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Nope. They did pay shipping and FedEx, but slow boat FedEx. I think it was a week each way, and adding in a lot of diagnosis they asked me to do plus the holidays, I was out of commission for a while. No problem since our trip was over, and still had two good batteries, but it would have been tough for a full timer - probably easier to drive to Reno and sit in their parking lot.

JRK - I'd echo what Mike just said. In addition, no matter what RV you might purchase, I'd strongly suggest that you use your time prior to delivery to read everything you can regarding all of the systems on your new RV. The old Boy Scout motto applies here - Be Prepared. Even if you don't have the tools and/or ability to do an actual repair, the knowledge gained from your reading will assist you in diagnosing the issues and/or describing the problem to anyone that may be in a position to help you. I have not memorized the model numbers for each of the things that I have in either my Oliver or my home. But, I do know where to find that info quickly. As a safety measure (more than anything else) I know where things are plugged in and what to do if warning lights/sounds come on. Even if whatever RV you purchase is perfect at delivery and you know exactly how each system works, something eventually will go wrong or break. Telling your plumber or electrician that you need help with your "thingy" is probably not going to result in a very satisfying experience for either you or your wallet. Bill

Escapes use the same appliances that are installed in most RV’s, including Oliver. Is the after sales support from Escape better than Oliver? Do folks on the Escape forum go out of their way to help and assist fellow Escape owners? Appliance issues are going to happen with any RV. I’m watching this to see what the resolution is since it doesn’t seem to be a common problem. Mike

I was able to talk to Battle Born and was told that buss bars is there prefer or recommended method for installing multiple batteries even in a mobile application. So that was good to hear.

Interesting - the insides of the Battle born $950 "Battle Born" Battery Tear Down - YouTube

This part is actually made by a Oliver Forum member - tractors1 - and supplied to Little House Customs. If interested, you might want to send him a PM and deal direct. You can read the entire thread about this HERE Bill

FYI, for anybody who is new to these weird fridges. On DC power, the heating element for the cooling coils is on all the time (I think, this not confirmed), and it draws 15 amps at 12 volts. That is a huge drain over a day, especially if you do not have solar and lots of sun for it to work as intended. 15 amps will essentially flatten, and possibly damage, a 100 amp hour battery in about seven hours. So, be really aware of this heavy load and do not use the DC option unless you know the battery bank is getting replenished soon. The small amount of current coming from your tow vehicle is not nearly adequate! I am one of those who travels with it on Gas, and have never had a problem, but I am very aware of wind direction when refueling the truck, since there may be an open flame twenty feet away. Though the flame does cycle on and off.... Little House Customs makes a neat little clear cover for fridges, to preventt the DC button from accidentally getting pressed.I highly recommend it, and it takes maybe five minutes to install. John Davies Spokane WA

I know that was said with a wink, but are you fully aware of all the carry laws? If you don't already have an app, this one is very excellent, and there is an Android version. It has an easy to understand map showing where your permit(s) are valid, and it is updated at least monthly. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ccw-concealed-carry-50-state/id443321291 John Davies Spokane WA

If you are plugged in to AC shore power at the campsite, there is usually a circuit breaker on the post where you plug in. Make sure that circuit breaker is ON. Standard practice is to shut it off before plugging in, plug in your shore power cord, then flip the breaker on. And turn the breaker OFF again before unplugging when you are leaving. This practice prevents electrical arcing damage to the outlet and your plug. And some other trouble shooting suggestions: Since the fridge display is giving the “10” error code that means it’s expecting AC power and not seeing any. Are you sure you are in “AUTO” mode on the fridge? Sounds like you might be in AC mode, but not actually connected to AC. If you are in AUTO mode or AC mode and it’s still flashing 10 with shore power connected (and shore power breaker ON), try manually switching to propane LP mode (and make sure the propane is on), or connect to your tow vehicle with the 7 pin harness and start your truck and switch the fridge to DC mode to see if it works.

On our recent trip we had two BBs fail and had to rewire the bank to diagnose the problem, and ultimately take the two bad ones out of the loop. Essentially exactly what John is describing. So maybe a backup plan like what you’re describing would be worth some prep work, to have in your back pocket just in case.

I've been lurking around these boards for a few months, and am thrilled to announce that we have put our deposit down on a Elite II Twin model. It'll be a model year 2022, with a delivery date of 11/29/21. Can't wait...now to pick out a truck color! MaryBeth

You have the same tires I just put on. Go to Walmart and buy a tire pressure gauge. Take off the green cap and measure your pressure with the gauge. Then, push the little thing in the middle of the tire stem to let pressure out. Do that for 3 or 4 seconds and check again. When you get down to what you want (I run at 55 psi) put the cap back on and you’re done.

