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So happy to join the Oliver family. We chose Oliver for its clean contemporary look, solid structure and great reviews. My husband, Vincent, and I for months have been searching for a perfect “get away” camper. Originally, we were looking at class B vans and Airstreams. We visited sites and viewed videos on You Tube. It was a positive Oliver comment on an Airstream forum that caught our attention. After reading many posts on this forum, watching Oliver You Tubes and visiting a beautiful Elite II, we finalized the deal this month. Our build date is in December followed by a delivery date in March when the weather may be more cooperative for a ride home to New Jersey. The floor plan on our Elite II will be standard to help accommodate our two boxers, Sarge and Chase, who on occasions may be accompanying us. Looking forward to meeting other adventurous campers. Although our Oliver (Starshine) will be used now for cross country family visits and vacation trips, our intentions are to have it for longer adventures after retirement. Audrey & Vincent

The spy pics I’ve seen look pretty nice. I hope they come up with some innovative differences to the Wrangler - it will be nice for both Jeep and Ford fans to have competition in that market. There’s rumors of a raptor version of the Bronco, too, which would be cool.

I also do dishes outdoors, when I can. Heating water in a teakettle, I can limit water use to a quart or less for dishes, most days. Like you, two pans, and an IKEA drainer, that fits in the top of the black pan, that fits in the sink. White dishpan fits inside the black.

It is interesting how many solutions people have come up with for this important task! When we wash dishes inside the trailer, we use this pink pan (10" wide x 13" long x 5.5" high), which fits into the sink for filling. (Ours is an older Elite II, with a smaller sink than current models.) Several years ago Susan had a medical procedure where they used this pink pan; afterwards the tech asked if she wanted it, because they cannot re-use the pans and they throw them away. The tech said "they are really good for camping!" How true! After putting warm soapy water in the pink pan, we put it onto the counter next to the sink. Then the sink is used for rinsing, and the clean dishes are placed into a Camco dish drainer, which sits on a drying mat on the stove. The dish drainer could be left in the sink to allow dishes to dry by evaporation. Susan prefers to use a dish towel and get the dishes put away right away. The dish drainer nests inside the pink pan, which nests inside some nested Rubbermaid pans, and we put them on the top shelf in the closet. We store the drying mat hanging on the wall adjacent to the trailer door, which allows it to dry. We hang it using hanging clothes pin clips, hanging on command hooks. We also use a single hanging clothes pin clip in the bathroom to hang our bath mat. What are the Rubbermaid pans, which are left from out tent camping days, used for? For most of our meals, we cook and eat outside, and the Rubbermaid pans can be used to carry plates, silverware, napkins, glasses, salt and pepper, etc, out to the table, all in one trip. We also put the dirty dishes in a Rubbermaid pan to carry to the dishwashing station. When we are camped on a BLM site where it is suitable to discard grey water, or at a campground where there are specific places to dump grey water, we prefer to do the dishes outside at the outdoor shower. First, the outdoor shower faucet has a lower flow rate than the kitchen faucet, using less water. Second, no water goes into the grey tank. We place some small collapsible tables near the outdoor shower, and we use four Rubbermaid pans. One has the dirty dishes, one has the soapy water (with biodegradable CampSuds), one pan collects the rinse water, and one pan has the dish drainer. This system works for us!

We found a collapsible dish rack with a separate drainer. This allows full use of the sink. They both fit in a drawer when collapsed. We also found a cutting board fits on the drawer, which gives us more counter space when needed, and it moves quickly out of the way...

Not sure if you mean in the current incarnation but attached a pic. Nothing fancy...some 3M product basically. May never ever ever come off of there though. 😉 I've been joking that I'm just going to lay the stainless over top of it instead of spending hours with a heat gun and plastic scraper. At the time I just wanted to break up some of the white.

Welcome Mcb. Best wishes on your Oliver travels. Just joined the Oliver family. Trying to navigate the forum.

Ok, so I'll finally contribute to my own thread. Thanks for the suggestions, folks. I don't have much to add except perhaps re the closet. I was on my way down to LA to spend some time with a buddy with a 3D printer and a wood shop when govt lockdowns started. The plan was to prototype some free-standing shelves for the closet. So that project is on hold for the time being. In the meantime, I picked up some hanging shelves from Amazon. They stunk and ripped out after a matter of weeks. I kept the cloth drawers and ordered a different set of hanging shelves with metal loops and that has worked well for clothes storage. What you can't see is that there's plenty of space behind them and back there I have vacuum bags full of out-of-season clothes, a small steam cleaner for the upholstery, and other odds-and-ends. It's a pain to get behind the hanging shelves -- basically have to remove one -- but then that's why I store infrequently used stuff back there. The baskets are just dollar store finds and I find they keep cleaning supplies etc from moving around while on the road. I also put up a command strip hook on the left-hand side and that's where I hang shower stuff once its dry. Similar command strip hooks in the bathroom for cleaning brushes etc. Generally I prefer copious use of command strips to suction cups. Even the command strips need fairly regular "encouragement" to stay put. I think Oliver is leaving money on the table by not coming up with a modular closet organizer and a better solution for attaching baskets and stuff to the walls. This year I'm planning to replace the decorative back splash I put up behind the range with a large sheet of magnet-capable stainless steel. Maybe one sheet of solid stainless for using various magnetic spice containers and knife holders and another section with some sort of pegboard-like holes for hanging shelves etc.

