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Date Posted |
Forum
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RE: Jayco Dealer Recommendation
Indeed. We've sent several friends and family members to them. Unfortunately only 1 of them thus far has bought from them, but we still try!
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spoon059
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09/22/22 06:12am |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Jayco Dealer Recommendation
Keystone Mega RV in Greencastle, exit 1 off 81. I bought from them in 2015, had some warranty issues. They were FANTASTIC to work with. I made an appointment and dropped off the camper, they photographed and documented everything that day. When parts were in, I dropped it off again and they fixed everything on my list, and they found a few little things that weren't right and fixed them too.
In fact, when I bought my camper I had priced it out on RVone.com and got a great deal. Called Keystone, they were within $400 and saved me a drive to Albany, NY to pick it up. We drove up, filled out the paperwork, signed for the price that we agreed upon and gave them a deposit.
AFTER all that was done, my wife casually mentioned to our salesman that we were happy with the price, they were very close to the wholesale price we recieved. He asked what price we had been quoted by RVone. Mind you... we had already agreed to a price, signed a contract and given a deposit. He went back to his manager, came back and said he would take an additional $200 off the price. We weren't trying to negotiate further, we were pleased at $400 more. I was blown away with them. Very straight forward and honest sales team!
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spoon059
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09/21/22 03:37pm |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Mini Split A.C. in their fiver
New Horizons is doing the mini splits on their Majestics.
New Horizons is up there with your DRV Mobile Suites... way out of my price range!
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spoon059
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09/18/22 05:36pm |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Mini Split A.C. in their fiver
I was at the Hershey RV show earlier in the week and talked to a manufacturing rep for Columbus. I was asking him about minisplits. He told me that they are in talks with a manufacturer and may move towards those in the next couple of years. We had been chatting about some other things for a while before I asked about the minisplits, and other people were in the camper and wanted to ask questions, so I didn't push it any further.
I would MUCH rather have a minisplit with 2 heads (I'll take the traditional cassette heads, it was a 5th wheel we were looking at) over 2 or 3 rooftop units. Cheaper, less invasive on the roof, heating and cooling, quieter and less power draw. I'll be anxiously awaiting...
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spoon059
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09/17/22 02:50pm |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Ready to get back out there
$26K starting price to fix a poorly designed engine? I'd rather go through insurance, total out the truck and start over with an engine design that isn't a failure to start and a manufacturer that will stand behind their product. Maybe it's just me.
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spoon059
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09/16/22 12:30pm |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Diesel Ram Owner Forced to Scrap Truck !
The guys deleting these newer trucks are crazy. There is plenty of power from the factory to pull anything they are rated for. Adding more will only break things and cost you more money.
For a lot of people its not about adding more power, its about getting rid of the garbage emissions systems that make the truck problematic. I was coming home from Florida earlier this year when my DEF pump went out on my Ram. $2800 to replace the pump... That is insanity. For less then $600 I could have had a tuner that wouldn't have increased my power but would have circumvented the DEF and made my truck much more reliable.
The truck ran fine... until the EPA mandated boondoogle threatened to put me in limp mode while towing, 600 miles from home.
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spoon059
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09/16/22 06:15am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Diesel Ram Owner Forced to Scrap Truck !
"Before the end of the year!!"
Wait a minute, weren't they saying that 4 years ago? :)
He didn't say WHAT year...
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spoon059
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09/16/22 06:11am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: current diesel fuel pricing
Haven't much paid attention to gas prices. I have a job issued car and free gas for that. For diesel I've paid as high as $5.99/gallon earlier this spring. Its currently $4.53/gallon at the gas cash station near me. Gas is roughly $1, maybe $1.25 cheaper right now.
Thankfully I haven't had to fill up since we traveled home from Tennessee in early August and unfortunately I don't have another planned camping trip until February.
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spoon059
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09/12/22 04:19pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Solitude leaning to one side.
What are the odds we can go that many miles without something breaking?
I can't answer what the odds are, but it does happen and it can be troublesome to repair on the road.
We took a trip from MD to VT last year. We were on the NY Thruway towing at 68 mph for several hours. Pulled into the campground, which had some large potholes. Hit a decent size pothole, heard a loud bang and I saw smoke from the passenger side wheels of the trailer. Thought I blew a tire, pulled over immediately. I saw that the rear leaf spring bad broken within a couple inches of the eye. The weight was resting on the top of the tire.
