Cargo Carring Capacity on Sprinter Vans

Greetings,

I was looking at the spects of a Roadtrek Sprinter Van and it seems there is not a lot of CCC available after you fuel up, fill your tanks with water, Fill LP tank and a few other systems.

Starts out with the GVWR at 9600 lbs (4354 kg) and subtracts unloaded Vehicle weight (8250 lbs) leaving 1,350 lbs for all other added weights including people. After subtracting fresh and HW wt., propane, SCWR, and factory supplied options, there is only 413 lbs left (187 kg) for food, cloths, personal belongings you might take. While I travel light this seems like very little capacity for having other items you may want. I was thinking of a hobby item of mine that weighs about 150 lbs.

Are those weights absolute (I would proably think not) and can you go over a hundred or two pounds without overloading your RV?? I can think of ways to increase some payload by not filling up fully at the pump and perhaps cutting back on a little bit of water (not something I really want to cut back on), maybe even losing a few pounds myself (like I should have been doing the last couple of years).

I know that I may get the I told you so by the larger RV owners (and there is a degree of truth in this) but I still like the idea of a sprinter van which I think is pretty good size for what I want to use it for. I've included the link to the Roadtrek site if you want to look at the specifications yourself and even look over some of the other things they have in the manuals.

Any thoughts listees have are always appreciated!!


http://www.roadtrek.com/_uploads/manuals/Roadtrek_Owners_Manual_%202010_Sprinter_RS-SS-Agile_models.pdf

'camperAl" ...

I gather that you are referring to the single rear wheel Sprinter chassis based on your numbers?? I have the Winnebago ERA on the Mercedes/Sprinter 3500 chassis with the dual rear wheels and it is showing a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) of 11030 pounds (5003KG). According to the information in my manuals the combined weight of cargo and passengers shouldn't exceed 2633 pounds (1194kg).

I too travel with full water tanks generally. I only boondock and don't have the luxury of being able to use city water connections when travelling. I pack very light ... including clothes and groceries etc. I do take my computer and camera equipment ... which in total weight maybe 100 pounds. I may also take a couple of lawn chairs.

Now ... when I do my 3 month trips I imagine I will be carrying a travel box on the hitch. The tongue weight is rated at 500 pounds so I will have to be aware of that. I really don't think I will have any concerns.

You may want to consider the 3500 chassis rather than the 2500 ... but then you will be looking a new or certainly newer since they just came out in the past year or so for the RV.

I did note with interest that the Roadtrek only has an 8 gallon propane tank, whereas mine is 16 gallons. I only have a 30 gallon fresh water supply INCLUDING the 6 gallon HW tank. So maybe that equals out somewhat.

Like yourself ... I can gain some extra carrying capacity by losing some of those extra pounds.

The SCWR may provide some wiggle room if you carry fewer passengers than the SCWR specifies. For example, if the SCWR is based on 4 people but you actally travel alone, you pick up 3 x 154 lbs in available capacity.

Are the weights absolute? Of course not, but the GVWR represents the chassis engineers professional opinion of what the vehicle can carry. One of the drawbacks to an RV is that it is nearly always loaded to max or near max, putting maximum strain on the chassis components. Running at max limits 100% of the time shortens the life of all components, leading to earlier failures than might be the case if it was fully loaded only 50% of the time. See where I'm going with this?  Exceeding the GVWR hastens the wear & tear and ultimately leads to earlier failures, but you may or may not actually experience one during your period of ownership.

Because we generally stay in RV parks where we hook up to water and use the camp shower, we never put water in our tank. And we've learned that we don't use much of the stuff we once thought we had to have with us. There are grocery stores at every stop. So who needs a case of canned foods, etc.? Thus, we seldom carry very much besides bikes, a camp stove, chairs, a small table, tools and a week's worth of clothes and a couple of jackets, towels and bedding. We've never weighed the van when it's "loaded" for a trip, but I doubt we exceed the cargo carrying capacity in our 2006 Roadtrek Adventurous Sprinter van.

Gary RV Roamer said:

The SCWR may provide some wiggle room if you carry fewer passengers than the SCWR specifies. For example, if the SCWR is based on 4 people but you actally travel alone, you pick up 3 x 154 lbs in available capacity.

Click to expand...

Hi Gary and all,

The SCWR is for 2 people on a Roadtrek Agille at 154 lbs each. My wife is under that and I am over.  Our weights would probably eat a little into the 408 lbs remaining fully loaded. While I wouldn't want the RV to fail in some area, I am more concern with safety (ours and people around me).


I think that part of the fun of RV'n is to figure out things and get around them. I had ideas of putting a platform on the hitch in order to carry a bulking item and spare tire. I only hope the spare tire wieght is included in the gross weight now!! I might have to figure on the 3500 frame now. Not sure if the Adventurous has that frame or not. Will have to take a look.

Like the idea of not having a lot of water in the tank until you get to a RV park. Best to all!

Greetings,

I know how it looks to be answering my own questions here (please stop me if I get in a conversation with myself)    After looking at some other information on the net, I found out that the newer Roadtrek Adventurous on a 3500 chassis have a GVWR of 11030 lbs with a an empty weight of 8150 lbs. That leaves 2880 lbs for you and your cargo.

