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I hear you on that @taylor.coyote we used to do the same backpack, then car camp in tents and so forth and so on. Those days are over for the both of us, but still love the outdoor adventures. Yes this area has become hideously expensive, land of the "starter castles" and everything else that comes with it. Still a wonderful place to live, great trails almost right out our door. Just did a 13 mile MTB ride this morning without having to load bike into truck. Class A, no way, even if I could afford one.

Yes, you can Scotty and thank you! The grey trim matches the striping on the hull AND the lower body paint on my truck! 😎 I renewed all the outlet boxes with grey ones, even a new matching license plate light in grey! If only Lippert made a grey powder coated door lock! That would be a nice addition! And when I replace the door security glass with a grey-smoked glass maybe I should paint the frame in the same grey color as the fridge vents and other painted parts. The entrance door has 3 hinges. You leave them as-is and insert 2 friction hinges in-between the 3 OEM hinges. The screen door gets in the way while working, but you can wiggle the friction hinges into place. I just centered them by eyeball, drilled the first hole and mounted the screw to hold the hinge in place. Then 12 screws per hinge! The kit comes with self-tapping screws, but I prefer to drill pilot holes one size smaller. In the picture, the hinges that are riveted are the OEM hinges and where you see the square-drive screws is the friction hinge. A careful installation should only take a half hour. The door hook has no value when you are opening or closing the door in windy conditions. Often you have to fight, holding the door, while trying to get it hooked. With these hinges installed the door can be at any angle and I promise a 40 MPH wind will not budge it. 😎 Never again hear that BANG! And btw it is the bang on that rubber stopper that cracks the interior sheeting of the door panel. If you look closely at the picture, looking through the screen, you can see the cracking of the interior sheeting. If friction hinges were installed OEM, I'm certain they wouldn't be there. As soon as I had heard of these hinges on our Forum, 2 1/2 years ago, I installed them. Why aren't Lippert Friction Hinges installed OEM by OTT? Instead of the bumper and hook, they should be.

You should see what Will posted 1 hour ago. Less than 5min vid. He’s going to clean these companies up. Like Dave’s Auto Center will help improve diesel engines.

We never did purchase a suction cup style bar. Our 1UP USA Super Duty bike rack it works great as a towel dryer or we just use our camp chairs. Necessity is the mother of invention. 😎 Old photo after our Truma Aventa factory install which Oliver did a stellar job on. We are so glad we got the low profile Truma when we did. One of our top retro mods.

We got a tour of the new, bigger Casita last month in Sesquicentennial Park Campground (Columbia, SC). For what it is, it is really nice. Of course it's obviously not the quality of an Oliver. But it's also half the price. And it had a dry bath and a full-ish fridge with a dedicated freezer. It will make a lot of campers really happy.

I don’t think so. Rat fur, steel frame, 6,000# GVWR torsion bar suspension, plywood cabinet doors and a interior which makes me think I am in the cuddy of a cheap 70’s fiberglass motorboat would keep me from buying it. Btw, I disagree that Oliver doesn’t compete with Airstream as that was one of my other choices and I would have gone that route were it not for their lack of insulation, thin aluminum skins, popping rivets and problems outlined by current owners. Airstream interiors are sexy but only until they begin to come apart. Also, they are not that much lighter than a E2. According to Casita, a 24’ with zero options has a dry weight of 4,250#, 4,600 with all options.

I wasn’t a fan of the dealer program, but did have a positive experience with the dealer in Salem, Oregon. What I would like to see in the near future is an Oliver Service center somewhere west of the Continental Divide, preferably in a smaller city. Remember, any town with a stoplight is too damn big.

Can you replace the top or middle hinge without removing the whole door? In other words... Just kind of remove one hinge and slip the replacement in the same location? btw... I kind of like the grey trim stuff... goes with the stripes. Thanks, Scotty

That is amazing! Yours is just above the belly bar and ours just below. When you lift the curbside a few inches for leveling it puts the door handle rather high! And yes, if you installed the keyless lock, it would be right up on the window frame. The chrome on your lock looks great. Ours had wear scratches from key use and a little bang in the latch from a prior owner.

