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New Silverado HD LTZ Duramax with camper


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I just joined the forum. Last month I traded my 2006 Silverado Duramax 2500 for a 2015 Silverado 3500HD LTZ Duramax single rear wheel, crew cab, short bed. My primary use will be to haul my Bigfoot 2500 series slide-in camper. I'm going to share my initial experience, hoping it might help someone. First, since I hauled the camper around for several years in my old truck, the general experience wasn't new. But the camper was really maxing out the old truck in terms of GVWR. That's why I moved up to a full 1 ton, but wanted to stick with a single rear wheel. I also insisted on 4wd. Since my wife and I spend a lot of time in it, we wanted the LTZ version. Locating a fully equipped 3500 SRW LTZ was a challenge, but a local dealer found one a few hundred miles away, and picked it up for me to look at. Before I decided to buy, I did some very careful measuring to make sure the camper would fit. All seemed OK, so we did the deal.

 

I had the dealer throw in a spray on bed liner. Then I added some WeatherTech mud flaps, Firestone airbags, and TorkLift camper tie downs. The airbags are manually inflated, both from a single valve mounted in one of the rear bumper steps. This particular camper requires a short bed, and recommends a spray in liner and a protective mat or plywood. I've used plywood. However, when I first tried to drop the camper into the bed using the camper's electric jacks, I immediately discovered a problem. The bed right at the tailgate opening has inward curving braces, and the camper would have rested on these -- not good! However, I already knew that Ford trucks required a raised bed platform, so I simply attached several 2x4s to the underside of the plywood, thus raising the camper floor enough to clear the bed all the way around. The side to side clearance is pretty tight (more so than the old truck), so real care is required to drive the truck under the raised camper. Also, just like the old truck, the tailgate must be removed (to clear an onboard generator). That's a bit of a trick with the new truck. The camera wiring harness must be unplugged just aft of the spare tire, and a dummy plug (furnished next to the live plug) must be inserted to keep out debris. Then the tailgate must be removed; again, a little harder than before because of the rubber bushings, and the "open / close" assist feature. But once done, should be easy next time.

 

I weighted the truck in daily driver mode, and it weighted 7700 lbs. With a fully loaded camper, wife and me, and all our normal traveling gear, it topped out at 11900. That's just a bit over the GVWR, but the air bags level her out nicely. The rear tires are just a few pounds over their max sidewall rating, but my tire guy says should be OK. I air up to 80 lbs psi. I really miss the backup camera when the camper is on, but the wife serves as my backup eyes. We need about 12.5' of overhead clearance, so that requires care. We just finished several days of camping, and covered about 2000 miles with no problems. Overall performance was excellent, and the truck seems to have more power than the old one. Fuel economy was a couple tenths lower than in the old truck, averaging about 14.3 mpg. Mind you, that's at 11900 lbs, and all back roads. Hope this info helps someone out there in Silverado land.

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Thanks for sharing. My wife and I are planning on a Travel Trailer purchase in our near future ( year or so ) and that was the reason for getting the High Country. We are not looking at a 5th setup however. From what I have heard and seen, the 2500 Duramax should handle it just fine.

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The truck i would get if i was not plowing with it good luck she sounds very nice

 

You where talking about going from a 3/4 to 1 ton i have a question for someone in GM about the GVW i saw a regular cab 3500 long box 4x4 and the side window sticker said 10K gvw but when you look at the book or online it says 10,700 reg cab long box 4x4 in MA anything over 10K is commerical inspection i asked if a 1 ton could be D rated and the answer i got back was no . does any one know why ?

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