It is the Agile on the 2500 chassis with a GVWR of 8550 lbs and a "empty" weight of 7100 lbs. That leaves 1450 lbs for people, cargo, fuel, etc. but Roadtrek refered Adventurous users to the Agile manual. Probably should have stipulated a 2500. I'll try to find out when they started to use the 3500 chassis (think it was 2010 or 2011). That is obviously better if you want to haul more than 400 lbs after filling tanks, propane and etc., 1800 lbs seems better than 400 with a heavier chassis. One negative is the less efficient milage of 18+ over the 22 to 24 in the 2006 Adventurous.

I might be tempted to go the 2006 route and not fill tanks all the way until arriving at a destination to prevent ware and tare on the RV as Gary suggested.

On average I'm getting 20 mpg on the ERA with the 3500 chassis. It runs between 18-22 depending on load, speed and terrain etc.

If I understand you correctly you figure it is worth one or two miles per gallon to drop down to the lower carrying capacity?? No  sure I see the logic in that. Then again, i am not a destination person so I need to carry my water and propane etc with me. At times I may only carry half a load ... depending on the length of the trip. Of course I always have the option to top up water and propane while travelling if need be.

Personally, I would rather have the extra carrying capacity. I don't want to have to start counting "ounces" when I am travelling.

All the best on your deliberations.

Karsty

Hi Karsty and all,

To me if your getting 20 miles to a gallon, thats reasonable for an RV in my opinion. I suppose I could justify a 2006 if I planned on putting on a lot more miles in a year.

Guess I am just thinking out loud and kicking ideas around when it comes to all the considerations on buying a B Rv. I've heard the 5 cylinder Roadtreks get as much as 26 miles to a gallon of fuel, and I see that they advertise 18 miles plus for the 3500 chassis. I am sure you can get better milage but there is something like a 5 or 7 miles per gallon of fuel to consider. That is a 1/5 better milage or more! It does add up but like you said better to have carrying capacity over a few extra miles.

BTW, I got to looking into the 3500's due to your post so thank you for your comments.

I come up with any more thoughts on this I'll post them here.

Just a thought on to carry water or not to carry water.  We do.  And, twice we were glad we did when the park's water system failed and we were told not to drink it.  Of course, we could buy bottled water at the camp store....until it ran out.  We luckily carried our own water and will continue to do so, just in case of another occurrence.

Hi Doug and all,

If I bought a 2006 Roadtrek with a cargo carrying capacity of only 1440 lbs (includes people, fuel, water, propane and any Roadtrek extra accessories) I'd probably put 10 gallons of fresh water in during travel and then when arriving at a camping spot add more water. If water wasn't available I would be willing to make a trip in a reasonable short distance to fill up. Water is critical in my opinion too but the 20 less gallons would allow 166 more lbs while traveling. I also want to take some bottled water inside for cooking and drinking during driving to make sure there was enough for my wife and I.

Quality of water is another subject but being from the midwest and having reasonable good water here, it would be nice to take water that I trust to be of good quality. Weight factors would have to be considered when RV'n.

I usually don't go out west without about 2 gallons of water with me in my van when traveling. I appreciate your input and I can see where not having enough of a water supply could be a bad thing as well. Best!

gdoug said:

Just a thought on to carry water or not to carry water.  We do.  And, twice we were glad we did when the park's water system failed and we were told not to drink it.  Of course, we could buy bottled water at the camp store....until it ran out.  We luckily carried our own water and will continue to do so, just in case of another occurrence.

Click to expand...

I'm paranoid about water, and always keep my tanks full if I can. 

One thing I hope to add to the RV is a berkey water filter.  This would be one way to cut down on how much water to carry, in case of emergencies, is to have a good water filter.  With the berkey, you can take stream or lake water and always have safe drinking water. 

Expensive though. 

http://www.berkeyfilters.com/

I realize this is kind of an old topic at this point but wanted to say that I find the low carrying capacity of the Sprinter discouraging. Last weekend we went and looked at the Leisure Travel Unity with the Murphy bed, very cool RV, but the carrying capacity is only 480 pounds. This is the Mercedes-Benz 3500 chassis. We had a hard time finding this info but after talking with the factory sales rep he said after figuring in "2 passengers", full water tank, fuel & LP you're left with 480 lbs carrying capacity. Well that's not much and then after much searching I found the number the factory uses for "2 passengers" is 154 lbs/ea. Well the wife & I combined are 232 lbs over that total passenger weight. Then factor in we carry 2 Segways at a combined weight of 210 lbs and we're left with a carrying capacity of 38 pounds!  HA!    Not much for everything else we need to camp. We were pretty bummed because we really liked that RV.  

-Alan

Hi Alan and listees,

Always glad to see some traffic here in the conversion van area and your post! I think there is a trade-off for that van because of the big bed and bath. That adds a lot of extra weight to an already limited system. Just one of many items one has to consider before purchase.

Even some of the smaller class c's that have a sprinter van frame and cab have limited amount of cargo weight they can handle but have more room for the passengers which is again a trade off.

Good luck in your search and glad to see you here on the forum! From one AL to another  ;D