Had my Tune M1 installed 6 months ago on an Ford F150 and have used and tested it in many conditions: 60 mph winds with dust in Big Bend, heaps of rain and some sleet and snow mixed in, dispersed camping in some pretty rugged terrain in Colorado…all in preparation for a 3 month road trip up thru ID, MT, WA, OR and back home to the Midwest. Absolutely love the functionality, ease of set up/take down, resistance to all weather conditions. And their customer service is extraordinarily great. Looked at all the other pop-ups mentioned and you can justify any of them, pros/cons and opinions all around but do your research, figure out what works best for you, and pull the trigger after all is said and done. I did, bought the Tune M1, love it and so happy I went with them.
Project M competitors?
- Thread starter hitek79
- Start date
Yes you should pick what you want, but make a conscious decision on how long something will last before you do.
You've had a product for six months that is extrusion bolted together to plastic corners… a glorified erector set. UV will hit those plastic corners, or they will fatigue crack. Bolts will stretch and loosen. Sealant wont expand enough with the system causing leaks. The M1 is super heavy for what it is with no triangular joints except the rear door.
So far on the facebook group there have been loose bolts, squeaky joints, improperly sealed seams on the canvas, improperly sealed joints, Wonky roof that wont stay popped straight up resulting in a silly open close procedure. Products like four wheel, alucab, at overland, ovrlnd, super pacific, topo and gfc are all proven at this point and are welded, screwed, sealed and riveted and not a single one is relying on plastic for any joint.
Yes you might be happy now, and yes the thing could last with your use, and yes they could have great customer service but compared to other products this design is strictly so they can build them faster with parts imported from china. If it lasts five years they got their money and maybe you'll be happy with that longevity but I certainly would not be.
Again from my last post if trailers, boats, motos, bikes, campers, cars, semi trailers could all be made out of extrusion with plastic corners and be built extremely quick don't you think they'd all be doing that? 10s of thousands of engineers dropped the ball versus a guy in his garage with a 3d printer? I cant be 100% they will fail but id put my money with someone else.
Again project m has 40 years of experience behind them. They’re probably the best bet for a wide camper.
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It’s funny you keep mentioning the Tune FB group and issues people are having.
I have been on the Tune, Project M and Lone Peak Facebook group with notifications active (reading everyday) for about a year now. I can tell you there are far far more people with issues on their project M. The vast majority of Tune owners rave about it on the group. A lot of those people have visited both facilities and talked to the engineers and came away much more convinced with the Tune.
The same thing can’t be said with the project M group.
Your message is very far from the reality on those groups, which leads me to believe that you are also far from the reality with the rest of your assessment.
I hear you. Are the project m issues engineering issues or quality issues? I know they have quality issues as I've seen them in person. They don't look that good up close, but they function and will function for a long time. I personally don't want a project m, but if I wanted a wider camper shell thats the one I would get. The project m has a longer history, they are insulated, and they are actually much lighter than the tune m1. Someone just posted that their tacoma lb tune m1 weighed 660lbs. Thats insanely heavy for this category. 250lbs or more heavier than the project m.
Lone peak which is not a wide camper has a ton of engineering issues already. Their custom clamping system to hold the camper to the truck has already been failing which could cause a catastrophic incident killing someone on an interstate. There was also a recent post that is now deleted about some crucial CNCed mechanism that fell off while camping. I understand these are new companies but to argue that someone “went and spoke with the engineers” and they were impressed means very little.
Back to @MR E30 s posts. The tune m1 and lone peak are bolted together square frames with no external or internal structure tying everything together. Internal being GFC and the triangle framing, external being fourwheel with skins. Now simply imagine building a picture frame and setting a corner on the ground and you applying your weight to opposite corner. The picture frame would break rapidly. Now imagine the same with an exterior skin screwed all around the perimeter of the picture frame, It would hold your weight and more. I don't really care if someone was impressed by another engineer in person, what impresses me is if what they build is actually built to withstand everyday abuses of driving down the road.
Also, what am I saying that is “far from reality?” These are all very real structural engineering problems.
