01 What Coleman is
Coleman is the value brand in Keystone's lineup, and by unit volume it is the best-selling travel trailer in the United States — a position built on price, towability, and Camping World's enormous dealer reach. The Coleman name is licensed; the trailers are designed and built by Keystone RV, a Thor Industries company.
What defines a Coleman is conventional value construction done to a consistent recipe: a stick-built body on an I-beam steel frame with stamped-steel cross-members and outriggers, a walkable roof, and a one-piece heated and enclosed underbelly. These are the features Keystone leads with, and they run across the line. Most compact Colemans ride on a single axle, run on shore power without off-grid systems, and start under $19,000 — which is what makes them the default first trailer for so many buyers.
The brand is sold in four series. The base Coleman line (sometimes badged "Comfort") is the compact, lowest-priced tier and the volume heart of the brand — the floorplans in the table below. Above it sit three larger or more upscale series: Coleman Lantern for larger conventional family trailers, Coleman Light as the laminate-sidewall version of the line, and Coleman Legacy, a newer mid-range laminate-fiberglass series. This page covers the base line in depth; the other three series are profiled separately.
02 Base Coleman floorplans compared
The base Coleman line spans compact single-axle trailers from about 16 to 27 feet. The three highest-volume plans are profiled in full; the remaining base-line floorplans are listed for reference and will be profiled as the catalog expands.
| Floorplan | Dry wt | Length | Sleeps | Layout | Starting MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13B | 2,526 lb | 15'11" | 4 | Ultra-compact, bunks | ≈$15,000* |
| 17B | 2,761 lb | 20'5" | 5 | Family, bunks | ≈$16,000* |
| 17R | 3,061 lb | 20'8" | 3 | Couples, turned queen, rear bath | $16,488 |
| 13R / 13S / 13T | — | ~16' | 2–4 | Compact variants | profile pending |
| 19B / 19R | — | ~22' | 3–6 | Mid bunks / couples | profile pending |
| 23B | — | ~27' | 7–8 | Family bunks | profile pending |
| 25B / 25BWE | — | ~28' | 7–8 | Slide-out family | profile pending |
| 27B | — | ~31' | 8+ | Largest base-line bunks | profile pending |
Dry weights and lengths for profiled plans are verified against dealer spec records; remaining plans are shown by configuration pending individual verification. "≈" prices are approximate where Keystone publishes MSRP through dealers rather than a fixed figure.
03 How the plans differ
Within the compact core, the choice comes down to who's sleeping in the trailer. The 13B is the towability play — under 16 feet and 2,526 pounds dry, light enough for many mid-size SUVs, yet it keeps bunks and sleeps four. The 17B is the family volume seller: about 20 feet, bunks, sleeps five, full pass-through storage, and the sub-$19k price that made Coleman famous.
The 17R is the couples' alternative to the 17B. It's the same footprint reworked — the queen bed turns 90 degrees so two people can walk around it, which frees room for a full-width rear bath and a large wardrobe. It sleeps three instead of five. Stepping up the line into the 19-, 23-, and 25-foot plans adds slide-outs, more berths, and more tank capacity at higher weights, eventually crossing into territory better served by the larger Lantern series.
04 Model-year & brand notes
Keystone-built, Camping World–sold
Today's Coleman is built by Keystone RV and sold primarily through Camping World, whose contract-manufacturing strategy drove Coleman to #1 in travel-trailer unit sales. Older Coleman trailers were built by Dutchmen, another Thor brand — worth knowing when shopping the used market, as construction details differ by era.
2026 line refresh
For 2026 Keystone freshened the lineup across series and added floorplans — including new compact and rear-entertainment layouts — while holding the line's value positioning. The base line now lists 13 floorplans.
Some base prices published via dealers
Keystone lists a fixed MSRP for some plans (the 17R at $16,488) but routes others through dealer quotes. Approximate prices here are flagged and should be confirmed locally.
Four series, one name
"Coleman" spans the base line plus Lantern, Light, and Legacy. If a trailer wears a Coleman badge but has laminate sidewalls or a larger floorplan than the base line, it's likely a Lantern, Light, or Legacy — each profiled separately as the catalog grows.
05 What every base Coleman has
07 Recalls
NHTSA lists 11 recall campaigns affecting this line. The earliest was reported 7 Apr 2015 and the most recent 26 Jan 2026.
| Reported | Campaign | Component | What can go wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jan 2026 | 26V045000 | Equipment | A murphy bed that falls increases the risk of injury. |
| 7 Dec 2023 | 23V822000 | Suspension | The springs can be overloaded, increasing the risk of a crash. |
| 6 Sep 2022 | 22V668000 | Electrical system | An electrical short can cause the stabilizer jacks to extend during transit, increasing the risk of crash or injury. |
| 9 Aug 2022 | 22V604000 | Equipment | An awning that drops or extends beyond normal operation can increase the risk of injury. |
| 13 Sep 2021 | 21V708000 | Equipment | Increased propane pressure can enlarge the flames in gas appliances, increasing the risk of a fire. |
| 18 Mar 2019 | 19V206000 | Equipment | An excessive heat build up can increase the risk of injury. |
| 2 Mar 2018 | 18V143000 | Equipment | The loose or missing propane gas port screw can allow propane gas to leak when the refrigerator is used in 'gas' mode, increasing the risk of a fire. |
| 30 Jun 2017 | 17V421000 | Equipment | The incorrect connectors may result in the wires coming loose and shorting together, increasing the risk of a fire. |
| 17 Feb 2017 | 17V106000 | Equipment | Incorrect label information may result in the operator using the wrong rim size for the vehicle, increasing the risk of a crash. |
| 12 Oct 2016 | 16V727000 | Electrical system | Loose or frayed wiring may increase the risk of a fire. |
| 7 Apr 2015 | 15V207000 | Suspension | If the wheel studs break, the wheel could detach from the vehicle, increasing the risk of a crash. |
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.
08 Owner-reported problems
Owners have filed 2 complaints with NHTSA about this line. The earliest was filed 11 Feb 2022 and the most recent 12 Aug 2025. The breakdown below is what those owners actually reported, grouped by the component NHTSA assigned.
What gets reported
| Component group | Reports | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | 2 | 100% |
Most recent reports
The 2 owner reports filed on this line, newest first. Wording is NHTSA’s summary of what the owner described.
| Filed | Component | Miles | What the owner reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Aug 2025 | Structure › Body › Bumpers | — | The contact owns a 2024 Keystone Coleman Trailer. The contact stated that while inspecting the trailer after arriving at the residence, the contact became aware that both the left and rights side of the bumpers had detached from the weld on the trailer. Neither a dealer nor an independent mechanic… |
| 11 Feb 2022 | Structure | 0 | The contact owns a 2021 Keystone Coleman Travel Trailer. The contact stated that the windows caulk was outside the joints. The caulk was oozing at the top of the window and down the wall. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was… |
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.