01 What Cedar Creek Cottage is
Cedar Creek Cottage is a destination trailer, which is a different proposition from a travel trailer of the same size: it is towed to a site and left there, and the numbers show it. Six floorplans run 12,269 to 13,478 lb dry at 40 to 42 feet, on dry hitch weights of only 1,530 to 1,825 lb - far lighter at the hitch than a fifth wheel of the same mass. Cargo capacity runs 1,096 to 2,087 lb, and every plan ties out exactly against its published GVWR.
Across the whole Cedar Creek Cottage roster the published dry weights run from 12,269 lbs to 13,478 lbs, cargo capacities from 1,096 lbs to 2,087 lbs, and dry tongue weights from 1,530 lbs to 1,825 lbs. Exterior lengths run 40 to 42 feet. Those are Forest River's figures for a standard build, captured from the factory roster block and confirmed against each floorplan's own factory page.
Forest River publishes a GVWR for 6 of the 6 floorplans, and on 6 of those the arithmetic ties out exactly: dry weight plus cargo capacity equals the published rating to the pound. That check is run on every plan before it is profiled here, and a plan that fails it is catalogued with the disagreement printed rather than quietly corrected.
02 Floorplans profiled in depth
6 of the 6 Cedar Creek Cottage floorplans are profiled in full below, each on its own page with the complete factory weight, dimension and tank block. The profiled set is spread across the weight range rather than taken from one end of it, so the lightest and heaviest plans in the line are both represented. Every plan profiled here publishes a full field set and, where Forest River publishes a GVWR, passes the dry-plus-cargo arithmetic check.
| Floorplan | Dry wt | Length | Cargo | Tongue wt | GVWR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40CRS | 12,269 | 42' 0" | 1,731 | 1,615 | 14,000 |
| 40CCK | 12,474 | 40' 6" | 1,526 | 1,810 | 14,000 |
| 40CMK | 12,519 | 41' 6" | 1,481 | 1,765 | 14,000 |
| 40CDL | 12,754 | 40' 6" | 1,246 | 1,825 | 14,000 |
| 40CFL2B | 12,904 | 41' 3" | 1,096 | 1,530 | 14,000 |
| 40CBK | 13,478 | 41' 6" | 2,087 | 1,565 | 15,565 |
Every figure in this table is a Forest River factory publication for 2027, captured twice - from the line roster block and from each floorplan's own factory page - and cross-checked field by field. Forest River publishes no sleeping capacity, axle count, tire size or MSRP for this line, so there are no columns for them.
03 Also in the 2027 line
The remaining 0 Cedar Creek Cottage floorplans are catalogued here from the factory's published figures. A plan is catalogued rather than profiled when the factory has not yet published its full field set, when its own published figures disagree with each other, or simply because the profiled set is capped. Nothing in this table is estimated.
| Floorplan | Dry wt | GVWR | Cargo | Tongue wt | Status |
|---|
Catalogued plans carry the factory figures Forest River publishes and nothing else. A row reading “Not published” means the factory does not publish that field for that plan - it is never a placeholder for a figure this site could not be bothered to find.
04 How to choose
Sort this line by the constraint you actually have. If the tow vehicle is fixed, start at the weight column: the lightest plan in the roster is the 40CRS at 12,269 lbs dry and the heaviest is the 40CBK at 13,478 lbs, and that spread is wide enough that the two ends are not the same buying decision. If the tow vehicle is not fixed, sort by cargo capacity instead - the 40CBK carries the most at 2,087 lbs, and payload is the number that runs out first on a long trip.
Do not sort by floorplan number. Forest River's codes encode length loosely and layout not at all, and this site does not decode them into layout claims. Two plans with adjacent numbers in this roster can differ by hundreds of pounds of dry weight and by more than that in dry tongue weight, which is the figure that determines what the tow vehicle has to be.
Where Forest River publishes a floorplan description it is quoted on the plan page and identified as factory marketing copy rather than a specification. Where it publishes none, the plan page says so instead of describing a layout that nobody has verified. That is the difference between a catalogue and a brochure.
05 What to weigh before buying
What this line is
Cedar Creek Cottage is Forest River's destination-trailer line, six floorplans published, none dealer-stock-only. Forest River publishes dry weight, GVWR, cargo capacity, dry hitch weight, all three exterior dimensions, all three tank capacities and awning size for every plan, and dry weight plus cargo capacity equals the published GVWR exactly on all six. Sleeping capacity, axle count, tire size and MSRP are not published in this channel and are absent rather than estimated. A destination trailer is designed to be sited rather than toured; nothing on these pages should be read as a claim about repeated long-distance towing.
The four fields Forest River does not publish
Sleeping capacity, axle count, tire size and MSRP are absent from Forest River's specification channel for Cedar Creek Cottage. They are absent from this site too. None of the four is estimated from the segment, inferred from a sibling floorplan or lifted from a dealer listing quoting its own guess back. Tire size matters most of the four: two codes a digit apart are different tires with different load ratings, and a misread is a safety claim.
Match the tow vehicle honestly
The plans here run from 12,269 lbs to 13,478 lbs dry with dry tongue weights of 1,530 lbs to 1,825 lbs. Dry weight is not towing weight - water, batteries, propane, gear and dealer-installed accessories all sit on top of it, and tongue weight rises with them. Forest River's own footnote calls unloaded weight an estimated average for a standard build. Read your own door sticker rather than a brochure maximum, and weigh the trailer loaded the way you actually travel.
06 What every Cedar Creek Cottage has
08 Recalls
No campaign in either of our passes over NHTSA’s recall record names this line. That is not the same as a clean record — a line can be recalled under a parent name, and prose matching is imperfect. Treat it as no result found, not as no recalls.
Coverage is not complete, and this matters. These campaigns come from two passes over NHTSA’s public record: a query-by-query harvest of the recall API (1,556 queries, of which 0 failed and 242 returned an explicit zero), and a sweep of NHTSA’s complete recall flat file (325,650 rows), which added 46 campaigns the API harvest had missed. It missed them because the roster it worked from was built by a catalog endpoint that refuses most requests, so entire manufacturer names were never asked about — NHTSA files several Forest River sub-brands as makes of their own. Two limits remain: NHTSA sometimes files a roster under a parent name, and some matches below rest on the wording of the recall rather than its model field. Campaigns affecting only pre-2005 units fall outside this catalog’s range and are not listed. This page is a starting point, not a clearance. Check a specific VIN at NHTSA before you buy, and again before you tow.
09 Owner-reported problems
A sweep of NHTSA’s complete complaint file — every report filed since 1967, matched on NHTSA’s own model field under every name this site publishes for the line — found no complaint naming this line. Treat that as no report found, not as a clean record: owners file under whatever name they were sold, and a newer or lower-volume line simply has fewer owners to file.
How this count is drawn. A report is counted here only when NHTSA’s own model field names this line. What the owner typed in the description is never used to attribute a report: our line names are ordinary English words, and an owner writing “imagine my surprise when the axle went” or naming the state of Montana is not reporting a Grand Design Imagine or a Keystone Montana.
Read these as reports, not as findings. Complaints are submitted by owners and NHTSA does not verify them; no complaint here has been confirmed as a defect, and none of them is a recall. The sample is also self-selected — only owners motivated to file appear in it — so a high count tracks how many units a line sold at least as much as how well it was built. Use the pattern, not the total: a component that keeps recurring is worth inspecting on any used unit. File or search complaints at NHTSA.