2027 Forest River Cedar Creek290RL

The 290RL is where Cedar Creek starts, and the plan that opens Forest River’s flagship luxury fifth wheel to the broadest range of trucks. At about 12,254 pounds dry it is both the lightest and the shortest coach in the line, yet it carries the full Cedar Creek build: the 101-inch widebody Z-frame chassis, an all-aluminum superstructure on 16-inch centers, 3M-bonded fiberglass sidewalls, the 21,000-pound Rhino Box hitch and Road Armor suspension with wet bolts and ABS brakes. The layout is rear-living, with a kitchen island, a free-standing dinette, swivel recliners and a private front bedroom.

Its numbers make it the easiest Cedar Creek to tow. Forest River lists a published 16,095-pound GVWR against the 12,254-pound dry weight, which leaves a 3,841-pound payload — the most of any plan in the line — and a 2,095-pound dry pin, the lowest of the eight. Dual Coleman MACH 8 15,000-BTU air conditioners, a 20-cubic-foot stainless residential refrigerator, a four-burner gas oven, a Suburban 60,000-BTU tankless water heater and a 200-watt solar package with a 1,000-watt inverter come standard, across three slide-outs.

At a starting MSRP around $119,000 it is the most accessible Cedar Creek, and dealers discount it heavily — street prices well under the placard are common. For a couple who wants Forest River’s flagship luxury build and a rear-living layout without the length, weight or pin of the big plans, the 290RL is the line’s natural entry.

Cedar Creek is Forest River's flagship full-size luxury fifth wheel and the first Forest River fifth wheel in this catalog — a direct rival to Keystone's Montana and Grand Design's Solitude. The 2027 fifth-wheel line runs to eight floorplans, and all eight are profiled here in full. The 290RL on this page is highlighted; each other plan links to its own page.

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 75-gallon fresh tank is roughly 16% of the 3,841-pound cargo capacity, leaving the 290RL with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

The published dry pin weight of 2,095 pounds is 17% of this floorplan’s 12,254-pound dry weight. Fifth-wheel pin weight rides in the bed of the truck, so it comes off payload rather than off tow rating — and it rises with the trailer as you load it, not in proportion to what you put over the axles.

Nothing above changes the ceiling. Loaded to its 16,095-pound GVWR the 290RL is towing 3,841 pounds more than its 12,254-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is generous here: 75 gallons of fresh against 82 grey and 41 black, so waste capacity keeps pace with supply and the fresh tank is the constraint that ends a dry stay.

Of the 8 Cedar Creek floorplans profiled here, the 290RL is the lightest by GVWR at 16,095 pounds — the entry point to the line and the one most likely to suit a vehicle already at its limit.

Either side of it in the same line: Cedar Creek 361RL is 530 pounds heavier at 16,625 lb GVWR.

Against the 290RL: the Sandpiper 3900HBLR is 10 lb lighter and 8 ft longer; the Sierra 3900HBLR is 10 lb lighter and 8 ft longer; the Blackthorn 3750LK is 25 lb heavier and 6 ft longer. Those are differences in the published numbers only — what they cost, how they are built and how they live are separate questions each of those pages answers on its own terms.

Those are the nearest fifth wheels from other lines by weight — one per line, picked by proximity on that figure and nothing else. They are listed so the same tow vehicle can be checked against real alternatives, not because they are equivalent inside; layout, build and price diverge sharply across that group.

For scale, the Cedar Creek floorplans profiled here run 12,254 to 15,429 pounds dry and 35 to 43 feet of exterior length across 8 plans. Where a floorplan falls in that spread usually says more about which vehicle can tow it, and which site it fits, than the layout name does.

Every profiled floorplan in this line, with the full weight table, is on the Cedar Creek line hub.

This catalog tracks 18 specification fields per floorplan. Named sources publish 18 of them for the 290RL. The rest are not shown, because the alternative is reading a figure across from a sibling floorplan or from what the segment usually does — and a number nobody published is worth less than an admitted gap.

Not published for this floorplan: tire size (a tire description is published, a size is not). If you find one of these in a manufacturer document for this plan, it belongs on this page.

The completeness figure at the foot of this page (98%) measures the same thing on the full field set: it is a measurement of how much this floorplan’s manufacturer publishes, not of how much research went into the page.

How every figure here was sourced and checked is set out on the methodology page.