Limped the trailer about 1000 feet to my campsite. Spent the next 2 days finding a trailer shop, buying a replacement leaf spring (which had an additional leaf and 800 or so lbs of load carrying capacity. Just my luck, I had helped a friend grease his wheel bearings a couple weeks earlier and left my bottle jack at home in my carport, so I had to go find a bottle jack as well.
Eventually I jacked up one the side of the trailer with the broken spring, used my 4x6 levelling blocks as cribbing and swapped out the one broken spring. I noted that the stock shackles were getting ovalized and the plastic bushing was pretty destroyed. Rest of the trip was nerve rattling for sure!
Got home, replaced the other 3 springs and installed wet bolt kit with wider shackles. It was hot at home so I did one side at a time. It was very easy with appropriate jacks and jack stands. I'd imagine that a leveling system would make it much easier to do.
It's my opinion that the OEM springs are mediocre at best. They are designed to be at the upper end of their capabilities, which makes it more prone to failure in my opinion. It cost me about $400 to replace the springs with a higher weight rating AND the wet bolt system. It gave me substantial peace of mind...
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spoon059
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09/08/22 07:15am |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: 5th Wheel vs. Gooseneck
Goose neck trailers are specifically built to be pulled by a goose neck ball. Adding an after-market adapter to a 5th wheel trailer does not make it suitable to tow from a goose neck ball.
Ken
Reese Goosebox
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spoon059
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09/06/22 03:36pm |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Mini Split A.C. in their fiver
If one can install themself, you can buy a minisplit for under $800. You can't buy a rooftop for under $800 that I am aware of. My Coleman Mach 15K is $1282 on Amazon right now. That is 50% more expensive. Installation isn't that complicated, especially if you buy a precharged unit that doesn't require pulling a vacuum. The wires, condensate line and refrigerant line all run together. I've seen them run in pantry cabinets, behind curtains or tucked in the corner of a wall with a small cap over them. Someone with moderate skill can install one in a couple hours with handheld tools.
Even paying for installation, an HVAC tech will charge a couple hundred dollars for a minisplit. A RV shop will likely charge at least that, if not more. Granted, it is a retrofit so you'll have to do some work to find a place to put everything, but that doesn't make it more expensive (which is the point you are refuting).
And I wholeheartedly disagree that a minisplit isn't massively more efficient than a rooftop unit! They draw significantly less power than a rooftop AND cool more quickly than a rooftop. They also maintain temperature much better than a rooftop. Compare the yellow energy usage sticker from a rooftop unit to a minisplit, significant difference.
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spoon059
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09/06/22 03:35pm |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Mini Split A.C. in their fiver
Ran into someone down in Tennessee earlier this year, first time I'd seen one in person. He LOVED his. Says it draws very low power, is very quiet and very efficient. It was in the upper 80s, low 90s for our trip at Anchor Down and there aren't really any trees. It gets HOT and the regular ACs struggle to keep up. His little 12K BTU mini split was running with ease and keeping his camper quiet comfy.
He installed the outdoor unit in the front generator compartment, as he doesn't have a genny. He cut out some of the floor to give ample air circulation and ran it with the compartment door open. The inside unit was mounted above his door and circulated the air all throughout his camper.
It was just him and his wife, I didn't even think to ask about how the airflow suffered if they closed their bedroom door at night. Bottom line, he thought it was a great upgrade and spoke highly of it.
Much cheaper than adding or replacing a roof top unit, quieter, less power draw, more efficient cooling, easier to maintain a set temperature, also a heat pump for cold nights. Got me very interested when we upgrade to a 5er in a couple more years!
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spoon059
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09/04/22 10:41am |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Motor vehicle laws. Complicated jurisdiction question.
It’s the same in the state I was stopped in. If you are a resident of that state and registered in that state and you don’t have auto insurance, they tow your car immediately. But he couldn’t do that. Because I’m not a resident of his state. So instead he reached and try to find anything he could. He really didn’t know what he was doing.
Insurance is required in Maryland. A police officer on a stop can demand your license, registration and insurance. If you fail to provide proof of insurance then you can absolutely have your car towed, regardless of state of residency.
In fact, I've seen lawsuits where an officer allowed an uninsured vehicle to leave a traffic stop. The driver got into an accident a short distance down the road. The attorney for the struck vehicle found evidence of the traffic stop (maybe a ticket or warning was issued, I'm not sure) and found out that the officer let an uninsured motor vehicle continue down the road. The struck motorist succesfully sued that police department (they had bigger pockets than the striking vehicle) for allowed an uninsured motorist to drive.
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spoon059
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09/03/22 10:51am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Motor vehicle laws. Complicated jurisdiction question.
