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Destination Trailer · Puma Sub-Line · Factory-Verified Weights · Single-Source Profile

2026 PalominoPuma Vista 402LFT

The Puma Vista 402LFT — 13,900 pounds of published GVWR against a 11,849-pound dry weight, leaving 2,051 pounds of cargo capacity on a 1,695-pound dry tongue weight.

Tow-Critical Data — as built, MY2026

11,849lb
Dry Weight
13,900lb
GVWR
1,695lb
Tongue Weight
42ft
Length
Destination Trailer · Puma Vista Cargo (CCC) · 2,051 lbs Built by · Palomino (Forest River)

01 What makes it unique

Forest River publishes a 13,900-pound GVWR for the Puma Vista 402LFT against a 11,849-pound unloaded weight, and the 2,051 pounds of cargo carrying capacity that leaves is the third largest on the 13-plan destination trailer roster. Dry weight plus CCC equals the published GVWR exactly, so the three figures are internally consistent rather than rounded against each other. The dry tongue weight is 1,695 pounds before anything is loaded.

The 402LFT measures 42' 10" long, 13' 4" tall and 96" wide, and carries a 43 / 35 / 35-gallon fresh, grey and black tank set with a 21' awning. Height is the number to check first on a trailer this size — measure garage doors, carports and low branches against the published 13' 4" before the first trip. The factory files this plan under “Destination Trailers w/Loft” — one of three groupings it uses inside the Vista roster. Against its neighbours on the roster, the shorter 401RLFT runs 755 pounds heavier dry and the longer 403LFT runs 790 pounds heavier dry.

Equipment for this plan is published as 2 named packages on its factory floorplan record — the “Vista LFT Value Shopper Package” and the “Vista LFT Loft Package”, listing 22 items and 11 items respectively. The first package opens with (3) AC's, Smart TV, Tankless water heater and Washer/Dryer Prep. Package inclusion on any given unit is not asserted here and Forest River publishes no MSRP for this tier, so confirm delivered equipment and current pricing with a dealer.

02 Full specifications

Dimensions

Exterior length
42' 10"
Exterior height
13' 4"
Exterior width
96"

Weights

Dry / unit base weight (UVW)
11,849 lbs
GVWR (max loaded)
13,900 lbs
Net cargo / payload (CCC)
2,051 lbs
Dry tongue (hitch) weight
1,695 lbs

Capacities

Fresh water
43 gal
Grey water
35 gal
Black water
35 gal
Awning
21'

Running gear

Hitch type
Bumper pull (weight-distribution recommended)
Axles
Not published by source*
Axle rating
Not published by source*
Wheels & tires
Not published by source*

Systems — factory packages, as published

Factory package 1
Vista LFT Value Shopper Package — 22 published items
Factory package 2
Vista LFT Loft Package — 11 published items

Layout

Sleeps
Not published by source*
Slides
Not published by source*
Entries
Not published by source*

Verified specs, drawn to scale

Original graphics built from this floorplan’s own verified figures.

Loaded weight budget

Loaded weight budget for the Puma Vista 402LFTHorizontal bar. Dry weight 11,849 pounds, then cargo capacity 2,051 pounds, against a GVWR of 13,900 pounds. Dry tongue weight 1,695 pounds on the same scale.GVWR 13,900 lbsDry 11,849 lbsCargo capacity 2,051 lbsDry tongue weight 1,695 lbs — same scale
Drawn from this page’s published figures. The bar runs from empty to GVWR: the dark band is dry weight, the light band is everything you are allowed to add — water, propane, batteries and gear all come out of it.

Size, drawn to scale

Scale outline of the Puma Vista 402LFTScale outline of the Puma Vista 402LFT. Overall length 42' 10", overall height 13' 4", overall width 8' 0".end view8' 0"42' 10" overall length13' 4"
Overall length and height are drawn true to scale from the published figures, and the end view uses the same scale. Axle count is as published; axle position, wheel size and the nose profile are schematic. This is a size drawing, not a floorplan, and not a claim about body shape.

Holding tanks

Holding tank capacities for the Puma Vista 402LFTHolding tank capacities: fresh 43 gallons, grey 35 gallons, black 35 gallons.Fresh43 galGrey35 galBlack35 gal
Published tank capacities on one scale. A full fresh tank is about 359 lbs of water — roughly 18% of this plan’s 2,051 lb cargo capacity, before you load anything else.

These graphics are generated from the same verified record that builds the table above, and are published under this site’s own licence — nothing here is traced from, or derived from, a manufacturer drawing or photo. Where a figure is not published for this plan, the graphic that would need it is omitted rather than estimated. The full record is in the published dataset.

What it takes to tow this

Built from this floorplan’s verified weights. We publish the trailer side only.

