2026 Palomino Puma31RLQS

The 31RLQS is the Puma that turns up on dealer lots more than any other, and it is a couples plan rather than a family one. The Forest River factory describes the floorplan as one entry and three slide outs, with a metal exterior and a 13-foot awning, and an interior of a kitchen island, a front bedroom and a rear living area — sleeping four in about 36 feet. Three slides on a single-entry rear-living plan buys an unusually open main room for the money, and the kitchen island is the piece that separates it from the rear-living plans in the value bracket that make do with a galley along one wall. It carries the standard Puma build: a powder-coated steel I-beam frame with steel crossmembers under .024/.030-gauge aluminum skin, an AlphaPly roof membrane under a limited lifetime warranty, R-7 fiberglass insulation cut and glued between sidewall studs on 16-inch centres, a 5/8-inch Araucoply plywood floor under a 25-year limited warranty, an enclosed Darco-wrapped underbelly with enclosed water tanks, a tankless water heater and an 11 cu ft 12-volt refrigerator. Solar is roof and side-mount prep only — no panel is installed from the factory.

Palomino publishes a 10,500-pound GVWR against the 8,808-pound dry weight, leaving a 1,692-pound cargo capacity and a 975-pound dry tongue. The tank set is 43/35/35 gallons fresh/grey/black — the smaller grey tank of the two Puma patterns, which suits a couple better than a crowd. One quirk worth knowing before you plan a patio: the factory lists a 13-foot awning, the shortest on the roster and eight feet shorter than most of the 30-foot-plus Pumas, on a body that is among the longest. Palomino and Forest River publish no MSRP for the Puma line, so confirm street pricing with a dealer. The 31RLQS is the Puma for a couple who wants an open rear lounge and an island galley, and it needs a well-rated half-ton or better.

Forest River lists all four Puma packages as required, but the Value Shopper Package specifies a 13,500 BTU ducted air conditioner and the Limited Edition Package specifies a 15,000 BTU unit in place of it — the two required packages contradict each other, so confirm the air conditioner on the actual unit.

Puma is Palomino's metal-sided value travel trailer — bumper-pull towables on a powder-coated steel I-beam frame, and a cross-shop against Forest River's own Salem / Wildwood and Aurora, Prime Time's Avenger, Keystone's Springdale and Jayco's Jay Flight SLX. Eight floorplans are profiled in full and linked below; the remaining plans are catalogued and shown muted. The 31RLQS on this page is highlighted.

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 43-gallon fresh tank is roughly 21% of the 1,692-pound cargo capacity, leaving the 31RLQS with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

The published dry tongue weight of 975 pounds is 11% of the 8,808-pound dry weight, which sits inside the 10–15% band usually quoted for stable towing. It is still a dry figure: loading the front pass-through and the fresh tank both push it up.

Nothing above changes the ceiling. Loaded to its 10,500-pound GVWR the 31RLQS is towing 1,692 pounds more than its 8,808-pound dry figure, and that is the number your vehicle has to be rated for — not the brochure weight.

Tank balance is generous here: 43 gallons of fresh against 35 grey and 35 black, so waste capacity keeps pace with supply and the fresh tank is the constraint that ends a dry stay.

Ranked by GVWR, the 31RLQS sits 8 of 33 in the Puma line: 10,500 pounds against a line that runs from 8,553 to 18,575 pounds. That position is the useful thing to know, because the plans immediately either side of it are the real alternatives.

Either side of it in the same line: Puma Ambush 27TH is 505 pounds lighter at 9,995 lb GVWR; and Puma 32BHQS is 300 pounds heavier at 10,800 lb GVWR.

Against the 31RLQS: the Coachmen Freedom Express Ultra Lite 320BHDS sleeps 4 more; the Jay Flight 333BTS is 2 ft longer and sleeps 7 more; the Seismic 265 is 5 ft shorter. 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 travel trailers 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 Puma floorplans profiled here run 6,173 to 15,114 pounds dry and 30 to 43 feet of exterior length across 33 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 Puma line hub.

Named sources publish 16 of the 18 specification fields this catalogue tracks for the 31RLQS (94% complete on the full field set).

Not published for this floorplan: interior height, tire specification. Those rows are left blank rather than copied from a sibling floorplan.

Values marked with an asterisk are arithmetic on published figures or come from a single source; the flag travels into the downloadable spec sheet.

Sourcing rules: methodology.