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During our recent 3 month 10,000 mile trip to the North East, we stopped in Raphine Virginia at the Pilot Travel Store and weighted our rig. The procedure is to weight the total rig (3 zones), steer axle, drive axle, and trailer axle. Then weigh again with the rig disconnected so the trailer axle zone is the trailer disconnected and the axles and front jack are all on the 3rd zone. Then, you will have almost all the information you could ask for, including the tongue weight using a little math. FYI, my cost was $11.00 for the first weigh session, the $2.00 for the second. There was an discrepancy of 40 pounds between the two sessions, which is probably within the tolerances of the scales. Session One: Steer Axle 4,520 Drive Axle 5,180 Trailer Axles 5,880 Gross Weight 15,580 Session Two - Trailer disconnected: Steer Axle 4,800 Drive Axle 4,260 Trailer Axles 6,560 Gross Weight 15,620 So, bottom line, total trailer weight loaded is about 6,560, the tongue weight is about 680 lbs, and the axle weight is about 5,880. The easy way to calculate the tongue weight is the subtract the two different trailer axle weights. You can also examine how much weight is added to the rear tires of the tow and subtract the amount reduced on the front axle of the tow. (That calculates to 640 lbs, but remember the difference is weights due to tolerances. So a safe guess is about 660 lbs if we split the differences. This is fully loaded E2 with 4 flooded golf cart batteries, solar, extended twin beds, Honda generator in the basket, etc. Fresh water tank full, black and grey empty. So the tongue weight is about 10% of the total trailer weight. The rig tows beautifully with no sway without any equalizing or sway controls. The tow vehicle is a Dodge Ram 3500 diesel with the bed loaded. Brad - Santa Fe, NM

Happy Veterans Day to all the vets out there. If you are an honorably discharched veteran, starting today you can shop at AAFES (PX/BX/Exchange) online. Just go to vetverify.org for information. The background story is at: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1049503/department-of-defense-extends-online-military-exchange-shopping-privileges-to-v/ We do most of our online shopping at Amazon, but do some shopping at AAFES Online. More than half the profits from PX sales go back into programs for soldiers and airmen. Mike

The Dometic Capacitive Touch Thermostat manual and video for 2017 and 2018 models has been added to the Oliver University.

We arrived at our site at Rainbow Plantation…an Escapee Park near Gulf Shores on Thursday. Friday morning I got up and took our dog Nick outside to take care of his business. I came back in and was finishing breakfast when I needed to go back out to get something out of the truck. The door was locked shut and we couldn’t get out. We tried several times, but we were locked in! I crawled through the egress window and thought if I keyed in our code it would unlock the door…no luck.. I tried 2 or 3 times and still nothing. This time I tried the key and moved it to the unlock position…still nothing, then I tried the FOB and still…NOTHING. So here we were, I was locked out and Gerri and our dog were locked in. I called Oliver and talked with Jason and tried his suggestions…nothing. I called RV Lock company from where the lock came from and talked with Dave, a tech there. He had me tell Gerri to take off the 4 screws on the inside and then pull the red and white wires connection off. She did that…nothing…we were still 1 locked in and 1 out. I talked with Jason again and tried a couple other suggestions…nothing. After 1 hour of trying, it was suggested I call a certified rv tech to come and unlock the keyless entry. The RV tech worked for 2 hours following everything that Jason and the tech from RV lock told him to do via. the phone. Again, NOTHING. The RV Lock company said they had never had this problem before and definitely nothing like this. The lock was somehow jammed and was not unlocking. After 3 hours of trying, it was decided to do all we could to break the lock off. Finally we did, but by doing that, part of the door by the lock was damaged. We were now UNLOCKED, but no lock or handle on the door. We once again called and talked with Jason and it was decided that we should come up to the plant and they would replace the door and lock. So about 2:15 pm we bungeed the door shut and headed north. After about 7 hours of driving, we found a safe campground that had a spot for us. We then bungeed the door shut from the inside and went to bed. We got to Hohenwald around noon Saturday and Dustin met us there since Oliver graciously allowed us to park in the showroom/PDI area since we had no way to lock our Ollie. Anita was there so she let us in. We were allowed to borrow a key to the building so we could come and go as needed. Monday morning we took our Ollie to the plant and met Jason there and talked about the solution and possible causes. Jason said they would put on a new door and whichever lock we wanted…no cost. He also checked the egress window framing as we crawled in and out of that window several times while we were trying to fix it ourselves. Before we left, Jason said they were going to do some R&D on this problem to see what could have caused this. It could have been a total fluke with the lock, we don’t know. He said he would get back with us about what they found. For now, we put the traditional lock back on until I regain my confidence in the keyless entry lock. Oliver did an incredible job attending to our needs and fixing our Ollie so we could get back on the road. I cannot say enough for the positive support we received from the Oliver Company…100% Kudos. I don’t know of any other rv manufacturer that would have been as open and supportive as the Oliver Company.

Thanks for posting. I have not weighed my trailer yet but intend to, sooner or later. However I do have a 1000 pound hydraulic tongue scale and recorded similar numbers to yours, with much better accuracy, I am sure. 720 pounds with three full jerry cans on the cargo tray. (2 steel gas, 1 plastic water) 600 pounds with jerry cans empty. This is for a II loaded for travel with full fresh tank only, no generator or other extra heavy cargo. I do encourage owners towing with light duty vehicles to buy and use a tongue scale, this stuff is worth knowing. Those with HD trucks should not bother unless you tow other heavy trailers. Caution: a tongue scale does not include the weight of your hitch coupler, be sure to weigh that separately and add it to the scale value! A big WD hitch with steel bars is darned heavy! ... But some of that weight is carried by the front axle. Truck scales are not especially precise, they are good enough for commercial rigs weighing 20 tons.... Also, the type and number of batteries you have will have almost no effect on tongue weight since they are directly between the axles. Stuff loaded on the back bumper or tongue will, in a huge way. John Davies Spokane WA

Good Morning Reed and Karen, I am forwarding Jason Walmsley a manual and a video link on the Dometic thermostat. He will upload them to Oliver University this morning. Thank you and have an outstanding day. -Phil

I suggest that the Nature's Head Composting Toilet option should only be considered by owners with an anal "(b : of, relating to, characterized by, or being personality traits (such as orderliness, frugality, and obstinacy) considered typical of fixation at the anal stage of development : anal-retentive — often used in nontechnical contexts to describe someone as extremely or excessively neat, careful, or precise") personality. I'm one of them. I think you can identify the personality traits of the rest of the Oliver owners active on the forum who have opted for this solution. :) Don