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After seeing that many of you have or had a 1500, and after a ton of research, I opted out of buying the 2500 Duramax because I felt that I didn't need it. Then people started coming out on here and saying that they have sold their 1500's and moved up to the Duramax, which I had thought about for a long time. This is my 5th Chevy truck in the last 40years and in that time I also have had 3 Ford's of various sizes, and still I did a ton of research. As far as high altitude overheating, I had no problem going over the sumits into Flagstaff, Az that top out at 7300', but I did test the trucks fuel to see if anything has changed in the last 50 years... or 49 being that my 1st Chevy was a well used 68 that a friend owned before me. I did notice that running regular fuel over the summits is still a questionable choice. Years ago with my 76 Chevy 1500Crew Cab, I found out that running higher octane really made a difference and that I could get up to 14mpg by using Octane boost on long hauls, over the 8 or so mpg that I would usually get. Now a days, the 76, known as Big Red has been our primary snow plow for the past 30 years and still runs great. A few days ago, I filled up with regular again, while knowing that we were going to be driving thru the valley and then I put in one last tank full of 87octane to go over the 4500' Oregon/California Siskiyou Summit and it was simply, OK. It made it over but the temp did creep up just a little from normal and my transmission went up from 178° to 196° and the power was simply OK, not great, but still more then enough. Basically the 5.3 litre feels like a standard 350 and tows just fine. Knowing that we were heading up over 7000', I switched over to premium 92octane, like I've been doing forever and had no problems at all accelerating and keeping it around 65, while going over the Flagstaff summit. The speed limit on that section is 75mph and we had a severe head wind and I have noticed that the gas milage really drops when you get over 65 and you can really feel the force in the cab that's being created at higher speeds with the Ollie in tow, neither of which are that aerodynamically designed to drive at that speed. Most of the time I kept it around 65 going over the summit but I did take it up to 75mph and watched my milage drop from around 7.2mpg, going up at 65 to 4.2 when climbing at 75mph. Still though my 50 mile average stayed around 7.2 mpg over the summit. Then on normal flat ground, I'm getting around 13.2 when towing at 60mph in California, which is a far cry from the 19.4mpg that our Mercedes would average... but that's a different story. So all in all, I'm real happy with my choice of truck and just like my friend Mark, who has the Duramax, we both slowed way down going over the summit with the 25mph headwind holding us back :) Running Premium 92 Octane makes a huge difference in the performance of the 1500 Chevy trucks. And if you know beforehand that you will be crossing over a high altitude summit, switching from regular to premium really makes a difference in both power and mpg. So if you own the 1500 and feel like it's dogging over the summits while towing your Ollie,make sure that you switch over to premium for at least that day. Most of the time, when not towing, I just run regular, but they do make Premium Grade Gasoline's for a reason... and that reason is better performance under certain circumstances. Reed

John, The coupler Steve listed is a weld on design that must be drilled and bolted to the aluminum Oliver tongue. It is exactly the same as the stock Oliver coupler, except in 2 5/16" ball size. For anyone doing this mod, I recommend not getting the aluminum ball mount unless you are getting the 2 1/2" size for class 5 hitches. And only then if you are using it with an Oliver and not a heavier trailer. I saw a picture of an aluminum mount snapped off and it started a big discussion with a number of people saying they knew of failures too. Aluminum mounts will snap off if overloaded where steel will deform and hold on. I think aluminum is a poor choice for a drop hitch with their extreme leverage.

I chose this area (Western North Carolina) of the country to live in for many reasons. One of those reasons was that it had all four of the seasons - Spring - Summer - Fall - Winter. However, during the summer the high temperature rarely hits 90 and if it does, when the sun goes over the mountain it cools right back down to something more tolerable. And, in the Winter, the little town I live in has an average annual snowfall of between 6 and 7 inches total. The day before yesterday the weather forecast was for temperatures to be in the low to mid 30's (average for this time of year is low 50's) and for 1 to 2 inches of snow that would not stick to the roads. Well, now it is about 30 hours later, it is STILL snowing and there is 7 to 9 inches on the ground! Sure is pretty though. Bill

We opted out of the microwave and am sure glad we did. The resulting cabinet has been an incredibly useful and much needed pantry for storing all kinds of stuff we use on a daily basis. In the Elite, there is just not a lot of storage, and this cabinet has really been useful. The interior dimensions are: 21-1/2"wide x 14" deep x 13" tall. The actual opening is a bit smaller because of the face frame and the door itself. That opening is 19-1/4 wide x 11" tall. Dave

Heard this morning there was 15" of fresh snow in NC somewhere. Snow in Atlanta, Houston, and parts of Mexico. Freeze warnings into mid Florida. Was thinking I should mow my lawn here in Maine one more time, but maybe I should put the plow on the truck? Maybe hook up the Oliver and head north? A White Merry Christmas is a good possibility....

