2022 Forest River Cedar Creek388WDM

The Cedar Creek 388WDM leaves Forest River's factory at 13,144 lbs dry, with a published GVWR of 18,115 lbs and 4,971 lbs of cargo capacity between the two. Cargo capacity is 27% of the loaded rating, and Forest River's own definition is worth reading before you plan against it: cargo capacity is what remains for fresh water, gear, food, batteries and every dealer-installed accessory. Fresh water alone is 8.3 lb per gallon, so filling this trailer's 69-gallon fresh tank spends 573 lbs of that 4,971 lbs before anything else is loaded.

Dry pin weight is 2,115 lbs, which is 16% of the dry weight. That figure lands on the truck's rear axle and comes straight off its payload rating - not its towing rating, which is the number most often quoted and the wrong one for this decision. Pin weight rises as the trailer is loaded, and a fifth wheel loaded toward its cargo capacity will put substantially more than 2,115 lbs over the bed. Read the payload figure on your own door sticker rather than a brochure maximum for the model.

Tank capacities are 69 gallons fresh, 82 grey and 41 black, 123 gallons of waste capacity against 69 gallons of supply. The ratio is what governs how long the trailer can sit off hookups: waste capacity exceeds fresh, so the fresh tank is the binding constraint and refilling extends the stay. Forest River publishes these three figures per floorplan, and they are the factory's numbers rather than a segment average.

Against the rest of the Cedar Creek roster this is the 7th of 11 floorplans by dry weight, in a line that runs from 11,244 lbs to 14,190 lbs. It sits in the middle of the line by weight. Comparing floorplans inside one line is more reliable than comparing across brands, because every figure here comes from the same factory channel on the same day.

A useful way to read the pair of weights is to stop planning against the dry figure. Nobody tows a trailer at 13,144 lbs: that is the weight before water, batteries, propane, bedding, food, tools and anything the dealer bolted on. Load half the published cargo capacity, which is modest for a family trip, and this plan is already near 15,630 lbs on the road. Compare that number against the tow vehicle, not the dry weight, and leave margin on top of it - the published GVWR of 18,115 lbs is a limit rather than a target.

Every number above was read from one factory document: Forest River's own 2022 brochure for this line, and each figure was read back against that document's text before it was published. This is a single-channel record rather than the two-rendering cross-check this site runs on factory web captures, and it is described that way rather than dressed up as more. Dry weight plus cargo capacity also equals the published GVWR exactly, which is the arithmetic check this site runs on every profiled floorplan. Where a figure is missing from this page it is because the brochure does not publish it, not because it was hard to find - and the row says so rather than being quietly dropped.

Forest River publishes no floorplan description for this plan in the channel this page is built from - only the numeric specification block. Rather than describe a layout from the floorplan code, which would be a guess dressed as a fact, this page carries what the factory publishes and says where it stops. 388WDM is a Cedar Creek designation and this site does not decode it into a layout claim.

Cedar Creek sits at the heavy end of what a three-quarter-ton truck can carry and most of it is genuinely one-ton territory. Across the ten plans profiled here dry weight runs 11,244 to 14,190 lb and dry pin weight runs 2,110 to 3,176 lb, which is the number that matters most: a fifth-wheel pin load comes off the truck's payload rating rather than its towing rating, and a 3,176 lb pin will exhaust the payload of most trucks before the trailer weight becomes the constraint. Cargo capacity runs 2,811 to 4,971 lb. Every plan carries 69 gallons of fresh water, 82 of grey and 41 of black, so tank capacity is not a differentiator inside this line - the variables are length, 34 ft 7 in to 43 ft 4 in, and how much of the loaded rating the trailer has already spent on itself.

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 69-gallon fresh tank is roughly 12% of the 4,971-pound cargo capacity, leaving the 388WDM with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

The published dry pin weight of 2,115 pounds is 16% of this floorplan’s 13,144-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 18,115-pound GVWR the 388WDM is towing 4,971 pounds more than its 13,144-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is generous here: 69 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 18 Cedar Creek floorplans profiled here, the 388WDM carries the highest GVWR at 18,115 pounds. It is the top of the line by weight, which makes tow-vehicle capability the first thing to settle rather than the last.

Either side of it in the same line: Cedar Creek 375RD is 5 pounds lighter at 18,110 lb GVWR.

Against the 388WDM: the Bighorn 37MD is 15 lb lighter and 1 ft longer; the North Point 377RLBH is 15 lb lighter and 1 ft longer; the Pinnacle 38FBRK is 85 lb heavier and 2 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 11,244 to 15,429 pounds dry and 35 to 43 feet of exterior length across 18 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 11 of them for the 388WDM. 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: interior height, sleeps, slide count, axle count, tire specification, refrigerator, air conditioning. 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 (85%) 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.