First Timer Shopping

[Country_Mouse]

Hi All! I am shopping for my first travel trailer, yippee!

I had my heart set on the Keystone Outback Terrain 250TRS, sorry, Taboo here I know.

I think that will be too heavy though so reconsidering.

Here is my set up:

2004 Ford Expedition 4X2 5.4, V8, 3.73 with Heavy duty Tow pckg and upgraded tires.

GVWR 7100
GCWR 14500
UVW 5384 (when loaded with family is 6300)
RAWR 4128

I am currently looking at the Jayco Jay Feather Ultra Lite X254.

Wondering when the 2016 models will roll out. I see a few of their camping trailers on their website are 2016's. Love the rear slide set up. Would be interested to hear any experience with this model. I have 4 kids, a husband and 2 dogs so need plenty of sleeping room preferably without having to use dinette bed.

Thanks!

Zoë

[RedHorse1]

Hey Country,
Good luck with your shopping. We pulled our first HTT with an '03 Expe 5.4. You can see in my sig that is was an X23B.
My sticker has the same weight ratings you post.
My weights from the CAT Scale:
TV only: Front-2860 Rear-3100 TT-0 Gross-5960
TV/TT w/ Bars: F-2700 R-3800 TT-3880 G-10380
TV/TT no Bars F-2520 R-4040 TT-3820 G-10380

My analysis says I had 600# on the tongue with the ideal range 442-663

These weights were loaded with the Bride, myself and the 11# wiener dog aboard.
My surprise was rear Axle was 3800 my Rear GAWR was 4128.
I was 328# shy of the Rear Axle max.
Add another couple and their luggage and I figure we were overweight.

Our tow experience was good. The big trucks pushed us around a bit but it was manageable. The 5.4 did an "adequate" job but I never ventured into the mountains. The MPG was not impressive as we never saw anything better than the high 9's.

We were 4420 loaded (I don't have the sticker weight any longer but I imagine the TT GAWR would be similar to the one you're looking at). If we'd loaded near the TT max weight we'd have been over the TV's limits.

We loved the 23B (lots of folks on the forum have them and all seem to share my opinion) but we bought it as an experiment and planned on an eventual upgrade.

It sounds like you've already weighed your TV which is an excellent start.
Plan your weights carefully and don't listen to the salesperson who will tell you that the Expe can pull anything on the lot.
The CAT Scale is your friend.

[Desert RVers]

Welcome to the forum! Hope you find a Jayco to fit your needs. I've seen some 2016's already appearing on RVTrader.com, but they are mostly pop-ups and a couple 5th-wheels.

[Jagiven]

Nice looking HTT. You might want to look at the X23F too, it is about the same weight, similar to the 23B that RedHorse was talking about. What I like about that layout is, while traveling you can stop and eat lunch without having to open up the slides to have seating.

You do not mention how old the kids are. If they are all under 10 years old, they are all going to be getting bigger and heaver. However if you have a few teenagers, you’ll be working towards empty nesting and your load over time will be getting lighter, instead of heaver.

[Country_Mouse]

Hi Jagiven, We are on both ends of the spectrum kid wise. Youngest is 5 and oldest about to turn 16.

[Country_Mouse]

Thanks RedHorse1, Our first tow experience we rented a 2010 27 ft Trailsport that weighed 5993 UVW. It was a good tow experience although no mountains. Our next tow experience was towing a 2010 27 ft Salem that weighed 7763 UVW. YIKES! Not a good experience. Towed that thing over the Grapevine too (very slowly.) Obviously we were WAY overloaded and rental place should of NEVER rented us that! Doing all this research now I just can't believe we did that. I just looked at the owners manual and didn't do all these math computations. Thought it was more straight forward. Live (thankfully we did) and learn.

The 2015 23B says it's about 500# lighter than the X254 which has me concerned now that even the 254 is too heavy although the tow calculators say it's fine. Hmmmm.

[gkf1970]

I would check Tow RV Check 2.0. I believe it actually a website and also an app