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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/18/2021 in Posts
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My wife and I have a 2022 Elite II on order for late summer delivery. The upgrades referenced in your post are much appreciated. We would be thrilled if you offered one more upgrade: a quieter air conditioner. A number of Oliver owners posting on this forum have replaced their stock Dometic Penguin II AC units with Houghton/Rec Pro or Coleman Mach 10 NDQ units. They report that these are MUCH quieter than the Dometic, which has been compared to a "lawnmower in your trailer" or even a "jet engine." If you can find a way to offer a quieter AC unit for a reasonable upgrade price, we want one! Ralph Pond4 points
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John, I'm fortunate to have a conditioned 24x60 building in which my shop, pontoon boat and RV live - so there is no problem with Phoenix heat. Also, I've insulated the previously vented battery compartment door as there is no longer a need with lithium. I found the BB stickers impossible to remove - they are a year old. The VHB tape sets up after about 48 hours and is kind of like Velcro - you may pry it up but lateral movement is nearly impossible. The batteries are stuffed within a thick closed cell foam that holds them very snug - I literally used a mallet to seat the foam between the sides of the rack and the batteries. The battery cables strap them together into one unit. After installation and looking at the reality of strapping them to the sliding rack - it became obvious that the slide mechanism isn't going to be much help in a wreck. Of course, I will be checking them frequently now that the switch and busses are located there. When I get time, I'll be installing a solar panel switch...2 points
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Geronimo John Had the same issue with our 2021 F150 FX4 crew cab and 2021 Legacy II. As set up by Oliver the gate would hit the hitch were it allowed to drop all the way down - we never let it do that but it was inevitable if I left it alone. We had some minor porposing on some poor roads at speed and fixed that with a set of air bags on the truck. When pumped up to 40# or so, they lifted the back of the truck up about 2" - high enough that I inverted the receiver hitch 180 degrees and reinstalled the ball bracket so that it dropped the hitch down enough to bring the trailer back to level. Adjusting the hitch only took a couple minutes and solved both problems ... porposing issue largely eliminated, gate no longer hits hitch and trailer is back to level.2 points
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Oliver Owners, We picked up our new trailer (Legacy Elite I #664) on Sept 16, 2020 and have been using it on/off since this date. Overall, our experience has been wonderful and the quality of the trailer has been much better than what we have read about other manufacturers. In an attempt to help others with our recent learnings, I am listing some of the items were have learned about, fixed, and/or submitted a tickets for: Initial Pickup: - The bathroom interior window frame was bent due to being over tightened - Jason and the person showing us the trailer located a new frame and installed. - Window shade over the rear driver's side window had damage to the felt liner at the bottom of the night shade. - Orientation team replaced. First Night Camp @ Davy Crockett State Park: - Noticed that the propane alarm was not on. - Contacted Jason via telephone and he walked me through installing the 1A fuse that was included in the box of spare fuses provided. The fuse holder is located under the dinette seat and is somewhat hard to find as it is black and not easy to see. - Upon opening the rear compartment door, the bracket where the wire attaches to keep the door from swinging down came unglued. - Contacted Jason to let him know and he said they would send me some epoxy to fix. Ended up purchasing some a few weeks after getting back home as it never arrived. I let Jason know we no longer needed as I had fixed per his recommendation of Gorilla 2 part epoxy. - Shower floor squeaks a lot - Contacted Oliver Service and have a ticket for them to repair when we take the trailer back to TN for its annual checkup. According to Jason, the squeak is most likely from the shower tub not being cut correctly or the padding under it not installed correctly. No biggie for now as we have learned to live with it knowing that it will get fixed. If your spouse decides to use the bathroom at night, It will wake you up. No liquids right before bedtime. 🙁 First Long Drive from TN to AR: - Had someone flag us down and let us know that the rear compartment door had come open during travel. Upon pulling over and inspecting, we noticed that the screws had come loose on the latch and allowed the door to open with the latch locked close. I was lucky enough to have some blue lock-tight with me to use on the screws when retightening. No further issues experienced. We let Oliver know that this happened and they indicated that lock-tight should have been added to the screws at the factory. I am confident they put new procedures in place to keep this from happening again. First Time Back Home: - Spent time learning about the solar system, inverter, appliances, etc.... - Realized that both the Solar Controller and the Inverter were both set to flooded batteries vs. the AGMs we had installed. Changed both to AGM. No issues noted so not sure if it really mattered. Texas State Park Close to Home: - Noticed a small gap at the top of the external door window frame. - Contacted Oliver and was told that the frames are designed to click together but requires special plastic keys to take the frame off to inspect. From my reading this is a common thing from the door factories with the tabs getting broken. We tried several