Bison Overland Camper Flatbed POP-Up on Ram 2500

[jourdan]

Wow, everyone loses. Including the reader.
-J

 

[Bergger]

Jeez that was painful to read and ridiculously long winded…

In a way it’s hard to feel bad for them.

About 100 red flags and they chose to ignore each and every single one of them.

I refer to this term as the “Overland Delirium”

Good work getting them fixed up a bit @pawleyk

Yeah I would have run from that build before I even laid eyes on it.

 

[mk216v]

Jeez that was painful to read and ridiculously long winded…

In a way it’s hard to feel bad for them.

About 100 red flags and they chose to ignore each and every single one of them.

I refer to this term as the “Overland Delirium”

Good work getting them fixed up a bit @pawleyk

Yeeeikes! So glad I didn't have Bison build me a flatbed poptop camper...

 

[Tahoe Adventure Trex]

Thank you to those that have read the review and reached out or even just offered their own comments. Sorry to be so long-winded, however there was quite a bit to be told. We wanted to be completely transparent and forthcoming. It's never just "rainbows and unicorns".

The options for flatbed shells are pretty limited, so we definitely let our heart and eyes guide us a bit more than we should have. If this was our first experience, then we probably would have just given up entirely. Thankfully, we have learned (and continue to learn) through each step of the way.

 

[sn_85]

I had heavily considered the Bison Overland Camper. I think they have an attractive product being the only company I know that is making flatbed shell models. However it was an unproven product and there are no real world campers or experiences to speak of. In fact the only thing I've heard have been bad experiences. There just weren't enough on the ground to make me go with them and when their prices shot up it made it unreasonable for a shell model. I understand they have since moved to all composite materials and it seems like their production process is improving but again, no campers out in the wild.

• https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/bison-overland.740725/
• I spoke with a Bison Overland Camper owner on FB. He got a aluminum frame model without any insulation and wanted to build out the insulation and interior himself. I asked him a few questions about it and he gave me pretty fair warning to avoid them. He informed that it took over a year for BOC to deliver his camper, that it sat for months while they worked on other projects and they only finished it after he got a lawyer involved after many pushbacks and delays. You would think a bare frame shell model would be done a lot quicker.
• Personally I've spoken with Drew many times over email and IG. He's been very responsive each time and answered all my questions. I can't say I've had a bad interaction with him but as you can see there have been at least 3 accounts of communication issues post purchase. My biggest worry was that I'd put down a large deposit on a new company working out growing pains and be ghosted after I sent money.
  • It is not coincidental that certain social media influencers (personalities) seem to get better treatment and seem to have their products done in a much more timely manner. That's just how that works I guess and sometimes the end purchaser gets bumped to the back

@Tahoe Adventure Trex I appreciate the write up and I'm sorry you had to deal with that. Sharing your experience pretty much affirms my decision to look in another direction. I think growing pains of a small start up company is one thing but character flaws are another. I read the whole article and yes it was long but at least you detailed the entire process and gave us insight into your buying experience. The only thing in your article that was wrong was assuming Oklahoma is part of The South. Having lived in the Southeast and Texas for a long time I can assure you Oklahoma (and Texas) is not part of the Southern hospitality experience ?.

 

[Bergger]

For me the customer service is just as important as the product. With any product you will have at some point an issue, no matter how good the product is, and knowing you can get reliable and fast assistance is very important to me. I learned this way back in 2007 when I purchase an Adventure Trailers (now AT Overland) Chaser trailer. The order and purchase of the trailer was flawless. However when I received it, delivered to me, it has some damage to a hub which occurred during shipping. I called Mario and he flew out to Colorado from CA and repaired the trailer in my garage. I was sold on his company at that point. Since then I have owned two of his trailers and now have an AT Overland Summit on order. I know I will never be left in the dark with them and will have a top notch product. Eventually I do see a flatbed camper option down the road when we start doing trips that are months long and when that time comes I will be looking at an Aterra camper or whatever else AT Oveland offers at that time.

Hopefully you are working through the issues with the truck and camper and it turns out to be a good platform for you guys. I too appreciate the write up you did on it. Especially since I was seriously considering contacting him about that exact truck. I almost got carried away with the add for it especially with the price it looked like a great deal. Sorry it's been so trying for you but your positive attitude and outlook are amazing.

 

[Tahoe Adventure Trex]

We did write quite a bit on the review, because we didn't want to omit anything. Sorry to be long-winded, especially for those TLDR types.

As always, there are definitely two sides to a story. We've tried to be as transparent as possible and are sharing for others, who are interested in pursuing their own adventure vehicle build. There are always bumps in the road. We'd just like to offer a little guidance so that their road (or even ours) doesn't conclude with a dead end.

We would love for you @Bison Overland Campers to share what you feel could have been handled better. We would also love to know how you think we could have helped to handle the situation. We shared our experience with you before publishing it. And, we do appreciate the assistance with the truck repairs. When all is said and done, we're still experiencing issues with the camper. But, we're addressing each issue and are continuing to move forward, even though there are quite a few frustrating moments.

The review was not meant to be perceived as "blackmail", slander, or libel. It is merely to document our experience and help others navigate the ups and downs of building their own adventure truck build. It's not an easy journey. As we've stated, we also hope that it is beneficial for you, as a company, to learn and progress.

 

[chinooksupertruck]

I feel like that write up was more about a used truck that they bought that had issues and not really about the Bison Overland camper itself. Other than the battery not getting charged and the leak issue, what other issues were there with the camper? I don’t really care too much about the issues that the used Dodge gave you. I wanna know about the camper.

 

[Brodyp4]

Sounds to me like you bought a salvaged truck with issues more than a camper with issues.

Don’t buy site unseen and most likely you probably signed a as is. Drew could have just said tuff luck.

I bought a 120k rig once and broke down hour into a trip and that’s what happened to me since I signed a as is.

But again sounds more like the truck was the issue rather than the camper.

 

[Kevin108]

I would consider a way to add some protection for the front-facing actuators for the pop top. Low hanging tree branches getting tangled in them could make for a lot of work.