After buying our 2013 Subaru Outback in the summer of 2012 I started looking for the best Value/Bang for the Buck/Weight/Space for a pop up camper for our family of 4 + Dog (two adults and two kids 6 and 4 and a Lab/Border Collie Mix). We've been car tent campers since our kids were tiny and had a great Eureka Sunrise 11 dome tent (best family tent in my opinion). We never had a leak and set up was easy and it was really comfortable. Our main issue is that we always find ourselves on a Wednesday looking at the weather and saying, "Wow this weekend looks like a great weekend to go camping". After that trigger we would rush to gather the gear, put the Yakima cargo bog on the outback and then proceed to load and pack it up over the next two days. By the time we made it to the campground we were exhausted!
Our primary reason for getting a popup was to keep items in the camper that we would normally have to load up. Hopefully quickly we will get to the point where we are only loading clothes and food and maybe bedding. (thinking of maybe putting bedding in the giant ziplock bags)
We looked for a popup that would give us the best space for the weight considering tongue weight as well. The Outback even with its 2700# towing capacity is limited to 200# on the tongue. I knew I did not want to be signalling E.T. with my headlights so I focused my searches on light tongue weight campers! I quickly became very disappointed in the RV industry during my research. Even the units that were marketed as the lightweight units were rarely actually available in their listed "unloaded vehicle weight" or dry weight. The Starcraft Starflyer comes to mind. In 2012 Starcraft came out with their new Starflyer. I was looking heavily at it. It was only 1250 lbs dry and had a light tongue weight. It had a tent door like the QS which I was ok with, and then in 2013 they added a hard door. I was stoked! The unit only gained a little weight and still it was going to be ok to tow with the Outback, then something happened...Starcraft started adding mandatory packages such as the roof supports for A/C as well as other items. These mandatory packages pushed the weight minimums above 1500 lbs for the 10' model. I was still looking for a used model so i could get essentially a "tent on wheels", but used ones were difficult to find. Sure the Outback could probably still tow it,, but we would have less flexibility and would probably end up in the right lane going 20mph up a hill.
I kept seeing the Quicksilver campers, but always thought they were too expensive. One issue I have with Livin'Lite and the Quicksilver campers is that prices are all over the place for new ones. In speaking with dealers they were up front and honest and essentially Livin'Lite sells them to dealers in the same way other trailers are sold, i.e. deep discounts for higher volume, so essentially if you buy one at the right time, i.e. from a large volume dealer you could get a 10.0 for lower. With that I started making offers and got a little closer to what I could afford and then I found a couple 2006's that I was really interested in and ended up getting a much better deal! To be honest i'm glad I went with a used one as I had no idea the stuff we needed to load the camper and the cost associated with accessorizing the camper. I'm not suggesting no one buy new, but really these campers are simple and there is a lot less things to worry about given there isn't a lift system to worry about or a roof to worry about leaking. This made the Used vs. New decision much easier for us.
We hope to make our maiden voyage trip in the next couple weeks as we have been making some little fixes and doing some cleaning and stocking. I was also new to backing trailers so I want to be competent with that before the trip. [attachment id="759" thumbnail="1"]
Welcome from North GA. Nice setup....
Welcome from another Subaru Outback owner! I've been very pleased with the ability of the OB to pull my QS10. It even stops under tow remarkable well. Just a heads up that your rear disk brakes will need to be replaced a bit sooner than you might think if you pull your camper a lot. They aren't as large and the front brakes but take a bit more of the wear under tow.
[quote source="/post/9668/thread" timestamp="1429578832" author="@subaruwx"]Welcome from another Subaru Outback owner! I've been very pleased with the ability of the OB to pull my QS10. It even stops under tow remarkable well. Just a heads up that your rear disk brakes will need to be replaced a bit sooner than you might think if you pull your camper a lot. They aren't as large and the front brakes but take a bit more of the wear under tow. [/quote]Thanks, we do have surge brakes on our 2006 but I don't believe they are working properly. Probably just need to be bled and recharged. That should take some strain off the rear Subie brakes. We have almost 40k miles on the Outback so far. I just had it serviced and they were amazed at the low wear on the brakes. That's without a camper though
Nice looking Rig & Welcome!!!!!
Welcome to the board. I hope you have some great adventures with your QS!