Off road camper - DEFINITION please

Freezer

That would depend very much on your definition of "off road" and that means many different things to many different people.

Bart

They put off road stickers on any darn thing now. Half of the trailers & campers they are on are not fit to take the rubbish to the tip with. We get breakdowns with the poor people saying , but it's an off road one it should be strong. John sees red when he looks at some of the construction materials they have the hide to put off road stickers on.
I don't know what the required level would be except to say judging by the repairs we do, a bloody site better than they make a lot of them !
cheers, Anne

hi freezer,

ive looked at heaps of campers over a long time and today put a deposit on the best consructed and layed out camper ive ever seen for my needs and it is the heavey duty off road camper from redback campers at taylors beach (near salamander bay)goog price and great service from aaron
bb

Spent about half and hour pondering this one (instead of watching junk TV - and I'm the better for it :-0) - gave up - every definition I had was full of provisos and variables to the point of being worthless. What did I do ?.... spent $27k on what I thought was quality, and just got on with it... haven't been disappointed yet.

anything can go off road it depends how fast you want to go & how much weight you want to carry, 40 years ago i went 'off road' with a trailer you wouldnt be able to legally register today, & i still for the life of me cannot understand how a trailer can cost $20k & lately theirs one on the market for $50 , why spend that much money on a trailer? buy a caravan, park it & go bush in the 4by. thats my two bobs worth .cheers

Heavier duty suspension and extra ground clearance is a good start, followed by a strong sound chassis and draw bar with an "off-road" coupling to provide extra articulation.

Greater clearance between the top of the wheel and the mud guard to cater for the extra suspension travel is also necessary.

The off-road trailer will have a heavier floor, usually in checker plate steel and if it's overall completed weight exceeds the 750 kg maximum, some form of brakes.

After that, you start comparing differences in actual types of suspensions and whether the leaf springs are backed up by shock absorbers to limit fading when traversing corrugated tracks, or whether the trailer has coil springs and trailing arms.

That is about the minimum consideration that should be given.

It all comes down to YOUR definition of "off-road".

In the same way that one person will consider a Subaru Outback to be an "off-road" vehicle, whilst the next person might consider nothing smaller than a cruiser/patrol to be "off-road". Quite often these latter people will even scoff at a Prado/Pajero/Disco/Pathfinder etc.

There is no right or wrong.

You have to get very savvy, very quickly; before you get your cheque book cranked up.

If you have a Subaru Outback and want a camper trailer to "match" it, then you won't be requiring anything too "strong".

However, if you've spent the big $$$$ setting up your vehicle to tackle the more difficult tracks that we often hear about (eg: Cape York, Canning Stock Route etc), then you're kidding yourself if you think you can just spend $8K and get a suitable "off-road" camper trailer. In this case you'd be wanting to look mainly at the undercarriage for heavy duty drawbar and chassis, heavy duty shackled springs or good quality coils, name-brand shockers, excellent ground clearance with appropriate departure angle and nothing hanging down that can get dragged-off when you drop down a 350mm shelf/step. You'd also be looking to ensure that the superstructure is not made of paper-thin metal. You'd be climbing underneath to check the apparent quality of all welds etc....(ok, so you're no engineer....neither am I......but after checking out a few "cheapies" first and then looking at the more expensive ones, you should soon see the extra attention to detail).

Any canvas work would need to be compared too. The higher end of the market will use 12oz canvas whereas the cheapies will skimp on quality here too in most instances.

Matching wheel stud pattern and room under the wheel arches to accomodate the same size wheels as the tow vehicle is also a good idea.

That's just a few of my ideas on this topic. I am very satisfied with the camper trailer I chose in 1999 and have taken it everywhere I've wanted to go.......In other words there has never been a time when I've muttered...."I'd like to go to #### but wouldn't be game to trust the camper on that track".

Cheers

Roachie

Freezer,
I think Old magpie and roachie are on the money here. You don't need to spend piles of dosh on a trailer for a good one. But you do need a good one if you plan on doing serious 4wding.

The difference i see is the definitions of "off road" and "four wheel drive". I took a toyota corona to Arkaroola, Flinders, Lincoln NP etc. which is off road but not 4wding. (My little old toyota coped well with the punishment).

My GQ is 4wding. I have a s/hand CT 8 leaf springs, h/duty drop shackles, 2 tonne 50mm axle, fully welded right around the whole trailer, not spot welded. Where other trailers may have 2mm plates welded together, i have 50mm square steel frames holding it all together. Only cost me 6k for my Cameron.

That's the difference between off road and 4wd.

Barnesy

Just remember though most 4wd's would have an 'off road' towing capacity of less than a tonne (probably around 750kg) and duty cycle of way less than 100%.
Manufacturers towing capacities are for bitumen use only.
Trying to get a manufacturer to quote an 'off road' towing capacity is well nigh impossible.
The unbraked towing capacity for the larger 4wd's (cruiser/patrol) is usually pretty close to off road towing capacity.
Smaller vehicles it is way less.

Quote:

Also, what do you base your assertion on when you say: "Manufacturers towing capacities are for bitumen use only"............. given that (as far I know anyway) the handbook supplied with 4x4 vehicle doesn't actually state this anywhere? (I'll happily stand corrected if somone produces a handbook for some vehicle which DOES state something along these lines).

When you say: "The unbraked towing capacity for the larger 4wd's (cruiser/patrol) is usually pretty close to off road towing capacity", do you mean that when I town my Ultimate Camper (which weighs about 1200kg and has electric brakes), I am actually exceeding the capacity of my Patrol?

END

I think its the Discovery that actually lists this in their Handbook ???

Anyway , its a discussion that has often taken place with Caravanners , especially the Bushtracker guys.

I believe they use a "rule of thumb" that when off road 1/3 of the towing capacity should be the limit.

With your patrol being able to tow about 3500kg , you should be fine.

Thats one of the reasons that you see plenty of Patrols/Cruisers towing Bushtrackers , but the guys that DO take them offroad are usually driving the big trucks , F250's etc etc , for their increased offroad towing capacity.

Hello All

Lots of good discussion , and I think so far SAND MAN has come closest to a definition .

To develop SAND MAN's definition .

An off road CT must have ground clearance , track and hitch to match the off road performance of the tow vehicle . Suspension and overall strength must handle continuous bad corrugations and isolated severe impact with bulldust holes . Dust and water proofing must provide for prolonged extreme conditions . All parts must be easy to inspect , maintain , and repair .

stop mucking around, get a Kimberley trailer and go "off road"' your trailer will probably go were your 4wd won't.
cheers.

I think that this one is "Off Road"


Right off the road

Bob

Wow

I really got the ball rolling there. That was great reading, as someone said earlier beats sitting in front of the idiot box, well i reckon anyway.I would probably agree with Sandman. And as a few people said, people will do different types of offroading so the things sandman pointed out would be feasible to all offroad with varying degrees of these things depending on where you might go. (eg extra leafs, shockies ect ect)

At this stage i couldnt justify spending $20K on a trailer(maybe one day though) Not saying people shouldnt, but would probably be huge overkill for me. All i need at this stage is something i can drag through the sand and dirt. Corrugated roads for miles.........I will do that when the kids are older.

Cheers
FREEZER