20 years as a police officer...
Your tint is legal in Florida, but against the law in Maryland. A Maryland police officer can pull you over and write you a citation for the tint, its called reciprocity.
It has been my experience that if a judge learns that the tint was allowed in your home state, they will generally drop the charge. That is problematic for you to have to return to Maryland to fight the ticket though.
My suggestion is two fold.
1- Be courteous and considerate to the officer, and they will likely be courteous and considerate back to you. Conversely, act like a jerk to an officer and you shouldn't be at all surprised when they act like a jerk right back to you. In this circumstance, roll down ALL your windows so that an officer approaching your car can more easily see inside and quickly determine that you aren't a threat to them. Walking up to an unknown vehicle that first time and not being able to see inside will raise anxiety for any intelligent officer. Reducing that anxiety will go a long ways towards an amicable outcome for you!
2- If you are concerned about it, on top of being courteous and considerate, consider printing out the law from your home state declaring that the level of tint is lawful in your home state. There are 50 state with their own laws, I don't know every traffic law in my own state... let alone your state! If you tell me that your tint is legal at home and have paperwork to back it up (and followed point 1) then I am extremely likely to issue you a warning and be done with the stop.
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spoon059
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09/03/22 10:47am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Best leveler for travel trailer?
Blocks of wood worked jsut fine for us for 12 years. Didn't have any problems with slipping. I had 2 pieces of 2x8, slightly longer than my wheelbase and 1 piece of 3/4". Made it reasonably accurate side to side.
We got some Anderson leveler style last year and love them. They are so much easier to simply dial in the exact height, no guessing. Much smaller and easier to store than a piece of 2x8.
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spoon059
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09/02/22 08:01am |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Black water tank health concerns and questions
You forgot about the Tyvek suit, knee high rubber boots, and military grade respiratory protection. Do not forget to have someone tape the boots and gloves to the Tyvek suit, preferably before you get to the dump station.
And then inevitably get back into your truck still wearing half that stuff, or taking off your gloves first so your once protected hands are now dirty, and you get back into the truck, grab the steering wheel and then grab an apple to eat going down the road.
I find that the people that get crazy about "cleanliness" are usually the sloppiest ones in real life.
I used to work at a sub shop. People would come in, hand me money to pay for the food, then complain that I didn't wash my hands BEFORE putting the raw steak on the grill (I'd wash my hands immediately after touching the raw meat). They would complain that my hands were dirty from the dirty money (the same dirty money that the customer touched and didn't wash his hands afterwards). It wouldn't dawn upon them that anything dangerous would be killed by the heat of cooking the food.
Or they want food servers to wear gloves... as if we wouldn't touch all the same things with GLOVED hands (thus making them dirty) that we would with BARE hands.
Can't fix stupid...
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spoon059
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08/28/22 05:38am |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Black water tank health concerns and questions
Are these concerns unfounded?
Yes. A properly designed RV system is perfectly safe. Dumping a black tank is a non-issue. When it's full, dump it. If you have a black tank sprayer, use that every few times to really get everything out. NEVER leave your black tank empty, always have at least a couple gallons in the bottom to keep it from turning into a brick.
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spoon059
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08/27/22 12:54pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Going Back to a Travel Trailer
Nice. Our first trailer was a 1998 Nash 22H. Wonderful well built small trailer that fit almost anywhere. 2 kids later (now up to 3) we upgraded to a Jayco 29QBS that is 35 feet long. Our next rig will be a 5th wheel, likely closer to 40 feet long as the kids grow and we intend to take a longer cross country trip in it.
Looking ahead to when kids are gone, thinking we will stay with a smaller 5th wheel, but who knows where the future leads us! Enjoy your smaller camper and simpler camping life! I miss my little camper and not hauling around 5 chairs, 3 bikes, a couple scooters, water table, rain boots, etc etc! (But I wouldn't trade it for the world!)
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spoon059
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08/26/22 12:48pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Cost of EV Batteries
350kw chargers can do the job in 10-15 minutes, if your battery can take it. They're getting better. Level 2 chargers work on campground 50a service.
The problem is that fast charging is detrimental to the battery. Too much heat significantly reduces lifespan.
Cheaper batteries that are lighter and smaller and hold more charge will be needed to make it feasible to the masses for anything beyond a commuter style vehicle.
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spoon059
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08/23/22 04:27pm |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: residential fridge
I'm more curious how you plan to get a residential fridge into your camper...
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spoon059
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08/23/22 10:51am |
Fifth-Wheels
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