Minimum tow rating your vehicle needs13,900 lb
Published dry tongue weight1,695 lb
Loaded tongue weight, typical range1,695–2,085 lb
Minimum receiver hitch capacity13,900 lb towed / 2,085 lb tongue
The tongue weight above is dry. It is the figure the manufacturer publishes for an empty trailer. Loaded — with water, propane, batteries and your gear — it runs higher, which is why the range row uses loaded weight. Sizing your truck off the dry number under-budgets your payload.
The arithmetic that actually binds. Open your driver’s door and read the payload figure on the yellow-and-white sticker — that number is specific to your truck as built. Subtract from it: loaded tongue weight (use the range above), every passenger, everything in the bed and cab, and the weight-distributing hitch itself where one is used. What is left is your margin. Payload, not tow rating, is what most half-ton owners run out of first.

We do not publish tow ratings for specific trucks. A single model can vary by thousands of pounds depending on engine, axle ratio, cab, drivetrain and package — the only authoritative figure is the one on your own door jamb. Loaded tongue percentages are industry convention for travel trailers (10–15% of loaded weight), not a measurement of this unit. Hitch classes are not used here as a rating: SAE J684 covers trailers to 10,000 lb GVWR and does not define Class V, and capacity boundaries differ between manufacturers — read the rating stamped on your hitch. On this plan the convention band’s low end fell below the published dry figure, so the range starts at the published dry weight instead — loaded is never lighter than dry.

03 The Puma Vista roster

Puma Vista is the destination trailer tier of Palomino’s Puma family — 15 floorplans filed by the factory under “Destination Trailers”, sold under the parent Puma line and rostered on the Puma hub’s Puma Vista section. Per this site’s family policy a factory sub-roster lives under its parent hub rather than taking a hub of its own. Two plans are catalogued weights-only rather than profiled: on 39BHK, 423LFT the factory’s own published GVWR does not equal its published dry weight plus CCC, and this site publishes that conflict rather than resolving it.

FloorplanNominalCargo (CCC)Published GVWRPage
37PFL40 ft2,000 lbs11,749 lbs GVWRprofiled
38VFL40 ft1,800 lbs13,214 lbs GVWRprofiled
38DEN40 ft2,000 lbs12,434 lbs GVWRprofiled
38RLB42 ft2,451 lbs13,255 lbs GVWRprofiled
39DBT42 ft1,838 lbs12,000 lbs GVWRprofiled
39FKL42 ft2,731 lbs13,440 lbs GVWRprofiled
429LFT42 ft1,786 lbs13,900 lbs GVWRprofiled
401RLFT42 ft1,296 lbs13,900 lbs GVWRprofiled
402LFT42 ft2,051 lbs13,900 lbs GVWRprofiled
403LFT42 ft1,261 lbs13,900 lbs GVWRprofiled
420LFT42 ft1,801 lbs14,825 lbs GVWRprofiled
421LFT42 ft1,800 lbs15,299 lbs GVWRprofiled
39BHK42 ft1,800 lbsWeights-only — published GVWR 12,739 vs 12,789 computed†
423LFT43 ft1,800 lbsWeights-only — published GVWR 17,034 vs 14,034 computed†
422LFT43 ft1,800 lbs14,689 lbs GVWRprofiled

04 What owners & reviewers report

The published figures tie out exactly

Dry 11,849 plus CCC 2,051 equals the published GVWR of 13,900 — no rounding gap.

A 1,695-pound dry tongue weight

This is the unloaded figure — use a weight-distributing hitch and weigh the loaded combination rather than trusting the base number.

13' 4" of height

Measure garage doors, carports, awnings and low branches against this figure before the first trip.

Sleeps, slides and axles are not published

Forest River publishes no sleeping capacity, slide count, entry count, axle count or rating, or tire size for this tier — confirm the layout and running gear on the unit itself.

Weigh the loaded trailer

Dry weight is a factory estimate for a base unit; options, water and cargo all add to it. Weigh loaded and confirm against your tow vehicle's ratings and the unit's weight sticker before purchase.

SOURCING — ownership notes to be expanded with cited threads from owner communities & forums per the data plan

05 How it compares

← Lighter
Puma Vista 401RLFT

-755 pounds lighter dry on a 1,895-pound tongue weight.

↑ Step up
Puma Vista 403LFT

790 pounds heavier dry, 1,261 lbs of CCC.

↔ Cross-shop
Salem Villa

Forest River’s other destination-trailer roster.

06 Loading it for a trip

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 43-gallon fresh tank is roughly 17% of the 2,051-pound cargo capacity, leaving the Puma Vista 402LFT with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

Weight budgetFigureWhat it means
Cargo capacity as published (CCC)2,051 lbEverything you add: gear, water, propane, batteries, food, people’s belongings.
Fresh tank filled (43 gal × 8.34 lb)−359 lbWater is the heaviest thing most owners add, and it is added first.
Cargo budget left with a full fresh tank1,692 lb18% of this plan’s capacity is spent before a single bag is loaded.