Snow here in south Texas is rare but we had some this week, I even saw there was snow in Big Bend NP. Having lived where it snows a lot, this is not much. But, it’s a big deal down here! Mike

I will be making a group list for golf, biking, zip lining and any other lists we want to put together. Probably after the first of the year, I'll email everyone with more info on dates/times of the group activities. I'll probably be working with a volunteer to help with this. I will probably need more info on what activities everyone wants to do and how often. Some may want to bike or hike daily, etc... As of today there are 66 attendees registered on the website. A total of 36 campers (33 Olivers). And I'm guessing that not everyone that has registered at the campground has registered here on our website. And that's OK. As long as you are registered (and paid here) by April 1, 2018... that's all that matters. After April 1st, the price goes up to $45 per person. The campground said there are about 30 campers registered for the Rally (using the Oliver code) but there are several others registered. My guess is that some people that registered with the campground did not give them the Oliver code. For discounted rates, let reservations know you are with the Oliver Travel Trailers Rally (Group Code 7066) Camping Reservations : (256) 571-5455

Something to take into account if wiring the EMS for protection from the generator: Some generators (Honda, for instance) use a floating neutral and your EMS may interpret this as an open ground and not allow power to the Ollie. The fix is pretty simple and cheap, a 110 plug with the ground and neutral bonded together to let the EMS know everything is OK. The N-G plug is then plugged into an unused receptacle on the generator. I use it successfully (and safely) even with two Hondas in parallel. Only one generator needs to have the N-G bonded plug. See directions here: http://noshockzone.org/generator-ground-neutral-bonding/

I wouldn't read anything into the 3-phase thing as they're just talking about the internal workings of the compressor. They use a Danfoss BD35F compressor in this fridge (12v only) which can be run at four speeds: 2000-3500 rpm in 500 rpm increments. Indel (Isotherm) only uses the lower 3 speeds for some reason, hence the 75%. When the fridge detects a charge, it will allow the compressor to be run at 3000 rpm. Otherwise, it limits the rpm to 2000 or 2500, depending on the switch setting. I don't remember what the voltage needs to be before it will allow the boost mode, but it will detect a solar charge. The Danfoss compressors, btw, use a trick similar to the soft starts that everyone is adding to their AC units - it does a phase alignment at start up to reduce the locked rotor amps and that's what allows them to run on 12v. They're very robust units and are found in a wide range of mobile fridge and freezer units. Isotherm is a marine brand, but as stated above, Indel brands these fridges under multiple names, some of which are specifically marketed for road use. The problem, btw, does seem to have been the ASU module. I haven't tried out the ASU mode yet, but the fridge is now working under manual mode just fine. I suspect that the unit was either DOA from the factory, or fried at some point during construction at Oliver. It could also be that it was never pushed in all the way which led it to short out and then eventually vibrate off. I say that because when it's pushed in fully, it's in there super tight. But I'll add a few dollops of silicone to hold it in place anyway, just because it's come out once and why take chances. While the fridge is out, I'm going to insulate the cabinet and add a layer of reflectix to the fridge itself. I'm concerned about the installation now, as the mounting holes for the fridge all look like this: Nice. 3 screws seem to be holding, but one already spins. I think the solution is to glue in some wood blocks behind and then some longer screws. I'll see if Oliver can oblige. One other thing I've run into multiple times is this: That's the control panel for the fridge and a full ¾" of slack that I have in the cable to work with. It's really frustrating, and I don't know why Oliver does this, but it seems like every other panel is wired this way, with the cables taped in place with gorilla tape and zero slack and then the extra cable wound up elsewhere.

