Question:
My wife & I have owned 3 Scamps in the past several years, but after what
has happened with the last one I will not be owning any more. We started out
with a 16' pull behind several years ago, after being told by Scamp that we
could easily pull the 16 footer with our 93' Nissan 4x4, 5 speed, 1.7 liter
motor. We found one used & purchased it, on the day that we bought the Scamp
there was a very strong head wind hitting us & I could not get the truck up
past 50 mph. We wrote it off as just the very strong head wind, until not
long after this we were going camping & hit a small head wind of about 5
mph. Our Nissan was lugging & grunting for all it could, I told my wife that
we had a major problem. We finally got to the campground & the little motor
was making crackling
noises for the next 30-45 minutes. We decided to trade our truck off & go
with a 2000' Ford Ranger 4x4, 5 speed, 4.0 liter engine. This truck pulled
the 16 footer pretty well. In the Fall my wife & I had spotted a Scamp 5th
wheel at the Scamp dealership, we decided to see if we could trade for it &
we worked out a deal on it. The salesman at Scamp told us that it was too
bad that we traded the Nissan off because it would have easily pulled the
5th wheeler because it was more aerodynamic. The Ranger pulled the 5th wheel
pretty well until one day when we tried too haul a small kayak on top of a
roof rack on our truck. I had to keep looking in the mirrors, because it
felt like there was a big parachute dragging behind the trailer. We had only
traveled maybe 10 miles when we turned around & dropped the kayak back off
at home. We knew that we were pretty close too being maxed out on the motor
again. Definitely too small for traveling West into the Rockies. Then last
Fall we had stopped off at Scamp on the way home from a camping trip, we
took a look at our first Scamp 5th wheel deluxe & loved what we saw. We
decided to trade for the deluxe version, because this was our third Scamp we
knew this time what exactly we wanted done to it when we ordered it. We put
almost every option on it minus the oven & vent hood. We asked Scamp if this
new trailer was going to be much heavier than our previous Scamp & were told
not much & that our truck would have no problem. We picked the new trailer
up on December 10th & everything looked really nice cosmetically. On the way
home we noticed that it definitely pulled harder than the standard Scamp 5th
wheel. Last week we decided to stop over at our local Ford dealer & see what
they had on the lot, we found a really nice 99' F-150 off road, 4x4, 5 speed
manual, 4.6 liter v-8 engine with only 35,000 miles so we bought it. I had
told my wife that this time instead of going up to Scamp & purchasing their
home made way too expensive hitch, that I would put in a goose neck hitch
that we could finally take with us when we sold our truck. Before this we
had to return to Scamp to have one of their hitches built & installed into
each new truck. I started looking every where for one that would work, I
soon discovered that the Scamp does not use a standard goose neck ball
because true goosenecks use a 2 5/16" ball. Now the trouble really became
apparent, because it does not use a standard 5th wheel king pin or a
standard goose neck ball. My dealer searched every avenue that he could
think of & finally came up with nothing. I threw in the white flag & called
Scamp to set up an appointment to get a hitch installed. This is when they
proceeded to inform me that I had a problem because I had purchased a F-150
4x4 & that the trailer was not built for this type of truck. They said that
my brand new trailer would now need 3" of lift added to the frame to get it
too have the clearance needed for the bigger box. I asked them what they
were talking about & they said that my trailer was built for the
Ranger,Dakota size pick up truck. I told them that they had never presented
this question to us when we ordered the new trailer & that if they had we
would have told them that the Ranger was a lease vehicle due up soon & that
we fully intended to purchase a full size pick up truck very soon. After
discussing this with one of the employees first & the discussion getting
quite heated we were finally connected with the owner. It soon became
apparent that we were getting no where with him & that they were in no way
going to fix the trailer for us to make things right. We told him that they
had failed too disclose some very important information to us when we were
placing our order for our new trailer. He basically told us that it was not
his problem & that he did not want to deal with it. We looked at few
options available to us, which were 1.trade our F-150 back into Ford for the
smaller Ranger, 2.trade our brand new never used once Scamp in on a
different trailer or 3.take our Scamp to a welding shop & have them heavily
modify it. We took it over to the local welding shop & showed them our
trailer, they figured it would cost us around $400.00-$450.00 to cut off
the axles & weld in the needed lift then re-weld the axles. I figured as
long as we were at it we might as well cut off their imitation goose neck &
weld on a true king pin so that I could use a real 5th wheel plate &
eliminate the need to go up to Scamp every time we bought a different truck.
We left the trailer at the welding shop & headed home. The more I thought
about it the more I was not sure if we had chosen the right way too solve
this problem. I told my wife that once we altered the frame that the Scamp,
that we probably not be able to ever trade it, in the future. I was also
very worried that if the axles were not re-welded perfectly that the trailer
would be subject to dog tracking. We ended up going to the local trailer
sales place in our town & trading the brand new never even slept in once
trailer in on a real 5th wheel trailer today. Hopefully this will forever
end the night mares I have been having since falling into Scamp Eveland's
web of half truths. I have already contacted my local better business bureau
& the Minnesota State attorney generals office & I am in the process of
filing formal complaints with both of them. We used to have people come up
to our trailer every time we went camping inquiring about our Scamp trailer,
because of what has happened I will never again be able to have
anything good to say about them from now on.
Answer:
Sorry you've had so many problems with your truck(s), etc., but it
sounds to me as if you've paid too much attention to what the dealers
say and not enough time doing your homework. You probably haven't
even weighed your rig(s) and most likekly don't know what the GCVWR is
for either your truck(s) OR your trailer(s).
Your story is not a warning to others regarding SCAMP, but a
warning to others to be sure and check the weights, tow ratings,
capacities, etc. of any rig they are looking at BEFORE they jump in
head first and make a deal.