I get it. I grew up on a farm Baling wire had many uses. Chewing gum has, however, been replaced by duct tape 🤣🤣 Rebooting is still very useful.

We run ours around 60 psi. We have a different tire than yours. But, you could easily back off to 70 psi, and see if the ride improves. You'll know, when less stuff is jumbled after a day's drive.

I was running at 55 psi in the BF Goodrich tires that came on my trailer. Oliver had them at 80 psi which causes lots of bouncing. I just replaced my 5 year old tires with Cooper Discoverers, the ones Oliver is now using and the ones probably on your trailer. Discount Tire put them at 80 psi, and I aired down to 55 psi as soon as I got home. We drove from San Antonio to Texarkana this week and tire temperatures were perfectly normal, 5-7 degrees higher than outside air temps. 55 psi would probably be safe for an Elite. Mike

I understand, I'm also about 6' and there's no way I will fit back there far enough to see the plug and outlet. One thing that worked for us is a mirror to initially locate the outlet and plug without having to do contortions. Make sure there is no AC being supplied to your trailer (i.e. disconnect your shore power plug from the outside) to prevent a shock. Then you can reach in there to feel if the plug is disconnected and if needed put the plug back into the outlet. In the meantime and as suggested by someone else, you could run the frig on LP. Good luck! - Brian

And here he discusses with the head of Battle Born a whole, bunch of issues that any lithium buyer should at least be exposed to, even if he doesn’t understand everything. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ywn-vBjKblI John Davies Spokane WA

That black component is the retraction weight on the water hose for the kitchen faucet head. The blue tubing is the cold water line to the faucet. The red tubing is the hot water line to the faucet. None of those have anything to do with the power to the fridge.

John, I put disk brakes on my last two trailers and what a difference. I ask Olive if they would put disk brakes on my new Oliver without success, engineering had too many other projects. I'm going to do the modification myself (again) when I'm out in CA and can get my son to help. For me, the most difficult part is running the hydraulic lines from the pump to the brakes. Also, where to put the pump has not been determined. I don't remember if the pump can be mounted in the elements and that will be a mounting factor. Here are the desk brakes I mounted on my Arctic Fox. This was the easy part, next were the hydraulic lines. Bob

You might check your tire pressures to see if Oliver is still filling them with concrete. I keep mine at 40-45, which for us eliminated the flying blinds. That's for an Elite 2, so the single axle might need higher pressures.

He's good, and I've given thought again to building a battery or two, or six, after watching many of his videos. He also has a video tour of the Battleborn factory, which shows a bit more of the battery insides.

Hi SherMica: It may help you to know that we experienced several code "10" errors very soon after picking up our Elite I. Each time it was caused by the refrigerator's AC plug coming unplugged from its electrical outlet. None of the temporary fixes we tried work until we simply (1) (gently) squeezed the plug's terminals together to create a snugger fit when plugging it into the outlet and (2) moved the plug to the other outlet on the receptacle. Not sure if the latter helped but it hasn't unplugged for several months now. There didn't seem to be any consistency or pattern . . . it would stay plugged in on bumpy roads sometimes and then other times it would be unplugged after all day on the interstate. As you've found out it's a tight squeeze to get back in there to see the refrigerator's AC cord and plug. I can't fit in there but my wife can and, with a good flashlight, she is able to actually see the plug and receptacle. You may want to try again to see if your refrigerator's plug is loose and if so, attempt the fix and maybe leave the plywood panel off until you're sure that the plug indeed is staying in. BTW Oliver maintenance advised me that the refrigerator warranty would be voided by swapping out the standard plug and receptacle with the locking type. Too bad, that would work perfectly I think. I hope this helps. Good luck to you. - Brian

That video is wonderful, the guy is so enthusiastic. He was wondering about the “wierd foam stuff” in the bottom of the case. I wonder if that is intended to dampen road vibration and shocks...? It would be cool if they would offer an extreme duty model with even more padding. Thanks so much for posting that! I love knowing what is inside things. John Davies Spokane WA

Re: fridge on propane, at least in my van our Dometic fridge uses VERY little propane even in hot weather. When out camping we only rarely have run it on electric. After a few weeks in hot UT/AZ weather I've refilled out of an abundance of caution (there is no way to tell how full the welded on tank is on our van) only to find that I've used *maybe* a gallon (and some of that for bursts of furnace heat now and then).

Your fridge will run very efficiently on propane. We’ve boondocked for weeks with no shore power and the propane worked well with the fridge. Like Sherry said, the cable can be reattached with some good glue or epoxy, mine popped off once when I let the door drop. The window shades will come off from time to time depending on the roads you travel. Use Sherry’s method to put back up... if you would rather have the solid side on the bottom now is the time to reverse them. Mike

And, ps, congratulations on your first few days of towing. Well done.

