save up and wait a bit longer and get an F350, but until I can get something capable of carrying my camper (legally), the camper is sitting in the back yard collecting dust.

 

I didn't read all of your post diesel_dan, before submitting my last. My plan for this week is to do exactly what you said. I'll go to the dump here and weigh the truck alone, and then come back to weigh the camper. In my opinion, it is quite safe. We just got back from a 3500 km road trip with everything fully loaded (overloaded) with no problems. The truck has great overload springs that take the weight fine. I just want to be legal. We live in Tofino, and we don't want to do a trip across Canada, or down the Oregon Coast, only to run into one nasty DOT guy (or girl) that makes up take off the camper in Nova Scotia and leave it on the side of the road! Thanks for your offer of assistance on this, I may take you up on it.
Thanks again,
Karma.

 

Karma: no problem, glad to be of help. You asked for the actual weight of a '99, and I still have the weight slip from mine. I was on certified scales at a local gravel quarry (they get calibrated/checked by the Ca. Dept of Weights and Measures regularly) and the the truck was full of fuel with only me in it:

7400 lbs total
3000 lbs rear
4400 lbs front
(I weighed about 185lbs then)

The truck was a '99 supercab longbed 4x4 PSD with automatic trans, manual transfer case, a standard rubber bed mat, 285/75/16 tires on stock aluminum wheels, Air Lift Air Bags, and with the tailgate on.

My camper is a 10.6 Bigfoot and while the sticker says it should weigh 2570#, it's really about 3000# without water and gear. The truck handled fine and felt terrific with the camper on, btw, but the data told me I should worry... I didn't even weigh the truck with the camper on, just call me paranoid...

From the info. you've provided, you should get away withan earlier F350 SRW 4x4 even with a PSD (I loved my 7.3 PSD!!!)

Now go FIND one!!!

 

Karma

I recently purchased a 99 F250 Superduty 4x4 with a 5.4 liter v8. I can't weigh it where I live but next month I will be taking it to the mainland for servicing. If you can wait till then I can give you an answer.

 

Thanks Mike,

I sent you a PM.

Karma