That might be me that Sherry is talking about. I've had the SPOT mounted up high in the closet for a few years now and I love it. Friends and family know where I am at all times and if the trailer moves just a few feet I have it set up to send me an email AND a text message. My Ollie is stored in a metal building so it has no satellite contact but I get a message as soon as I pull it out of there. I've been running it on batteries all this time simply because getting power to that location looked like it would be a PITA. I have been pleasantly surprised that the batteries seem to last forever (several months under daily movement; longer when parked) and I get a message when they need replacement. Mounting it in a hidden place is optimum since thieves know what these devices look like, although really smart thieves will have an RF detector that will find it no matter where you put it. I guess nothing is foolproof, but this little baby is close.

Although I installed our EMS before it was an option from Oliver, it is the same unit that they ultimately choose. I too found the location and the mounting of the remote to be a dilemma. Personally, I found the remote to be butt ugly, it had to be surface mounted with no way to make it into a panel mount, there is no way to blank out the continuously rotating display and there was no good way to hide the wiring. I finally decided to mount ours inside the cupboard. This seemed to be the lesser of all the evils and it was easy to do. It is mounted up high, right under the top shelf. I only have to open the door to view it.

That's a good point - I didn't look at the photo. The door and frame Oliver uses wouldn't be nearly large enough to retrofit. Sherry, did you decide on the Isotherm? I'll add an update to the fridge thread that you might read if you haven't bought one just yet.

I asked about the size of that one because her trailer is old school and that opening is bigger than what ours would be, I've had the microwave out and it doesn't even look close.

Sorry to confuse. Both the Victron and the Cradlepoint are separate modifications that I added after taking delivery and that a few others here are already familiar with - neither are required in order to use the Spot. As others have posted, adding the Spot is an easy modification that you can do yourself. In fact, if you're O.K. with just running it off of batteries, then you don't even have to wire it up. You can just tuck it under the insulation in the rear overhead cabinet and tape it to the hull. You could use a strong mounting tape like 3M VHB - the Spot Trace, which is the model you'd want, is only a few inches square and comes with a mounting clip that makes it easy to remove later to change the batteries. Even if you do hard wire it to the trailer's 12 volt system, you'll want to add batteries as a backup, in case your thief is clever enough to cut the power before taking off. You can even set the Spot to text a warning when it switches to its internal battery.

You can install a spot yourself. No need to go to the plant I followed a friend on a 3600 mile solo trip on his spot link, on my phone. Very easy. I could see his travel path 24/7. No issues with the download. His trailer is a 2008, like ours, spot buried between the hulls. For you new builds, the reflectix insulation/aluminum hat might cause problems I know that on our boat, the transponder requires a clear sky shot to work accurately. Above deck install is recommended. Mounted on the compass binnacle works well... Overlands idea of mounting inside the a/c shroud should work well. Or, inside a hatch cover. The GPS transponder needs a fairly clean sky shot. All my friends who have spot have done their own installs. Spot is on my Santa list. We will install ourselves Sherry

Shocks from the road will be transferred more harshly to the trailer body, so look for damage from things shaking. I'd check on anything loose like plates or cookware to see if they're wearing on each other more. Not that dishes are critical to your trailer, but that they'd be the canary in the coal mine. You may also feel it in the TV under certain road/driving conditions. You could also consider switching out the shock absorbers since the heavier springs have a higher spring rate. Any time you change one suspension component the rest of the system should be evaluated as well. Maybe there will be no ill effects. All I'm suggesting is to be aware of possibilities and keep an eye out.

Are you sending that out to the internet via your CradlePoint router? Or how does the Victron system communicate out?

Will you get a break on your insurance premiums? Seems like you should. Stan

I have the SPOT trace, it's plugged in to rear USB power and kept inside rear hull, it sends me a ping (text message) every night at 6pm, to let me know it's working and it's GPS coordinates. Last time I took it to Chicago it alerted my phone, of movement, before I was out of the driveway. Then little place markers all the way there. I've never tried to send the tracking to anyone else so I don't know how that worked. Looks like they are 50% off right now. LINK

Ray & Betty Jo- A good check list is a must for pickup day. As good as the folks at Oliver are, they can still miss things, the list will cause you to look at and touch every item. You should look in and under everywhere after you are at the campground as well. Please plan on taking as much time as you can to stay in the Hohenwald area. The more time the better. We stayed about a week and used/tested every major system. This will help in uncovering any weak points. In the following weeks you will still be discovering your new camper. We planned our first several weeks of camping generally close to Hohenwald and made a few trips back to fix things. This is just the nature of any camper, things get shaken over the road and require attention especially in the beginning. We’ve had ours for seven months with close to 6,000 miles on it now and have loved every minute! You will as well! Ken