time to get the internal frame to snap together with the external frame. No luck. Contacted Oliver again and Jason said he would have a new frame (and plastic keys) sent to us so we can repair/replace. The suppliers are backed up, so it has now been two months with the door window frame and glass loose. I was successful in learning that there is a supplier zarcor.com that has the window frames (Lippert) in stock and can be purchased/delivered within a couple of days. We will most likely end up just ordering and replacing as they also offer a clear tinted glass and window shutter for the door. There is another post in this forum with pictures if you are interested. Being that this repair is taking a long time to get resolved, I would recommend anyone picking up their trailer inspect this and have it repaired before taking delivery. Arkansas State Park (Crater of Diamonds): - Upon arrival at the State Park we noticed that the trailer was squeaking loudly with every small bump in the park. Upon inspection, I did not notice any lose bolts, nuts, fittings on the suspension. We contacted Jason at Oliver and he had not heard of anyone having this problem before. We ducked our heads down and slowly made it to our campsite without disturbing the other campers throughout the park. We did get some stares tho with the squeaks. Once setup, I made a quick trip to the local hardware store to purchase a small grease gun/grease, 90-degree zerk fitting as the zerks are not accessible without having the pull the tire off, and some dry lube spray. Utilized to the stabilizers to take some weight off the trailer and utilized the grease gun. Fun fact - the top zerk fitting (wet bolt) that attaches to the frame bracket actually serves no purpose as the bolt is not contained within a bushing (Only on the single axle trailers). I would not recommend you go to town putting grease in this wet bolt as the grease will just exit the bolt and make a nice stream of grease falling on the lower spring eye. Not sure why dexter/oliver designed it with a wet bolt in this location. Sad part is that, the squeak we had was between the shackle and the trailer frame bracket and without the trailer bracket having a bushing there is no real way to get grease between the two. Only option at this point was to use the dry lube spray. Happy to say that this resolved most of the squeak until we could get back home (~400 miles). Upon getting home, I used a spray can of Fluid Film to spray down the area between the shackle and trailer bracket. No more annoying squeak! I have some pictures on another computer that I can attach at a later time if you are curious. Other trips - Nothing new to report beyond what has already been said above. Improvements - As recommended by others on this forum, we did go ahead and install the black window seals available on pellandent.com due to some of the white window seals had stains on them from the factory and were cut about 1" too short. I must say that the black seals look much better and should eliminate an excess amount of water needing to travel through the window drains due to them now being long enough. If you do a search on this forum for pellandent you will see some pictures posted by others. Once again, the point of this post is to inform others of our experience and to share some of the things we have learned. As with anything, enjoying life comes with opportunities to improve oneself and help others on their journey. Mark1 point
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FYI, place a 12 inch bungee cord on top of the ball mount, and hook the ends to your chains. No more dragging and rusting! That is a nice clean setup, I like it. John Davies Spokane WA1 point
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Coming late to this thread, I'll add two things. I have concern about our 2020 LE2's first vent being too close to the return air grille - in the world of HVAC this is called short-cycling. I plan to reduce the flow at that air vent, which will lessen the short-cycling and provide better air flow to the bathroom. Second, in the world of ventilation there is one rule that is supreme - what comes in must go out and what goes out must come in - otherwise there is no transfer of air. I liked the baffled vent in the bathroom idea 👍1 point
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Looks good to me. Since I always carry mine with me while towing I chose an inexpensive one so that I would not be terribly disappointed when/if it broke. I check it a couple time a year to make sure that it is still within a reasonable zone of calibration. The one I bought for the Ollie is THIS. Is it the best - no. Is it precise - probably not but it is good enough for the job at hand (lug nuts). Bill1 point
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We’ve found that the duct in the bath doesn’t do much. In cold weather we just keep the bath door open all the time when we’re not in there doing something.1 point
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I am not an engineer, and I am joining this thread many months later. But, I do know that in a house, the purpose of a "furnace grate" is to provide a return air path to the furnace to balance the HVAC system. We owned a large L-shaped, 2-story home in the Seattle area that had only one cold air return per floor, located near the joint in the "L". We heated with forced air gas. The rooms at the ends of the legs of the "L" were always cold in the winter, while the rooms in the center of the "L" were warm. I was advised this is because there were not return air vents in those outward rooms, and so the flow of heated air was not balanced. It was too expensive to retrofit, so we just lived with it. When we built our new home in Idaho, we ensured that the HVAC contractor placed return air vents in every room, on the opposite side of the room from the supply air vent, not just one or two big "furnace