The differences from one year to the next with the Oliver travel trailers is amazing. Looking at @jd1923 door and lock compared to ours and where they decided to install the lock. Doubt I could even fit one of the RV Locks into that tight of a space. Looks like we will be content with the one we have which is fine.

These came from the Hillman drawers at Lowe’s. I can’t remember why I bought 2 sizes other than I found that 2 sizes would fit so I bought both. One may have rounded edges and the other square edges. Bill

They are called grommets. Door-Mounted Holder Grommet: 5/16" Inside Diameter (ID) with a 7/16" Groove/Drilled Diameter. Body-Mounted Holder Grommet (Approximate): 6mm (.235") Inside Diameterwith an 8.7mm (.343") Groove Diameter and a 16mm (.631") Outside Diameter Ace Hardware or and hardware store has grommets but also you can likely find on Amazon.

Resurrecting this old thread from @dhaig with a question for those who used the Harbor Freight suction cup lifters (https://www.harborfreight.com/4-58-in-85-lb-dual-suction-cup-lifter-59689.html). I assembled this towel bar with the HF lifters. I tested it on the side of the Ollie for about 5 minutes, then removed it. The black suction cups left black rings on the gel-coat. The rings wiped off but I'm concerned. Has anyone else seen this? Thanks, Tony

If they can afford it. This new larger Casita is almost exactly what we paid for our Oliver at the time in 2015. In today's dollars it wouldn't be worth (to me) spending $100K ± for any sort of camper or RV including the Oliver. Like so many here we also looked at the Airstreams back in the day, lovely interiors but thats about it and way too many issues with them. Oddly I have never understood why the Oliver and Airstream are compared to one another so often other than their somewhat similar exterior shape. Aside from that they have very little in common. The Oliver being more utilitarian and Airstream more of a luxury accommodation. We also looked at quite a few Casitas in those days, cheaper for sure but just couldn't quite gravitate to love them. Also looked at a number of Escapes which were sort of ok with only one floorpan that made much sense that being their 5th Wheel. Interiors looked a bit dated and same for the Bigfoots at the time. I still have a lot of respect for the Bigfoots but they don't look as sleek as an Oliver by any means. All that said regardless of cost I wouldn't be interested in a larger Oliver. Might be nice once you arrive but lugging the thing around would not be appealing let alone getting into some of the smaller tight spaces one can do with the current Oliver. Heck I have a hard enough time getting ours into the driveway as it is.

True enough but there will be 7 of us owners there. Assuming the forest fires don't get us it should still be fun. And I will just happen to be in Colorado at that time so for me it makes sense. Nevertheless, I AM looking forward to the "real" Oliver rally in October too.

I agree with Lance on this. We drove over to Rice, TX to look at Casita’s when we were in the process of buying. We also looked at Airstreams at several dealers in the area. We weren’t comfortable with the Casita interior even though is was more affordable. At the time, a 23’ or 25’ Airstream was more than we wanted to spend and we were put off by many of the owner reviews on the Airforums. I think this new Casita will sell well and will take some sales from Oliver, but most discerning buyers will recognize the differences and stay with Oliver.

So far my local RV shop (not Oliver sanctioned) has been able to take care of needs beyond my skill sets. I thought their fee of $165 per hour was painful but $300, OUCH...that's stops my heart. Apparently my diesel mechanic is a bargain at $200 per hr. Salt Lake is central to the greater west and within 1,000 miles from everywhere on the pacific coast. I could live with this for specail repairs. When young, we were back packing and mocked the idea of dragging a trailer around. As we aged, we transition to tent camping and now doing the trailer thing. Yep, life was simple when we were kids with little means but sleeping on the river bar is no longer a good option for my old bones. God forbid if we were to ever end up with a Class A.

