Gross Vehicle Weight and Camping/Overlanding

[christopheru]

Turns out there is a road to James Bay in Quebec. Links to the Trans-Taiga road - northern most road in North America. That is likely next year’s fun.

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[Glamdring70]

(not seeing the weight with sunroof for some reason)

The roof holds 150lbs. The roof with sunroof holds 100lbs. Don't forget the weight of the crossbars or platform.

 

[Osco]

Yep our little Bronco Sports are as good as a half ton pick up truck.
People just think they need to carry so much gear when they really don’t.

 

[christopheru]

Yep our little Bronco Sports are as good as a half ton pick up truck.
People just think they need to carry so much gear when they really don’t.

Exactly. The trick is to know how much you can carry so that you stay well below that amount.
I mention over weight vehicles in part due to a very interesting video from 4wd24/7 which showed how over weight some of the touring rigs got down in Australia. Some of them got so that they had 7kg of room left for people. Oops.
My wife and I are planning trips which would see us living out of the BS for weeks at a time and getting very remote. Going to need to factor in battery systems and a fridge for a lot of what we want to do. Weight starts to matter.

 

[christopheru]

The roof holds 150lbs. The roof with sunroof holds 100lbs. Don't forget the weight of the crossbars or platform.

The plan thus far is to put recovery boards on the roof and extra fuel. That will load it up pretty much to the max. Hopefully, we won’t need the boards, but we almost certainly will need the fuel for the James Bay run next year.

 

[AndyMac204]

great discussion.

my 2 cents ... the bronco sport was 100% enough for myself and the gf to camp in the mountains. 2 adults, rooftop tent, all our coolers/food/gear and ALWAYS a full tank of gas when possible, we were pretty remote at times.

@Osco stated it best. figure out what you REALLY need to carry.

the bronco sport is awesome on a long trek, it just is. all the add-ons (winch, push bars etc) will add weight, but aren't really needed tbh. prior to buying our BS, we were planning on doing the trip in our 1988 dodge power ram 4x4. heavy truck, v8, no cruise - the gas alone would have murdered us.

 

[christopheru]

What you really need to carry.

Take that knowledge, a scale, and how much you can actually hold, and be ruthless. That should leave a bit for extras.

Butane single burner vs propane. Propane is heavy! (For example)

 

[dejones64]

What you really need to carry.

Take that knowledge, a scale, and how much you can actually hold, and be ruthless. That should leave a bit for extras.

Butane single burner vs propane. Propane is heavy! (For example)

Butane is harder to work with at certain elevations and temperature. May have to carry both, depends on where you are going.

 

[christopheru]

Butane is harder to work with at certain elevations and temperature. May have to carry both, depends on where you are going.

Good to know! Will depend on the trip then ?

 

[RRD]

I have been unable to find the Gross Vehicle Weight of the Bronco Sport anyplace. Ford isn’t telling…

This matters as each vehicle is specified for a maximum weight allowance for it to carry. That weight includes the vehicle itself and all options, tires, and any addons. It also includes people.

One of the full size specs has a max cargo load of 1160 pounds. That is NOT much.

Toss on a roof rack, tank of fuel, spare fuel and water, camping equipment, winch, fridge, power supply, solar, basket, food, clothing, recovery gear, big tires, a bumper? Etc and you can easily have a really cool truck which cannot carry people.

IF you are going to use your Bronco Sport as a low rent overland truck, remember this.

Suggestions are use Falken tires not KO2 as they weight 6lbs less each. That adds up if you are going to have a full size spare. Use aluminium addons, not steel. Put your rig - full fueled up with all your kit and all your people on a weigh scale and see how stuffed you are and then start tossing stuff.

If you modify your suspension, do so with an eye for increasing your vehicle capacity, not just getting a lift. Sadly, we have a unibody vehicle. I am not sure how easy it would be to increase through re-engineering the underside gross vehicle weight. People who know what they are doing can add bracing in the right spots for increasing GVW with a frame truck.

If you do load it up, consider braided brake cables, and much beefier brakes. Also, consider a transmission cooler (oil) and perhaps coolers for the clutch heading back to the rear in the drivetrain (non badlands models). Perhaps accept a longer setup and break down time and ground camp. Use back packing kitchen gear and leave the cast iron at home. Carry as little as possible. Titanium stuff is wonderful for being tough and very light.

Riding 1000s of km of rough roads and tracks will destroy an over weight vehicle (and over weight is quite likely illegal anyways).

Coming from my 3rd Tacoma and doing overlanding/off-roading with others from Tacomaworld I can tell you that no one I know ever worries about max cargo numbers. My Taco, optioned out max, only had less then 1k lbs for max cargo... 4 friends in the vehicle would max that out not including racks, spare tire, recovery kits, roof top tent, extra fuel, water, camping gear, food, diamonback HD bed topper... etc. Not to mention the extra weight with the 3" lift and 285 tires.

I have no idea how the BS is designed though, so that number might need to be kept in mind but Taco's are way over engineered. Those BS BL builds you see on youtube are way over that max cargo load capacity though.

 

[kbroderick]

Keep in mind that the payload may vary greatly within a vehicle range, and any manufacturer's statement of payload online is usually the maximum payload (often given by a particular spec, e.g. a stripped 2WD pickup with a heavy-payload package vs a more-common 4WD mid-range trim). It also tends to go quick; for example, I'm not sure what my wife's Bronco Sport weighs in at, but my F-150 has an as-built payload rating of 1804 pounds and a real-world payload of about 1200 with my butt in the driver's seat, some mods (including a winch bumper), and the normal "truck stuff" I carry (recover gear, spare jacket, etc). No, it won't blow up the second you go over that, but the further you get past that limit, the worse it will perform and the quicker you'll break stuff.

I'd expect the Badlands to be heavier off the line than anything else given the heavier-duty parts (skid plates, tow points with reinforced anchors, probably more driveline weight, etc) but I don't know if GVWR varies accordingly (on the F-150 line, Ford specs different springs and thus different GAWR and GVWR ratings depending on the configuration).

 

[NEFKANO]

Yup... while we are all impressed with our Bronco Sports... common sense and a pragmatic approach to what you should and should not be carrying should be a given...lol

As much as I like those roof tents I just can't justify the weight penalty and the raised center of gravity... I mean come on... a regular tent is just fine!

I'm still waiting to wear out my OEM Pirelli so-called AT tires, but honestly they're more road than anything else. However, I have crawled and off loaded with them quite a bit and not too shabby. But, yup some more aggressive tires will go on next.

For me this Bronco is my daily driver and my off-road monster... No need to spend 90K for a Raptor...hahahha even if you gave me one the increase in insurance and fuel would hurt...lol

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