grates" in the middle of the structure. We also heat the Idaho home with forced air gas. Even though winters are much colder in the Idaho mountains than in the Seattle area, the outward rooms in the Idaho home stay at about the same temp as the core of the house. So, I expect the purpose of the return air vent under the rear dinette/bed area in an Elite II is to balance the system, i.e., to pull cooled air back to the furnace for reheating and redistribution through the supply ducts into the cabin. If I understand correctly, the return air grill on an Elite II is cut into the inner hull under the curb side bed. This places it just inboard of the furnace in an Elite II, and at least a few feet from the supply air vents. This allows the system to achieve "balance," or more even heating within the cabin. Since the trailer cabin is essentially one "room," it does not surprise me that there is only one return air grill. But, it also does not surprise me that the bathroom, which is the only "room" in the trailer separated from the cabin by a door, would be colder than the rest of the cabin without its own return air ducting. Thus, it makes sense that Mainiac's addition of a butterfly vent high in the bathroom wall resulted in a warmer bathroom. It appears to me that this design allows the space between the inner and outer hulls to act as a return air "duct" for the bath, balancing the flow of heated air into that small, but separate, room. We don't take delivery on our Elite II until next summer. But if we find that the bathroom feels cold when camping in cooler temps, I plan to add a butterfly vent, like Mainiac did. Thanks, Mainiac!1 point
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We’ve stayed in MO state parks (just last month at Table Rock State Park near Branson) and had no out of state surcharge. We also stayed at Red Rock Canyon in OK a few years ago when it was still a state park and had a very nice stay, sounds like it has gone downhill since becoming private. Mike1 point
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Red Rock in OK was one of those victims of budget cuts. It's no longer an OK state park (since 2018). Privately operated. I'm really sorry you had a bad experience. Beyond state parks, there are many camping opportunities, as we all know. COE, fish and wildlife, nfs, blm, county and town campgrounds dot the maps. (For example, driving through Iowa, little campgrounds near small towns are everywhere, if you Google camping near whatever tiny town. They won't have necessarily great views, but clean and neat, and less than $25 a night, for the most part.) I'm confident we'll all find spots, if we look. We've only camped in a handful of Florida parks, because we leave in the summer heat, and northerners and Canadians have booked many of the best parks before we even think about it. Our camping opportunities in prime park spaces are limited during our "season." I understand that, and that's why I'd find a reasonable surcharge helpful. Get some spaces open for us residents, and get a bit of additional revenue from those who don't live here. Not double. Not $50 extra, but $10 is surely reasonable. I wonder about the "tourist marketing" angle. Though we always try to spend local as we camp our way to wherever, I suspect campers don't really contribute that much to the local economy. From what I've seen, they buy groceries and gas, for the most part. There's only so much we can carry in our campers, after all. When we camp, we try to be an asset rather than a burden. But, the seasonal increase of traffic in our Florida communities is something we have to gear up for, year round. Roads, ems, police, etc. Quite certain we (as a state) make much more from foreign owners and renters of luxury condos on the beach, who pay some significant taxes.1 point
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A tire change on either Ollie is dead simple if you use the onboard electric jacks as they were originally intended, as jacks. As far as the rest of your assertions, having towed my double axle off pavement, I will pass on discussing that. These trailers are not suitable as delivered. IMHO. John Davies Spokane WA1 point
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Yeah, I opted for the 400ah of Lithium because we often camp for 1-2 weeks in partial to full shade here in WA, so we can run some deficit each day and still be ok for quite a few days that way before we need shore power (I'm less interested in running a generator for several hours in a row periodically). I opted in knowing that we'd rarely if ever use anything near the total stored charge in a day but for our scenario this still offers significant convenience. A week under big trees in the Olympics in May confirmed the choice, though it would have taken another week to be getting concerned about getting too low.1 point
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I agree with the disappointment in finding somewhat serious quality issues with an $80k travel trailer! Sure the factory will repair it... but that isn't always a convenient solution nor is it satisfactory. I really don't want to have a "laundry list of manufacturing defects" to check on during my April, 2022 delivery day inspection (but I will). I had owned another (here unnamed) brand... that as a company was very similar to Oliver in their dedication to customer satisfaction. They would jump thru hoops trying to make everyone happy, even after the warranty had expired. Their failure (to this day) is that far too many times the SAME customer problems would crop up over and over to the point that their Forum was really a "how to fix the design/manufacturing problems yourself" site. Based on my experience with that brand... I made a point to ask Anita and Jason a very specific question when I took our factory tour; "When a problem happens in the field... how do you handle it?" They assured me that when something happens in the field... they go back to the manufacturing point and attempt to get to the "root problem"... and fix it so that it doesn't happen on future builds. I hope that turns out to be true... because most of the problems that pop up... if they do a proper root cause analysis... these things shouldn't happen again. It's in their interest to do so because every "repair" is profit lost, whether its done at the factory or by an authorized rv repair facility. I sincerely hope that somebody at Oliver is monitoring this site to be aware of problems... especially repetitive ones. In addition, I think it would be nice to sometimes hear from Oliver on what they are doing to resolve some of these problems (for example the shackles with wet bolts that should have a bushing?).1 point
