New Full Time BH

Got a question for all of you on this new Bighorn for fulltime living. If I remember the correct model it was a 3270. I really liked the floor plan and layout. After I tell my wife, look at this thing and she says thats nice. No the desk isn't there and for fulltimers IMO thats a must. But thats not what took me surprise. It was the 6000 LB axles! Why would you only put 6000 lb axles on a fulltime unit? That to me is asking for problems. I know, you can order the unit with the heavier axles and pay the price, but on an advertised fulltime rig? I know we are going to get into the weight of the unit and all should be good, but this is for fulltime. Bigger is better.......lol

Just shaking my head here a bit on this.

Dave

Hi Dave,

The Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) is the maximum allowable weight of the trailer, all loaded up. The shorter Bighorns have a GVWR of 14,000, of which a little over 2,000 is on the pinbox. The remaining weight, up to the max of 12,000 remaining is on the axles. The 12,000 or less actual weight is divided across the two 6,000 pound axles.

The same methodology is true of the larger Bighorns and the Landmarks with GVWR of around 16,000. 2,200 - 2,600 on the pinbox, leaves almost 14,000 on the 7,000 pound axles.

Not sure what this has to do with being full-timers.

Seems to be a common design approach.

I think you meant the 3070...that is one of the smaller units, only grosses out at 14k...since more than 2k will be on the pin, 6k axles are all that is required. As for the lack of a desk, you can only squeeze so much into a smaller package.

kakampers said:

I think you meant the 3070...that is one of the smaller units, only grosses out at 14k...since more than 2k will be on the pin, 6k axles are all that is required. As for the lack of a desk, you can only squeeze so much into a smaller package.

Click to expand...

One of the reasons we picked the 3055, no longer made, is that my wife wanted a desk and it was the only floor plan that offered the desk and was the size we wanted. I upgraded to 7,000 pound Dexter axles, G rated tires, and heavy duty brakes. I like to overdue the running gear on my trailers for peace of mind.
Don

Pick up whatever floor plan you like and do what you want. We have been in our 3055 for almost 2 years. We are currently building a house and will be anytimers rather than full timers in the near future.

We full time AND run a business from our BigHorn 3670. Thought the desk was a necessary item. Nope. Do most of my work from the dinette table, the couch or one of the recliners. Biggest problem (with our design anyway) was the chair for the desk. Always in the way, seldom used.

Laptops a necessity for this, but looking back, we both would have rather gotten the bigger screen TV than sacrificed for the desk.

I understand the weight distribution and you are all correct as far as the weight. Now lets look at it from another point of view. Why would you put axles so they are at there max instead of giving a little bit of room. It's not just the total weight of these trailers. It's the bouncing up and down they get on our beautiful roads that we deal with. These trailers are at times coming right up off there total weight at the tire and then slamming down on the pavement with a lot of force. Another words if you take a sledge hammer with and just raise it up and drop it you have a lighter hit than if you put power behind the same weighted sledge hammer. A fulltimer will be doing this a lot more than just the vacationer that puts in most cases very little miles on there unit. Where as the fulltimers are putting a lot of miles on these roads. Thats my theory and I may be wrong. I know they do these things to be cost effective, but really 7000 lb axles vs 6000 lb axles can't be that much more and then your giving some strength to the whole unit. It seems to me fulltime units just need to be beefed up a bit more.

Dave

Dave, I get your point about margins. Sometimes when engineers spec a part, they design in some headroom or margin. The margin allows for variations that may occur in manufacturing and also may allow for those bumps in the road that you've mentioned.

So if they spec 6,000 pounds, we might ask if the "real" maximum load is 6,000. Did they build in zero margin? 5%? 10%? 20%? Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing.

Sometimes we can get a hint by the anecdotal failure reports that we see. For example, I suspect that Maxxi tires have more design margin than other E-range tires.

If we had story after story about 6,000# axles failing, I'd assume they didn't have enough margin and I'd be shopping 7,000# axles. Since we don't seem to have a lot of 6,000# axles failing, I'll guess maybe they have enough design margin built in.

If I view a potential axle problem in terms of risk management/mitigation, I would balance the $464 cost of upgrading the axles against the cost of the risk event occurring. That's calculated by multiplying cost of repair by likelihood of failure. If I assume $3000 to replace axles and tires, and a 5% chance of failure over 5 years (do one out of 20 Bighorns need replacement axles within 5 years?), the cost of the risk event is $150. If I thought it was 15% (3 out of 20), the risk event would be calculated at $450 - a wash.

Obviously we have to make guesses about possible failure rates. We also have to evaluate how much our peace of mind is worth. Maybe $454 isn't a lot to pay for peace of mind, even if the risk is low.

Dan I like your point of view also. And you are correct in thinking that that margin is already built in. I in fact hadn't thought of it that way. So we learn another possibility on the thoughts. Sometimes I wish they just would throw the specs out the window and not give them to us so we don't have to think!! There was a time way back when that weight, axles, tires, size of tow vehicle etc. never mattered to us. If it hooked up and went down the road we were good. Wow, how times have changed.

Dave

I guess I have to ask. If you already have a 3670, are you considering downsizing to go full time? Why not just stay in the current rig?

As of late February or very early March ALL Bighorns have 7000# axle's. We were at the factory in mid February and were told that they are changing to all 7000#. Ask your dealer or call customer service.

I would wait or order one of those, also the G614 Goodyears.