Point number 1 about weight - I have seen that post about the weight, and every single other ones on that group. There was one dude claiming his Tune weight was 800+ lbs and that it Cat scaled his truck before and after Tune install. Turns out a Facebook member contacted Tune, and Tune sent him the official weight of this particular build (they weight every camper before install) at 550 lbs (on a full size with a bunch of options).
All this to say, this user data is wrong. Multiple full size Tunes have been officially weighted (with options) at around 550 lbs. Mid size in the 450s. Now let's be clear I consider this heavy, but now we are talking about an insignificant difference with Project M. Options play a major role as well (those huge tempered glass windows are heavy)
You see, this is the issue with Facebook groups and forums. People spread wrong info then they get repeated and we all loose from this (by we I mean the customer, who are in the market for a camper).
Point number 2 about Lone Peak - . Not only I followed all the posts, but I am also in the discord chat were issues such as the one you describe are reported in real time. They immediately (like in 48H) corrected the design and upgraded the t-nuts. They also have many who have already over 10K miles including tons very rough off-roading (Moab and Colorado trails) and never had an issue.
I personally think the speed Kyle has been addressing issues is mind blowing.
I do agree that these clamps should have been tested better and the T-nuts over sized. This sucks.
Last point about the bolting design: Is the design bad enough that this camper won't last long? I personally do not have enough information to say that (nor do I have enough information to say the design will last).
I am an aerospace engineer myself (and no, I don't work for Boeing...). The earlier comment about truck frames being welded for a hundred years and that if we could just bolt aluminum together we would do it means nothing. With that type of thinking we stay at the stone age. See, in Aerospace we don't do anything like in the car industry. Different designs for different applications.
Now about the Tune, it is my understanding that the design is different as they use 6063A-T5 aluminum (used in Aircraft seats and ground support equipment) hold together by injected composite corner brackets. This brackets have been tested by Tune to be significantly stronger than the aluminum extrusions they use. Having the extrusions inserted into those large brackets is very different than holding it together with just a bunch of bolts. Again like for the Lone Peak I do not have enough info to say if their design will last a long time or not.
You are criticizing an engineering design, yet you do the opposite of what engineers do: you criticize a design without having all the data needed to judge the design.
Where I do agree with you is that from a pure engineering perspective, welded can be stronger (if well made, as poor welding can fail, and welding can change the properties of the aluminum). In no way this means that the LP or Tune designs are bad or won't last. Plenty of car components are bolted together and lasts hundreds of thousands of miles (depending on cars, subframes, cross members) and same for aircrafts for parts that need to be removed (wing fuselage joints, landing gears). I mean, the fuselage of an Airbus A350 is bonded with adhesive, and it uses honeycomb composite panels for some interior structures and you guys come here and say the Tune adhesive will fail over time, honeycomb roof is a poor idea, and bolts loosen and so that camper won't last. All of those assertions are misleading. What matters is not if the company has chosen a welded design or a bolted one but how it has been designed and executed. I will choose a bolted camper properly designed and executed 100 times over a poorly welded one.
All in all, after seing all of those campers myself, I certainly would not choose the Four Wheel Camper, nor a GFC. I think the LP is a killer price point and much more practical than the GFC (the GFC is unusable for me with it's non space through bed design), the Tune is expensive but by far the most spacious and practical (t-track all over, long overhang over the cab meaning no inside overhang of the bed), the Rincon also looks great (bended aluminum sheets welded together could be very strong if well executed) and offers decent practicality at a medium price point. The Alucab is probably one of the most proven one so if you want proven and durable it's probably a good choice, although it's not light, not inexpensive and not very spacious.
The Tune is the exact same size as a $70K Supertramp camper. You can DIY the interior build and make it a 3 season Supertramp for a third of the cost (granted, different league of insulation but I am talking about living space).
There is no perfect choice. All have pros and cons. If I could buy a camper as strong as an Alucab, as light as the GFC and as spacious as the Tune for the price of a Lone Peak ($6000) I would buy it yesterday.
dstefan
Well-known member
I can tell you they are extremely robust in construction. 2”x1” 1/8" welded aluminum frame (with beautiful weld quality) and plenty of lateral and side to side suport (eg, the rear barn doors are anchored into a column on each side, not just a simple corner, and the entire cabover “layer” is double framed and braced). The walls are 1/16 aluminum sheet that’s VHB’d to the frame and then riveted providing extreme rigidity. There are zero screws and where things are bolted, its the slides for pullout bed or things like the push bars on the roof and they are all Rivenutted and use 1/4-20 or 5/16 SS bolts.