The Norcold fridge in our 2019 Elite II has smooth/flush membrane switches on the control panel, not protruding. We’ve never had any issue with bumping them accidentally.

I think that shield is specifically for the Dometic rm2454? I don't believe Oliver installs that fridge anymore. Perhaps he's devised one for the new Norcold models now in use?

Check your Messages, I sent you some tips and also a screen capture of the bogus RV Trader ad. John Davies Spokane WA

Ok, I just called "Jeanette" at R V Trader and she verified the for sale ad. She advised me to file a claim with Fraud@Traderonline.com. I will do that shortly. I told her this was a scam because: #1 no one had hull #279 but me and #2 there is no way someone will buy an Oliver for $22,000. Thanks everyone.

That doesn't make you feel very inclined to go bombing down a washboarded ranch road, does it? ; Battery failure is yet another reason we should be able to order a better factory installed suspension for our Ollies.... Did Battle Born pay shipping for both directions and did they use FedEx? Thanks. John Davies Spokane WA

My experience with the Honda gen sets has always been positive. But if you can't get one - For the $$$, and availability problems - Champion Power Equipment 2500 Watt Ultralight Portable Dual Fuel Inverter Generator-100899 - The Home Depot or Champion Power Equipment 2500-Watt Recoil Start Gasoline Powered Inverter Generator with Champion 79 cc Engine-100889 - The Home Depot fit the bill. HD say they can be had within a few days and they are 1/2 the price of the Honda. Seems a good choice given the availability issues. HD is damn good about returns. RB

Sheri, Take some time away from the forum - go read the Owners manual a few times. Perhaps a few of your concerns will be answered. It is especially hard to trouble shoot an issue remotely - Oliver folks on this forum are pretty good at doing so, however. Although Oliver has installed at least two different brands of Refrigerator, all of them are three way powered, and operate in very similar manners. AC power (Shore), DC (battery), or propane. The code you say you have indicates it is looking for AC- and there is none to be had. It must be set on AC power. Could be other issues - start there - but make sure the AC switches in the panel are on, and all fuses are good. Highly unlikely they are the issue. You should have it set on auto - unless - you specifically want it to run off a particular energy source. Verify you have at least one energy source -no AC, have propane on - turn both tanks on. DC - look at the Solar display - (That thingie I showed you on the rear upper wall) does it show at least 12 volts. You should be good to go. Does your manual on the Norcold refer say anything about a reset - if so follow the procedure. Otherwise - do what the manual says to do for each phase of the trouble shooting guide. No guide do the following. Turn it - the refer off, let it sit a min - turn it back on, set to auto. You may need to hold the button down for a few seconds - If not working, try setting to propane, no work, try DC. I would not bet money this is Oliver's fault. I have made a few misjudgment's on my own unit - and after study found I was just not doing something correct. As for what RV to purchase - I am not on the payroll - don't care what you buy. The Escape folks - well they are fine people - I'm told. Oliver RV - you decide. Most all here have done so at least once. Good luck We are all pulling for you. RB

Nan, I sent you an email from the RV Trader ad to try helping with this issue. Is the picture in the add of your trailer? You might try calling them to discuss your issue. The picture below has some phone numbers for RV Trader. Mossey

Good Morning Yes it does require a neutral ground plug, with the adapter I use it is workable. I thought the fuel gauge and the lit front instrument panel were nice features also, but if it is not capable of running it's claimed max load from eco mode with out suffering a temporary low voltage it neglect's the purpose of a inverter style generator. I tried to politely tell Yamaha that in the long run they were going to lose a lot of costumers in the RV market by enticing them with the RV receptacle and then fail on performance. That is the problem when the bean counters have more input then the engineering and R&D departments in product development. I also included pictures to show the difference in physical size. Paul

I don’t know why the batteries’ BMS didn’t disconnect them, but they didn’t. They both had an open circuit voltage of around 13v, if I remember correctly, but a near zero voltage under even tiny loads. I suspect an internal short of some sort since there was something rattling around in each. Battleborn could only tell me that they each had a bad BMS.

If you are on the Oregon Coast and have a choice, stay put for a few days: 1. Severe winter weather is currently moving through Southern Oregon, on both slopes of the Cascade Range, with snow accumulation expected down to 1500' elevations. 2. Snow melt from last week's storm and current heavy rains are causing localized flooding of many coastal rivers and small streams 3. The good news is, sunshine and warmer, above 50 degree weather is forecast for the end of the week and through the weekend. I haven't looked to see what conditions are like further to the north. Make a habit of checking weather and road conditions - Tripcheck.com is a good place to start. Safe travels to all, wherever you may be.

Great observations . . . . . My opinion: awnings are a bother. Personally, I'd like to see an awning delete option. I only say this because we don't do a lot of extreme heat camping, nor do we spend a lot of daytime at the campsite. I know others feel differently.

