Wednesday, May 13, 2020 at 19:15
Ang V
I agree with Travelling's reply. Professionally built slide ones usually resemble a five star mobile hotel room. There is so much in them that they are very heavy and have broken far too many of the popular utes.
It is not the design of the ute that is the problem though. The slide on can be within the ute's weight limit but they often have far too much heavy material in them that is located too far back towards their rear end. This
places too much downward pressure on the rear end of the chassis too far behind the axle.
The distance between the axle and the end of chassis is a lever. When the wheels fall into a hole in the road, the rear end of the car drops down and so does the material sitting on it. It then builds up momentum. A split second later the wheels rise up again and lift the chassis. The stress on the chassis increases enormously as it has to stop the falling material and heave it up instantly.
All utes are subjected to these stresses but they don't break when they are being used within their design limits. Far too many slide ones take them outside those limits. When that happens, all the aftermarket springs or air bags in the world are not going to stop the chassis from bending if it is over stressed.
If you really want a camping body on your car then do what my wife and I did. We removed the ute's tray and built a permanent body on the chassis. It is 2400 long, 1840 wide and 1 metre high. A section of the roof about half the floor area lifts straight up so we can stand up in it. The reason it is so low is so we can get it into our garage.
Entry is by a small 800 mm high side door. We have no trouble getting in through it even though we are both 74.
It weighs 220 kg empty. The aluminium tray that it replaced weighed 130 kg. The vast majority of the weight when loaded is forward of the axle. Across the rear end is a permanent double bed. It also contains a 40 litre fridge, a portable
toilet and a shower can be set up inside it in a few minutes. It has very little weight behind the axle.
The car's
suspension is stock standard.
So far it has taken us everywhere from mountain tracks to what is left of the
Gunbarrel Highway west of
Warburton plus many other
places. We have just finished living in it for seven months while a new house was being built for us.
Put a lot more thought into what you want. Think about mass (The amount of material in something) instead of just weight which is just a measure of the pull of gravity. You can't buy a piece of weight.
Learn about weight distribution in cars, particularly dual cab utes. A major problem there is few owners realise their five seats are major load bearing areas designed to carry five average weight men. You can't have half that weight up front and the rest of the car's payload out the back and think everything is fine. Many do that then blame the car manufacturer because the rear end is sagging.
AnswerID:
631540