Pop-Up Campers

[OverlandingOkie]

Is anybody utilizing pop up campers? Was thinking of picking up a used one for the wife and kids. Wasn’t sure about suspension/durability in general on light off-pavement trails?
Any campers that sleep 2 adults + 2 kids around $5,000 worth considering for this?

 

[Dilldog]

Check out my sig line for our work in progress.
It really all depends on what you go with. There are many newer pop ups that are off roadish geared. For the older ones, you will find many (like ours) with a barely adequate torsion axle and small tires. Do your research on lift systems also. The older crank up and power up systems are very prone to failure due to lack of maintenance.
With a budget of $5K you should be able to find and rework a popup easily. My wife and I set a budget of $4500 on ours. I think we are at about $4K into it including purchase price. Because we are replacing the roof and lift arms we will be over budget, but oh well.

 

[Joe N.]

Hi. Had an 1990 Coleman Sun Valley for about 10 years. We bought it used in about 2000. We loved it. It was a smaller one 8' X 10', only the beds pulled out, no bathroom either. We never eat or cooked inside just slept in it. Took it all over southern, central and eastern California. It was perfect for myself, wife, daughter and daughters friend.

Suspension was a simple leaf spring assemble. Tires were over sized trailer tires, wider then a normal truck tire but not as tall; a bit expensive to replace but fairly easy to get. It was really easy to pull tire and grease the wheel bearings, too. I carried a scissor jack to make changing ties or working on it easier. Trailer never had any troubles on hard packed dirt or gravel roads. I thought she was great. She is long gone now, but some days I still miss her and the simple family trips we took with her.

 

[Truckee]

For $5k, I would suggest a used Kamparoo trailer.... and maybe those disc-o-bed bunk bed) for the kids. Simple and lightweight.

Kamparoo Campers - Lightweight Rugged Tent Trailers

Kamparoo Campers sells brand new lightweight tent trailers that can be customized to your exact needs. Rugged & made for all-weather camping in the wilderness.

www.kamparoo.com

 

[Anak]

We have an older (late '80s) Palomino hard side. It would not do well off pavement.

I have put a couple inches of lift under it, but that is not the issue. The problem is how these things are constructed in the first place. It is all cheap particle board. Particle board does not hold up under vibration. The particle board starts to break down, then the screws start to loosen and then things degrade at an exponential rate. It just doesn't work out well.

It should also be noted that these trailers are not light either. With slide-outs on either end and all the associated hardware for raising/lowering the roof these are a relatively dense package. I would not want to try dragging one up a trail. Or having one push me down a trail for that matter.

 

[Dilldog]

I was amazed how poor the build quality was of our cabinets, my wife is completely rebuilding them to make them stronger. Also the lift system mounting points can be very iffy and would need beefing up, that is our next project. As far as weight goes, our little guy originally is only 1100lbs, I figure once we get done with it it will be about 1600lbs.