I don't disagree, but I think Ford could easily soften the retro look with a refresh down the road. The overall form of the Bronco is remarkably Landroverish, and it's really only a few details like the grill, headlights and a few body creases that make the Bronco look retro. Actually, I thought the crease down the side was reminiscent of 60 series Land Cruisers.

Dad and I have been doing a lot of research on them. I've been thinking of getting one with a solid drivetrain and a decent interior (probably in the neighborhood of $25k or so) to lend to him until he's done with the RVing thing. I know he'll take good care of/improve it because that's just what he does. I *really* like the ones with the green/avocado exterior but Dad says they look like the Scoobie Doo van. 😄 Apparently a lot of the folks responsible for early Corvettes (C1, C2) came over to the team to make the GMC RVs. Anyway, thanks for the input. Given that we have some real "techies" here I figured if there was much that could be said to their demerit it would get smoked out. On the flip side, a generally positive opinion of them is encouraging.

To my knowledge, no one has ever really tried to make a traditional WDH work. I asked Raspy if he could get me a WD kit for my McHitch since he's the rep now, and told him I'd try to make it work, but he never replied so I guess he wasn't interested.

I wasn't a real fan of the Anderson, for what reasons I don't know, but after having one, it's great. Very easy to use and most of the work is done by the trailer tongue jack, I normally do not have to adjust the chains each time I hookup and unhook. If you don't want to deal with a WDH get a 3/4 ton pickup and you won't need one. trainman

I agree. Enough, that I actually did try to put a deposit down. But, I couldn't. Blacked out in my zip. I loved my little Bronco 2. Sold it when our daughter was coming up to driving age. That bronco 2 vehicle was not safe for a new driver, imo. As much as I wanted her to learn to drive a manual trans, I didn't want it to be on that vehicle, that lifted on corners in rain, on city streets at city speeds. My 88 2 had a really short wheel base, high ride, and I was worried about an inexperienced young driver, even at city speeds. Just call me mom. Now, I wish I had kept it and, "lost" the key . So, we bought an Explorer, and that was her learning car. Boring, but much safer. Sherry

Have to say, it looks pretty cool -

They need to bring back the 3500 Chevy suburban then I’d be happy or one of those 3500 Chevy Tahoes that the secret service drive😳

Seems like GM salvaged some of the original design in the Lumina van? Lol

Ours is a 2019 and we had no issues with it camping above 10,700 feet, overnights in the high 30's, in WY last summer.

Thank you for starting this thread Trainman. The first and only time we used the AC was a couple of nights on our first outing with the Ollie last October. During that trip there was a popping noise which interrupted my sleep a lot. Initially thought it might be the refrigerator cycling, but did not try to track it down until now. After reading this thread I wondered if the source of the popping was the AC. So I started testing the AC first. After starting my AC it popped in less than ten minutes, then continued to pop about every ten minutes for a couple of hours. It also popped in a couple of minutes after shutting down the AC. As others suggested the simplest explanation appeared to be the diffuser was not able to expand or contract smoothly with changes in temperature. Flexing the edges of the diffuser by pressing different areas produced a lot of popping and crackling and if felt like the edge was grabbing the hull. The diffuser is held in place by eight wood screws and two sheet metal screws. I started backing out each screw a little at a time to see if it would change anything. The pops and crackles were reduced with each iteration. I stopped when a sheet of letter paper could easily slide under all edges. The diffuser is forced to follow the contour of the ceiling so the corners were the last to separate. Immediately after backing out the screws I ran the AC for two hours without popping. Although encouraging I ran the AC a few more hours over a couple of days and still no popping. Now I'm looking at ways the screws can be snugged down without forcing the edges against the ceiling, leaving a thin gap all the way around. The largest gaps occur in the front and back at the center. The back gap is the largest at 2.7mm (measured using two dimes) at the center. I don't think these gaps will cause any issues but maybe a soft gasket could be used to seal these areas. Hopefully others will help confirm whether or not these observations help resolve this issue in their trailers. Suggestions for a permanent fix would also be appreciated. This diagram is from Dometic AC 64767 instructions.

In a drawer. Fits with plenty of room for other items. The collapse part works surprisingly easy.