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I just got back from the Oliver Service Department and had them install the one I was unable to push into place. Happy to report the suspension now has the correct upward travel with the installation of the 5" shackles and the annoying suspension squeaks are a thing of the past. While there, I looked at another Ollie I awaiting to be picked up and I am happy to report both the correct shackles were installed along with the hanger bushing. In addition, we had the shower floor squeak fixed while at the service department for the trailer's annual checkup (re caulk, bearing repack, system checks, etc). Spent a significant amount of time talking with the "Trailer Whisperer" Jason and he said the shower floor was not cut correctly from the factory and was rubbing up against the sides. Happy to report we no longer have the squeaking floor!1 point
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By adding the butterfly vent, high in bathroom wall, we have had the bathroom heat a lot better. The door doesn't have to be open. The air circulates a lot easier and hence relieves pressure on the fan. Would think restricting any airflow into the furnace return air vent might raise the noise as the fan works harder. Also by restricting heated air from the cabin, it would have to bring in unheated outside air through the drain/vents. By shutting slightly the heat vent near the return it forces the heated air further through the system.1 point
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Our third taillight has had its issues over the 13 years, requiring resealing every 3 years or so. This year, it developed some hairline cracks, as well. We decided to remove and replace the lens. Ours was held mostly by (probably 4200) adhesive, and a few dabs of epoxy. The adhesive loosened with a heatgun on low in the attic, and a plastic scraper. The epoxy was mostly mechanical, plus heat. And not fun. We broke the lens in several places removing it. We installed the new lens from Oliver with a bed of grey butyl tape. Since that's not truly an adhesive, Paul added 6 small stainless screws. We felt pretty comfortable with the addition of the screws, since butyl is pretty much self-healin, self-sealing. After a couple days for the butyl to rest, he applied loctite marine to the exposed edge of the trimmed butyl, to protect it from uv and dirt . Today, we added a lip of eze rv gutter on the eyebrow, for good measure, extending beyond the length of the bottom of the trapezoid lens. I can't tell you for another 5 or 6 years if this is a better solution, but I'll be able to tell sooner if it fails. We'll see. We're both very happy with tried and true old school butyl as window and hatch bedding.1 point
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As someone getting a new trailer in 2021 I really appreciate this thread. This also has me worried about quality control. Are you still getting level of quality build and control expected for the price point. I’m happy to pay for a quality product but your experience would leave me disappointed and questioning if the premium is still justified.1 point
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I completely agree with Overland's assessment... This post was really helpful QuestionMark but also quite disconcerting. Many of us live quite far from TN and, personally, I would have zero interest in traveling (back) there to have my trailer fixed especially after only a few short months of ownership. Great that they're sending parts but unfortunate that they're expecting you to install them yourself. As RB mentioned, we pay a premium for these trailers. Some of these issues impact being able to tow an Oliver safely - they are not just concerns around premature wear and tear. I really hope they get their production quality and QC back on track.1 point
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Not sure if everyone else in the country experiences this but, here in South East Texas our Bright White Porch Light attracts every flying creature known to man. After doing some research, it appears yellow light is less attractive to flying insects. We recently purchased some yellow film to place over the porch light and have found it to help out considerably. Of course, we are not in the middle of summer now so only time will tell next spring if the theory holds true. Below is the link to the film I purchased and applied to the lens portion of the light along with a couple of photos of how it looks. I now have enough film to redo the lens another 100+ times if needed in the future as it is easy to pull off. Time needed to place the film over the lens and cut to fit was around 5 min. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4PDXBD/ref=twister_B01N7TJDQG1 point
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Okay, there is no way to sugar coat this. The wrong hangers were used and your concern will be realized, on schedule. The only acceptable remedy is to replace these hangers. I'm confident OTT will be receptive to this.1 point
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