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Grayson, Yes, you'll want to draw water through the rear port, so it will be clean of anti freeze the next time you have to use it. I'm cautious and my wife swears she tastes it, so I will do all freshening sections at least three times. Do not undo the heater bypass until ALL has been freshened, so until the next step is to actually use it. Try to fill fresh tank at least 1/4 - 1/2 so that you can draw enough water out to rinse all lines (for at least 1 minute each) nose up helps to get more water out past the tube lip in the tank. Then switch configuration to city water and do it again, with city water I'll let each valve run for a few minutes and be sure to run kitchen sink half warm and cold so it mixes Then I fill fresh water tank from side port and do it again at each valve for a minute, around and around, until I'm out of water. Depending upon how long storage was, I might bleach the system and refresh the same way too, to start the season. According to my wife, you can't rinse it out to many times.... One you've finished rinsing and think you're all set to go for a trip, unbypass the heater and let it fill with fresh. Good luck

I had a question from a member this morning on how to delete a duplicate post. Since each of us has likely wanted to fix a post with typos, or delete a duplicate, I thought I would just remind members how to accomplish these tasks. Make sure you are logged in to the forum. Above each of your posts, you'll see a set of buttons including edit, quote, trash, and others. If you would like to edit, click that button. Your post header will have a new background color, and a bold message at the top says "now editing this post". Change your text or add/delete a photo... whatever changes you would like to make, review, and scroll all the way to the bottom to the orange submit button.. To delete your post entirely, go to the post, hit the trash button, and the post will come up with a colored background. Review to make sure this is the post you would like to delete, then hit the delete action button that now appears above the post. If you discover this is not the post you wish to delete, hit cancel. Once you have deleted a post, we cannot bring it back. It's gone forever. Hope this helps some of the new users. The board is fairly intuitive, but I have been asked this question several times, so I thought I'd just put the info out there. Sherry

Welcome Jim, Wonder how many Ollies were sold because the buyers were considering and reading the Airstream forums. It was always, check the floor for rot, not a good selling point. We also got steered to the Oliver website from the Airstream forum. There is no indication what part of the country you live, but click on the "see a Ollie" up top, and I bet there is one you could look at within a couple hours from your place. Stan

Welcome Jim, The one thing I always say is, know yourself and your limitations. These trailers are easy to lust after and in my opinion the build quality is second to none. We too looked at and researched Airstreams, and came away disappointed with the quality issues. We purchased our Elite II used last Feb and hauled it cross country this summer and loved it. We are no where near retirement so hopefully will be able to enjoy it for at least 25 years, which it should handle fine with minor upkeep. The know yourself part is that I would never refer to it as something I live in, it's always been something we live out of, whether that's sitting outside on BLM land or base camping from it to anything interesting within a 100 mile radius. We got it used because the previous owner purchased based on its quality and longevity, after owning other trailers, and sold it at less than a year after realizing that using it as a "home" while doing onsite work, after work what he really wanted was recliner to relax in, so he went back to a 26' trailer with a fireplace. Congratulations on retirement and good luck with your decision and purchase, if not the factory, be sure to see a trailer in person in your area.

J-Rhett, you are correct my truck is a Ford F250 model year 1999. It has a 7.3L Diesel (from what I've read and have been told, some refer to this engine as the Million Mile motor). So far it's been trouble free for 195, 000 miles. Like I said I average between 12-16 mpg pretty much towing or not, but I very seldom "get into" the throttle. I've only spewed the black exhaust smoke once or twice and that was recently, I was surprised it actually did that. I've found if I'm gentle on the throttle I don't exhaust that black smoke. With the Oliver in tow, I really don't even notice that it is there.

Hey Jim, welcome. Ask a lot of questions - there's a great deal of experienced Oliver owners here. Our journey is much like yours. We looked at Airstreams for a couple years and ended up with an Oliver for the same reasons you did. We don't full time, but we've got over 7,000 miles on ours since we picked up this past May. We just finished a 30 day trip and space was never an issue. Mike

Jim, Welcome! Congrats on your upcoming retirement and Oliver purchase. First time we saw an Ollie was during a camping trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway around 2010. The couple invited us in and we loved the Ollie interior. The couple we purchased our Elite II from lived in the Ollie 6 months, while they completed work on a house in FL. Our Ollie is in great shape and shows no signs of being lived in full time for 6 months. They also lived in a fiberglass sailboat for eight years. Your RAM will tow the Ollie easily.

I tow with a 2015 VW Touareg TDI (you probably will never be able to purchase a new one because of the VW diesel scandal and VW's decision to exit the diesel market in the US). When I drove from Iowa City to the Oliver factory to look at Olivers, I averaged 29.5 mpg on the way down and 30.5 mpg on the way back. I drove around 75-80 mph on the interstates. My everyday mileage that includes city driving is usually between 26 and 27 mpg. I towed my Elite II between 7,500 and 8,000 miles this year. I towed in the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. No issues towing up mountain passes. The Touareg will tow faster uphill than is safe for me. My mileage varies with terrain. I've experienced 19 mpg towing in Iowa with rolling hills. On longer trips, I average 16.5 to 18 mpg. I tested the Dodge Ram with the small diesel. I liked the pickup, but I decided to buy the Touareg because it fit in my garage and was a better choice for me when not towing the Ollie. The Touareg is very comfortable for 4 people. The main drawback is the lack of cargo space.