The published dry tongue weight of 1,695 pounds is 14% of the 11,849-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 13,900-pound GVWR the Puma Vista 402LFT is towing 2,051 pounds more than its 11,849-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.

07 Where this floorplan sits

Ranked by GVWR, the Puma Vista 402LFT sits 19 of 33 in the Puma line: 13,900 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 Vista 401RLFT matches it exactly at 13,900 lb GVWR; and Puma Vista 403LFT matches it exactly at 13,900 lb GVWR.

3 other Puma plans share this floorplan’s 13,900 lb GVWR, so the ranking above separates plans that tow to the same ceiling. On a shared chassis the figure that actually differs between them is cargo capacity and where the weight sits, not the rating.

Comparable travel trailersGVWR (lb)Dry (lb)SleepsLength
Puma Vista 402LFT13,90011,84942 ft 10 in
Sandstorm 290013,8559,39936 ft 6 in
Campsite Reserve 39IB14,00011,03944 ft 6 in
Cedar Creek Cottage 40CCK14,00012,47440 ft 6 in
Cherokee Timberwolf 39NA13,61411,80542 ft 8 in
Nightfall 28N13,5008,39334 ft 2 in
Cascade 39DLC13,34211,32742 ft 8 in

Against the Puma Vista 402LFT: the Sandstorm 2900 is 45 lb lighter and 6 ft shorter; the Campsite Reserve 39IB is 100 lb heavier and 2 ft longer; the Cedar Creek Cottage 40CCK is 100 lb heavier and 2 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.

08 Common questions about the Puma Vista 402LFT

How much does the Puma Vista 402LFT weigh?

It leaves the factory at 11,849 pounds dry, and its manufacturer-set loaded ceiling (GVWR) is 13,900 pounds. Real towing weight lands between the two and depends entirely on what you load. Use the GVWR when matching a tow vehicle; the dry figure is only useful for comparing floorplans against each other.

How much can the Puma Vista 402LFT carry?

Cargo carrying capacity is 2,051 pounds. That is the whole budget: water, propane, batteries, gear and everything you bring. Filling the 43-gallon fresh tank uses about 359 pounds of that.

What is the tongue weight of the Puma Vista 402LFT?

The published dry tongue weight is 1,695 pounds. It is measured empty; loaded, it runs higher, and it comes out of your tow vehicle’s payload rather than its tow rating.

What size tow vehicle does the Puma Vista 402LFT need?

Your vehicle needs a tow rating of at least 13,900 pounds — this floorplan’s GVWR — and enough payload left over for the hitch load, passengers and anything in the bed. This site does not publish tow ratings for specific vehicles, because one truck model varies by thousands of pounds across engine, axle ratio, cab and package. The figure that governs is the payload sticker on your own door jamb.

What are the tank capacities on the Puma Vista 402LFT?

Fresh 43 gallons, grey 35 gallons, black 35 gallons. Tank sizes set how long the floorplan can sit away from hookups, and the smallest of the three is what ends the stay.

How long is the Puma Vista 402LFT?

Exterior length is 42' 10". Measure against your site length and your storage before committing — the exterior figure is the one that has to fit, and it includes the tongue or pin box.

Every figure in these answers is read from this page’s verified specification table. Where the manufacturer publishes nothing, the question is not answered rather than estimated.

09 What this page publishes, and what it does not

This catalog tracks 18 specification fields per floorplan. Named sources publish 11 of them for the Puma Vista 402LFT. 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 (82%) 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.

Values on this page carrying an asterisk were derived by arithmetic from published figures, or come from a single source, rather than being printed directly by the manufacturer. The flag travels with the number into the downloadable spec sheet.

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

11 NHTSA safety record

This floorplan belongs to the Puma line, and NHTSA holds 21 recall campaigns and 39 owner complaints against that line. They are separate records and are not added together — a recall is a manufacturer-confirmed defect with a remedy; a complaint is one owner’s account, which NHTSA does not verify.

What to look at on a used one. Across the 39 complaints filed on this line the most-reported components are tires (28%), structure (21%) and equipment (15%). That is where owners of this family have had trouble, so it is where an inspection is worth the time.

Recall coverage is not complete — our harvest of NHTSA’s recall API ran 1,556 queries, of which 0 failed and 242 returned an explicit zero. A line can still be under-reported where NHTSA files a roster under a parent name, or where a match rests on the wording of the recall rather than its model field. Complaints come from the complete bulk file but are unverified and self-selected: a high count tracks how many units a line sold at least as much as how well it was built. Check a specific VIN at NHTSA before you buy. Full tables are on the Puma line page.