I see your point. However, my intention was to suggest that if our American RV industry, as a whole. would demand better components, there wouldn't be as much junk available for building mediocre RVs. And, yes, the consumer would have to buy into this concept. I might be wrong, but I think the Europeans have a higher standard of quality (higher expectations) based on the components used in foreign RV products; the same goes for the automotive industry. Or perhaps those living across the pond have less of a "throw-away mentality" and more appreciation for quality products. All this being what it is, we are still thrilled with our Oliver.

Phantom loads can be more insidious than you think. Even if your PL is only 0.4 amps, that's 9.6 amps/day. With the AGM's usable capacity of 200 amps, with no AC power connected and no solar, you will use all this in less than 3 weeks.

I have thought about this issue of isolating a battery from the rest in the group of four and what I would be up against. To get at the buss bar I would have to pull the star board that is mounted on top of batteries by removing two screws on each end that lock it down. Then remove the positive and negative terminal bolts and lift the star board from the batteries. Then remove the bolt of the positive terminal of the battery I want to isolate and slip a insulating material between the battery terminal and the buss bar. That should work but has not been tested yet. The Battle Born 100Ah GC2s have their terminals laid out in such away that when side by side or facing each other the negative terminal are all aligned with each other but at a different level then the positive terminals. So I believe the were designed for a buss bar application and they do cost slightly more the the standard configuration. So I need to make a call to Battle Born and confirm this.

Here's additional shade information. We had some cords to wear out and replaced some of them a few years ago. Found it best to replace with the same diameter cord, using larger diameter cord makes the assembly stick when I replaced some. Can't find the original cord diameter in my notes.

We stayed at Caddo Lake State Park a couple of years ago and really enjoyed our stay. We are camped just outside of Texarkana this week at Clear Springs COE campground. Very nice, our second time here.

So-called "parasitic loads" could also (collectively) be keeping you just shy of a full charge. Depending on your configuration, you could look for things such as: Inverter "powered on" but not being used (we turn off the remote switch *and* the switch on the inverter itself when not in use) Water pump left on (even though not being used) Truma (for us) water heater 12v controls left on (remote switch inside and 12v controls switch outside on the heater) Of lesser concern, and not enough by themselves to inhibit a full charge status, but possibly "adding to" the loads from above: Radio/audio system (no switch to turn completely off) TV has no real on/off switch.... its always sitting there looking for the remote to say "turn on" (we added a switch to ours... not because of the parasitic load while off but because the bright little power-on LED interferes with DW's sleep). CO monitor Off-the-Air antenna amplifier And taking it to a ridiculous level... the little LED's on all the USB charging ports I haven't read the Zamp ZS-30 charge controller manual lately... does it need to be "trained/synchronized" to recognize a full charge?

I think it has been established by multiple OTTO's that most any brand of small generator, 2000 watts and above will run the air conditioner in an OTT. The question of whether or not it needs a neutral bonding plug is a different set of conditions based upon the generator you use and the electrical management system of the RV you are trying to power. A really simple solution is use whichever generator you have and plug it into the RV, start the generator and then start the air conditioner. Did the EMS shut down the electricity from the generator and provide an error code. If you did receive an error code, check the EMS manual to determine the problem. If you received an E2 error code and you have a Progressive Industries EMS, I’ll bet a cup of coffee that you didn’t even get to start the air conditioner because the EMS shut down the electric input from the generator before you had a chance to start the air conditioner. The E2 error code is for an open ground and your generator needs a neutral bonding plug or it’s a rare possibility that you have a defective power cord. I just checked my Magic 8-Ball and it said there is something blue in Susan's future.🥶 Mossey

The Chinese are great at copying product, all the way down to the packaging details. I've had personal experience with one of my own medical device product designs being counterfeited in China, right down to copying all of our packaging, labeling and company logo, same font, etc. and even still being labeling as "Made in USA" with our US factory address, and even with a UL approval mark on the labeling, etc. All bogus and a cheap copy. It took a visual inspection of the internal parts of the device to see the difference, so a user would never know, until it failed. I've worked with Chinese suppliers and factories for many years, including spending a lot of time there doing a joint venture factory setup, and one of the lessons I learned is that the Chinese companies have no qualms at all about stealing intellectual property (patents), cheating on specs, bribes to local officials, falsifying test data on safety agency reports like UL, etc. I've always said that China has become the worst possible combination of communism, capitalism and corruption all rolled into their way of doing business. I wouldn't trust any "Timken" supplier on Amazon unless they were verified as an authorized Timken distributor. Here's a link specifically about fake Timken bearings. http://www.thecounterfeitreport.com/product/271/Timken-Bearings.html