Just saw this stream. I run a F250 4x4 crew cab, short bed with a 7.3L Diesel with about 195,000 miles on it. My mileage with the trailer is about the same as without, ranges from 12-16 and I watch it very closely. I used to pay attention to my mpg meter in the truck which predictably displayed 20-25 MPG and for many years I accepted this number and blissfully believed that the mpg displayed was accurate, enjoying the "amazing" mileage I was getting on my truck and finding all opportunities to show others just how efficient my truck was, even when compared to other much smaller "economy" cars. However, I began reading a lot of blogs over the last year to see what I might be able to do to make it even better. I was confronted by a lot of disbelievers in my current MPG results. They asked over and over whether I'd actually put pencil to paper and calculated my mpg. Well, why would I, I thought, it's so awesome, what do I care if it's off by a percent or two. To prove them wrong, I ran 5 fill ups and monitored mileage and fuel usage very closely. To my surprise and disappointment, it turns out "they" were right, when calculated, the mpg worked out to around 14 on average, SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT!! Now, that I'm informed on what my actual fuel consumption is, I don't live in blissful ignorance and am daily disappointed in my trucks mileage, EXCEPT that I still love my truck and will likely never get rid of it. The moral of this story is, don't put a pencil to any mpg as I'm CERTAIN everyone else's mpg indicator are accurate and am quite confident that mine was the only one that was off.

Hello I have a 2016 Chevy Duramax and have pulled the Oliver on several trips including to Alaska this year. We pulled the Ollie in 2015 with a Ford 5.0 for the first year to me it was ok on the flat but long climbs like out west or short and close climbs this was underpowered to me, at times I could not maintain speed or would drop 10 to 20 mph on long hard climb in the western passes. We traveled a lot with a friend who now also has the diesel but he had the Tundra 5.7 and pulled the Ollie just fine but small gas tank like I saw someone else post have to stop every 200 miles. Ok the diesel what do I get not pulling I will get 20 to 21 MPG with just the truck loaded just drove today from Florida to cabin in North Carolina, pulling the Ollie the RPM's do not change flat, hill runs at about 1700 rpm's and gas average 14.5 to 15 mpg. I am not going to say anything and not going to say this is the way to go but I truly love my truck and the ease that it does this weather at sea level or 14,000 foot pass it does anything I need and the Jake break makes it even easier coming back down. Thanks Gary

FWIW, I don't have a heavy duty diesel truck, I have the light duty Ram 1500 diesel. My one trip towing my elite 2 so far has been round trip from Pensacola FL to Hohenwald. Not flat by any means, but not the Rockies either. On that 900 mile trip I averaged 17.5 mpg driving at the speed limit, with plenty of power going up all sf the Tennessee hills.

It's interesting to note the evolution of the Cummins engines in Ram trucks with respect to mileage. I had a 1993 that would tow until it burned up the transmission. Then I had an early 2004 model (305/555). That model is known as the best for mileage of the newer electronic models. In 2004.5 they dropped about 1-1.5 MPG in all around normal use which seems to be as a result of combustion chamber design that attempted to cause some EGR affect for emissions, as far as I can tell. These engines benefit from advancing the timing through programming. This design carried on until the 2007 model and the 6.7 engine. This generation gets somewhat worse mileage again, I think because of the EGR system and timing for emissions. Many guys report a big increase in mileage by deleting the emissions stuff and tuning them. Then in 2013 Cummins added the diesel exhaust fluid and was able to return to the combustion chamber design from 2004 and got the mileage mostly back, but it seems like (no proof here) that they loose more mileage when towing than the 2004 did. So comparing mileages with a given trailer will never be an exact science with different year trucks and different drivers, but it can get you in the ballpark. Of course also, full tank averages mean a lot more than instantaneous readouts on flat ground. And the beauty of the Cummins is that it never seems to be working hard. Always relaxed as you roll along and pull grades.

New to the forum and have never towed a Ollie, but have a Legacy II on order due to take possession in April of 2017. Will still comment on your question of MPG with diesels. I have been towing a Airstream 30' Classic (just sold) with our 2016 Ram 2500HD Cummins. This being a Classic is the heaviest Airstream made coming in at 10,000 lbs plus we load the Ram with lots of equipment for travel. This payload gets up to 800 lbs. from time to time. With this newer model Ram cruise control on 65-70 mph, we get 12-13 mpg consistently in our home state of Colorado. On flat interstate in southern US the mpg will stay at about 14-15. This all being read out by the on board computer, which I trust to be accurate. Love the technology of today! Might add that owning a diesel TV and towing RVs for 15 plus years, this amount of payload and towing the above stated weight of our former Airstream is zero strain on these late model diesel HD pickups. Ownership of past diesels i.e. Ram 2005 and 2012, towing heavy Airstreams as well, were not able to get this higher mpg. The 2005 would come in at about 10 mpg and the 2012 at 11-12 mpg. Its obvious the newer models and technology in these engines are able to crank out better fuel economy and increased towing capacity. Looking forward to owning a Ollie and am confident that our mpg will be around 13-15 (mountains or flat land) towing 7,000 lbs and the payload in the TV. Hope this helps you!

I have a 2014 Ram 3500 Cummins SRW, standard cab, and I average about 12 MPG towing my Elite ll. I like to tow at 65 mph where legal and 58-60 in California. Mostly in the eastern Sierras and at elevations from 4-9,000 feet. I'm talking average per tank and not instantaneous mileage. Interesting that my old toy hauler, same weight and size, with tandem axles, averaged closer to 9 mpg.

Had one of the brackets slip, after delivery, on the way home. Noticed a difference in handling about half way back to CT. Set the brackets again, when I got home, with the bottom of the brackets forward and the top and bottom bolts against the frame ( as stated previously). No problems since. Love my Anderson hitch.