Doesn't it look better too? Love the new white one installed! Sorry, but the keyless RV Lock isn't pretty nor reliable. Classic look for a classic TT! (Too bad they don't make a gray one.) These are powder-coated steel, solid as a rock. I bought this a year ago and decided it was time to install it. The original chrome model lasted 10+ years, no failures, but the key cylinders were getting loose where you had to jiggle the key some to start it turning. Not anymore. Everything's tight, good for another 10 years!

We were in the first one sold in January, at the Eggs 'n Smores rally in Florida. The layout is nice, and seems spacious. It obviously isn't Oliver quality, but the one we were in was fully loaded at $59,000 if I remember correctly. The new owner said that a twin bed version was under consideration. When we were shopping, in 2021-2022, the Oliver was beyond our financial reach, and we were looking at Casitas and Escapes. It took selling a number of vehicles and toys to finally afford the Oliver, so if this Casita 24 had been available then, it's probably the direction we would have gone instead. No regrets, and we clearly love our Oliver. It was just a stretch that we might not have made at the time.

The OP changed his mind on this criterion. Scotty can chime in again, but I believe it's because the benefits of less noise and greater Ah efficiency of the Chill Cube over the Dometic FreshJet. For me, I would not buy a Dometic RV A/C product again on principal, so I didn't! 😎 We have no plans for summer travel to the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Valley or anywhere else hot & humid anytime soon. However, we can assume when the cooling demands are high and high humidity is present, the Chill Cube like any A/C will produce an abundance of condensate. Yes, there is no drain for it, so if enough is produced to overfill the condensate wheel reservoir it should overflow. If there was a drain, or if one was added you would lose the efficiency in wetting/cooling the condenser by the water wheel. Why couldn't the condensate reservoir be tapped, condensate plumbed away? No condensate drip may be worth losing some efficiency, but many Forum members have expressed their unwillingness to modify new equipment. Comments like this were added to GJ’s Houghton mod posts, "I shouldn't have to!" or “I can't for warranty reasons.” @Geronimo John this would NOT be you, as you have modified your Houghton A/C years ago in ways that were not easy to design nor execute! Condensate drain plumbing in the Oliver was designed to mate with the Dometic P2 and we've heard but not confirmed the FreshJet drain would mate as well. The picture shows the A/C opening of our Oliver. We could assume all OTT Dometic P2 installations to be similar. On the far right we see the 12 AWG yellow Romex to power the A/C. The other wiring with red butt connectors is the low voltage thermostat wiring and right in the middle is the condensate plumbing. There was also tubing connected there running from the rear of the p2 to this elbow fitting. If we had a condensate drip issue, I would pull the Chill Cube off the roof, drill and screw a tap somewhere in the condensate trough and run a flexible water line to the front left corner attached to this drain. In my thinking when something is needed, it's not can I do this, but how will I get it done! 😎 It shouldn't be too difficult and running the Chill Cube vs. a FreshJet would certainly be worth the effort. Why can't condensate plumbing be added to the Atmos/Tosot that several here have installed, or the Turbro/Pioneer inverter A/C, or the Houghton? https://www.amazon.com/Joyway-Brass-Fitting-Degree-Elbow/dp/B07CMRYL16/ Yeah, that's the way of our world. Last November, I worked a full exterior cosmetic restoration of our 10-year-old hull ending with ceramic coating. We don't travel near as much as Galileo, but since then we've gone on 10 short trips, 54 overnights (43 boondocking on dirt). See picture where the pavement ends and then another 24 miles to our campsite at Walnut Creek. I pressure-wash when we return from trips like this but don't ever truly wash her. I'm not using products or buffing wheels, not me. I do use a leaf-blower after pressure-washing! 🤣 We're just going to get her dirty and bring 'er back for detailing every year or so. This reference makes sense to me, what's a little condensate drip for campers like us?

……and here. What a shitty company!

I made mine using a section of an old swimming pool telescopic pole and a glass lifting suction cup handle holder cut in half. Collapses for easy stowage when not in use. Stainless steel ‘S’ hooks used for shoes, hats trash bag, etc..

Will just released another BB video. He's got a BB BBQ for the 4th!