Leaderboard

Hey there 👋 I am Jordan Vidrine, from Cajun Country in Louisiana. (South Central area) My wife and I are looking into purchasing an Oliver Trailer (used or new) and I am joining this forum just to get acquainted with the user's and get more info about them. We have been searching for a trailer to take out for multple weeks/months at a time and work remotely in (we both have remote jobs, she is an illustrator and I am a web designer/developer). We decided on the Oliver after a year or so of searching for small but well designed trailers. They are the best we have seen by far in our search. Anyway, just wanted to say hi!

A few photos from Topgun this afternoon...WOW factor for sure! That’s a nice catch!

Michelle and I picked up hull 610 on our 30th wedding anniversary in early June and made our way north, up the Blue Ridge Parkway, staying in RV parks and with Harvest Hosts along the way. Ollie life has been everything that we had hoped. Since our return to Maine, we have been on a couple more outings (Acadia had record low numbers of people for July). We plan to visit Gulf Hagas next. We just had a bit of graphics added to the Ollie, as a final touch. We look forward to seeing other Ollie owners on the road! - Jamie-

All you need is two 100 amp/hour LiFePO4 batteries with built in BMS and a battery monitor. If you are purchasing the trailer new, it will have an 2000watt/80amp inverter charger that can be set to charge the new batteries. 15 minutes to install the batteries and a few hours for the battery monitor, depending where you mount it. $2,500 max all in. Andrew

Yes: 1x MONITOR-VTBMV-S BAM030712000 Victron Battery Monitor BMV-712 Smart 1x TEMP-VTBMV ASS000100000 Victron Temperature sensor for BMV-700 series 1x BATTBMS-VT-BUS BMS300200000 VE.Bus BMS 1x BATTBMS-VTLYNX LYN060102000 Lynx Distributor They have a high amount of hours for labor in my mind: for the batteries and BMS: Labor @ 16hrs = $2,080 For the multiplus: Labor @ 21hrs = $2,730 to swap for an MPPT solar controller: Labor @ 12hrs = $1,560 If I did everything myself, with the right parts and right tools in front of me -- I really doubt it'd take ~50 hours to do everything. So I do have an ask back to them to check it --- they say they would revise at intake and some of that is an erroneous easy start install added to the multiplus-- but I'm not keen on committing to $6k of installation so I may drive by for a better quote.

That's a lot of labor for just a battery swap. I assume that's Victron batteries and separate BMS?

We pick our Elite II in November, and have been trying decide about the Lithium Pro package as well, and like you, after “a lot of back and forth “ decided to go with it.. We priced out other options, doing it ourselves and decided to bite the bullet and go with the Oliver system. The tax credit helped a great deal in the decision making process.. Part of it was that we are completely unfamiliar with guts of an Oliver trailer at this point so it makes sense for us to get it set up and ready to go from the factory, instead of showing up with a different set of batteries and assorted other stuff that I’d have to figure out while parked at Davy Crockett State Park the first couple nights..Seems like there will be enough of a learning curve to work out... I’m going to try to really hard to keep the modifications down to a dull roar the first year or so with our brand new Oliver.. which will be hard for me.. you should have seen our old Casita..

Hi Jordan, We're working remote from our trailer for the last month / next couple months as well. So feel free to fire away with any questions.

Thanks, John! Going with the lead acid over the AGM saves about $850. I'd probably never get around to selling them but your point about getting rid of the weight as quickly as possible is well taken. I'm a little weary about the weight already and will be towing with the same vehicle you use. Thanks for the guide by the way! Do you know what brand Oliver uses for their wet and AGM batteries?

Welcome to the forum. Since you want to keep it truly simple and don’t care about running the AC, order just the standard solar package with the 2000 watt inverter, and ask them to substitute two standard lead acid batteries (instead of four AGMs). They should credit you the substantial price difference. Right after delivery install a couple of Battleborn or similar lithium batteries (200 amp hrs total) for less than $2000. Sell the “like new” takeoff LA batteries on Craigslist. You don’t need 400 amp hrs of usable power, but you could always upgrade by adding another battery later if you wanted to. I don’t see why Oliver wouldn’t do this, as long as you fully understand why your inverter won’t run very long as delivered..... You certainly don’t need the massive weight of four AGMs. I would have done this if lithiums had been more affordable and mainstream four years ago. I do plan to recycle my four AGMs at some point and go with the same capacity in two lithium ones. The inverter is AKA the Battery Killer, if you can do without it completely, you don’t need massive reserves of 12 volt power. I would remove the one in “Mouse” if my wife would allow it...😢 I hate it. John Davies Spokane WA

The inner cavities will certainly catch a lot of dust during manufacture, and if you tow on dirt roads some infiltration is inevitable. I vacuum everything I can reach annually. One thing I do with my cars before I do an interior detail is blow them out with compressed air. I park outside and open all the doors and other openings and blast the seats, carpet and headliner with air, and also the dash and the crannies, blowing the stuff outside.Then I vacuum and clean by hand as usual. I wonder if this could be done with an Ollie on a windy day, with everything opened up. I imagine there would be a significant cloud of dust but at least you could get it out of the really inaccessible parts. “Mouse” was clean inside and out at delivery, but the “new boat smell” remained for a couple of years. That did not bother me at all, but I have noticed that it is finally gone. John Davies Spokane WA

All essential lights in our boats have a red light switch setting. Important sailing at night. The older I get, the worse my night vision becomes. Thanks for sharing. Sherru

My trailer wasn't able to go through the normal prep before delivery and yet it was still clean inside, apart from some residue on a few spots that felt like paint overspray. I'm wondering if they either missed the prep, or the trailer sat for a while in the factory afterwards. The factory itself is pretty dusty. It could be that you have dust between the hulls, or even in the air ducts or AC that's being blown out into the interior. That's something that has been brought up in the past, and has been a concern with some people with allergies. Mine was pretty dusty between the hulls. I've taken a couple of passes at vacuuming up dust and wiping things down within the hulls wherever I can reach, and while I wasn't getting visible dust inside, that definitely reduced the fiberglass smell significantly.

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

A while back, we settled on this set up for our water purification. It has worked well for us many years now. It's quick, easy to set up and make friends with all the surrounding campers.