An Eagle Cap Camper Snapped A Ram 3500 Dually In Half To The Tune Of $17,000

This RAM 3500 proved incapable of handling the burden of a loaded-up Eagle Cap camper. No injuries resulted from the snapping frame but the owner’s wallet might be about to take a huge dent of its own. According to him, Mopar says the truck was carrying too much weight and has since denied him warranty coverage.

First spotted on Facebook by the folks over at the Drive, this 2020 RAM 3500 experienced catastrophic frame failure near Baja, California. Mike Pavel, the man who owns the Ram said in the post that “the frame just cracked in half” and that it was “not overloaded.” Regardless of who’s to blame, the frame itself seems to disagree with that last comment.

According to Pavel, the failure took place near a mechanic who was able to come out and weld the frame after they used the jacks from the camper to level the truck. That same mechanic offered to let Pavel leave his camper there so that’s what he did. The next step was to get the truck fixed but that’s where everything stalled out.

More: This Definitely Isn’t What A Truck Camper Should Look Like

“Mopar denied the claim stating that the truck was overloaded, which is incorrect,” Pavel tells TheDrive. “I now have a claim with my insurance company [and] they’re sending an adjuster today. Reno Dodge set an invoice for repairs over $17,000.” Pavel also said that he was confident that the truck could handle the camper.

“I did a lot of research before buying the truck and the camper, and both the Ram dealer and the camper company where we bought it said it was the perfect truck… They said it should handle the load no problem. I knew the payload capacity on the truck was about 7,800 pounds and the camper dry weight was close to 5,000 pounds, but fully loaded, probably about 6,500 pounds.”

It’s worth noting that the actual payload capacity of the truck in question is itself in question. While the max payload capacity for a 2020 RAM 3500 is 7,680 pounds (3,483 kg), that’s specific to the regular bed, long-bed model with two-wheel drive and a 6.4-liter V8 engine. The truck here is a crew cab 4×4 dually with a diesel engine which means that its payload capacity is probably closer to 5,850 pounds (2,653 kg).

That would mean that the Eagle Cap, which weighs almost 5,000 pounds (2,267 kg) unloaded, could’ve been near the total capacity as soon as it was loaded onto the truck. According to Pavel, he drove this truck in this configuration for some 25,000 miles. Depending on what the actual payload capacity of this truck is and what the camper weighed, the frame snapping at that kind of mileage is either impressive or depressing.