My crazy into into the Forest River world of Travel Trailers

[daddyntwins]

I wanted to take an opportunity to say hello to what I hope will become a very help group of fellow Forest River Owners. My wife, twins daughters and myself have been camping for a couple years using our 2001 Viking Pop-up. Usually, it's Daddy and the Twins camping most often, they wife usually comes to visit for a night or two during our trips. During those trips, I always had camper envy while touring the campgrounds.

In August, I sold our pop-up and spent almost two months in hot pursuit of a perfect new-to-us travel trailer. My goal was a bunk house with a front bed area, dinette booth, 2 bunks, and an oven. As a lung cancer survivor, I felt that it would be best to be a cash only buyer to prevent problems later if I were to experience more problems.

Here's the funny part. This week, I found a used 1999 Forest River Salem Lite 25' bunk house. It was in my price range, so drove 300 miles away with my father-in-law, and bought it. I pretty much was only concerned that everything worked, no leaks, and good shape, which it was. I loved it from the begining. On the drive home with the new TT, my F.I.L and I discoverd that the key tag said 27'. Today, my insurance agent and I were trying to asses it's value for the trailer, and I find that they only made a 29' bunkhouse in 1999.

So, it seems or new travel trailer stretched 2' on the drive home, and now it seems that it has stretched another 2' sitting in the backyard for 3 days. It pulled o.k. with my 1996 5.7L 4x4 Silverado extended cab. Not great, but good enough, and I babied it anyway. So, we will see how it goes. I might be working to make my truck tow better (power wise), or searching for a different truck. We shall see. Taking it camping on a dry run trip to our family farm this weekend.

[gsocamper]

Hello from NC. Enjoy your "new" camper!

[Old car]

Welcome to the group and you will find it very helpful. The model numbers aren't always a true indicator of the trailer length. Try to measure the inside living space and see what number you get.

Enjoy the trailer!

[Ovair]

Congrats on the trailer purchase, but you might want to investigate that length a little bit. NADA lists all kinds of bunkhouse models for 1999.
M-22BH LT - 24' M-24BH LT - 24' M-26BH LT - 27' M-27BH - 29' M-29BHSS - 31' M-31BH - 32' M-32BH - 33' M-37BHSS - 38'

[wmtire]

Using the wayback.org search engine (which is a great site for searching for older webpages), I was able to get to at least the 2001 Salems webpage from Forest River. If they hadn't changed a whole lot from the 1999 model year, here are some of your specs on the travel trailers and fifth wheels from that era.

It sometimes takes a few seconds for the pages to load from here.



http://web.archive.org/web/200104271...alem/27bhs.htm

Fifth Wheels

[daddyntwins]

Thanks for the information. I remember the weight of 52xx lbs. So, by that information I have a 27BH. Very helpful.