It’s rigid as the dickens. I’m 180 lbs and my wife is 105 lbs and there’s no flex when we’re in the cab over bed. I’ve spent time in both the current and previous shops and seen them in progress. I have also not babied mine for 3 years and there have been zero problems or flaws. Edit: for my 6.5’ bed it weighed 360 lbs (measured by me on CAT scales pre buildout). It will last longer than I will!
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Understood.
As for weight, CAT Scales have to accurate. There are now two people. The full size truck camper guy with 800lb camper you mentioned and the 660lb tacoma guy I mentioned. Cat scales can have something like 20lbs of variance over 10000lbs. The full size guy you mentioned I think even weighed in at 2 different scales. These are extremely heavy campers in this segment. I will trust the cat scale over what Tune is saying their campers weigh. Ask yourself what are these people to gain on the forum lying about camper weights?
As for the engineering side of things. I never said the composite roof was bad, and done correctly with proper UV additives it should hold up. What I was mentioning on the roof is how they wont stand up straight. Back to talking about failures . Can I guarantee anything will fail on the tune m1, no. Can I guarantee sealants will fail, no. I understand what you’re saying about data, but I am also looking at a huge departure from the industry. I have nothing against bolted joints but I love triangles and metal. You mention cars and even landing gear and somehow draw comparison to the tune and lone peak. Steel bolted up with a decent factor of safety is way different than some bolted up 80/20 framing with no triangulation.
I admit I don’t have enough info, but these designs do concern me especially when it seems like they built a one product and tested it for 10000 miles and then said “yep it works, lets mass produce”. Compare that to your auto companies or aircraft companies and think of the number of design reviews each window switch or door handle gets.
Again, Lone peak has had the clamps holding their camper to the truck already fail. What else did they not design properly?
Sparse Gray Hackle
Geezer
I’m curious if the Project M toppers have had any of the roof noise issues that some of the slide-in FWC campers have reported.
He did weigh it twice in total, and he came back later and said actually the weight of his camper is in the 600. It’s a long bed full size with options.
You forgot to mention the guy below, full size truck long bed, with options including full heavy tempered glass window package, cat scale weighted at 640. How can this one be 640 with the full window package on a HD truck, and the other one 800….
Yes those people have nothing to win but they weight at different days on different scales and forget they added things in the back in between.
Anyway. The M1 weight on a regular full size without options is in the 500, and in the 400 on the regular short beds.
It’s still heavy, but it’s also the largest camper of the category.
tractor_to_trail
Member
If I was going to go with a new wide style camper it would be Topo. They look sweet and offer some great builds and accessories, along with a tried and true company. That's if I wanted that wide style. I already lose fuel economy with the topper, can't imagine how it would be with parachutes sticking out each side. I currently have an AT habitat and love the sleek sides. There are times a little more wall space would be nice especially with a family of four. But are you really gaining that much space? Most of the time it's just me or +1, and I have tons of room in the habitat.
slowtwitch
Adventurer
Vertical walls are superior. Ditto roofs that raise their entire length. So much more usable space, and nicer to be in. Mount whatever you like on the walls, lean back against them. etc etc. The project M is massive inside and the inner table/benches are endlessly useful.
Not instagram fodder that's for sure. Not for the crowd who throws around terms like 'ecosystem', 'form factor', or 'use case'.
But once you get past the Four Wheel peccadilloes like hardware from...... your local Ace Hardware..... you'll see the things that matter most.. the bones.. are excellent. They've been at it a long time (and will continue to be) and it shows where it matters. Substance over style.
Not instagram fodder that's for sure. Not for the crowd who throws around terms like 'ecosystem', 'form factor', or 'use case'.
But once you get past the Four Wheel peccadilloes like hardware from...... your local Ace Hardware..... you'll see the things that matter most.. the bones.. are excellent. They've been at it a long time (and will continue to be) and it shows where it matters. Substance over style.