Trainman

I been looking to order a new Jeep Wrangler as a TOY just to have around the house to add to the collection, but my dealer where I purchased my other trucks, etc., can not give me a delivery time. They say 20-30 weeks if lucky, I personally don't buy into that, so I will pass at this time on ordering one. I have found the same on other vehicles like a Polaris Ranger and a Kubota tractor, they just can't give me a delivery date within two, or three months. All being said, if you have a good tow vehicle I would stick with it until the avaibility becomes available, I don't see throwing good money away just to to make you feel better, my wife always ask me when I purchase a new vehicle, am I happy now and my answer is always, "for a day or two". trainman

We have been to the last four Bluebonnet Rallies, but this year we thought we might not attend, no reason, just might go elsewhere for a change. trainman

I agree that backing plates are the way to go, I have even glued (fiber glassed) the backing plates to the back side just for added strength. May not be so important on a trailer to do this, but on a boat I felt it was need because boats don't ride like a trailer would. trainman

Since we don't Boondock and always stay in state, or private campground I've always felt safe in leaving our stuff around the campsite. that doesn't mean we leave things that are easily out to steal, but grills, bicycles, chairs, ice chest, etc. are usually left outside when we leave the campsite. We do lockup our ebikes and do remove the batteries when left untended, our batteries are $650 each for them. Most of our camping is done on weekdays and most of the campers at that time are older folks like us, the weekends are a whole different group of campers and some are not as desirable as others. trainman

I had my wife pickup two cans on Spam and we took it on our last camping trip. I cooked it as a snack on the grill before dinner and all the guys thought it was great with their beer and drinks. All being said, it has been some 30 years ago since I had eaten Spam, tasted just like I thought it would taste, the guys said we should do it again as a pre dinner snack. trainman

I have the biggest shower, it is located in the campground restrooms, why would you want to shower in a 3x3 area. Ok, I know many would not use the campground shower because they have "Cooties". trainman

I also live in Texas where we went through the deep freeze of Feb. 2021 as did Mike and Carol did. I will also add here we lost of electricity for 39 hours with the temps being around 0 degrees. All we did was drain the hot water tank and turn on the propane heater and set it at around 50 degrees, all survived the freeze, but our outside shower handle froze as there was some water in it and I probably should have unscrewed the head and let the hose drain. We don't use the outside shower so I just replaced the shower head for $10 on Amazon and all is done. We are fixing to have our temputures drop to around 15 degrees for the next two days with daytime temps around 28 degrees, I taking the same precautions as before. For us we would probably not be camping at below freezing temputures as it just doesn't fit our camping desires and if the temputures were to be below zero we would move on the warner temputures trainman.

The only person I every knew was my sister when she was young, but today I think she doesn't have them anymore. trainman

I wanted my 2019 Ram 1500 crew cab to have the 4x4 option which I did purchase. There are very few things that you get with it over the standard 2 wheel drive option, one was the truck did set an inch or so higher and probably some other upgraded options in the suspension, etc. One of my biggest things was the resale value of a 4x4 over the 2 wheel drive models which makes them more in demand in the used market. Talking with others that have the 2 wheel models of the same pickup model the fuel mileage is pretty much the same which for me was something I didn't feel was a deal breaker. trainman

Were still trying to camp the old fashion way and get away from all this high tech stuff, so far the iPhone works well for us, just don't see spending $$$'s just to hope you get something that will work much better. If you talk to campers that have more suffocated equipment they will tell you it still iffy at times and spending more $$$'s may not be the thing to do. All being said, someday we will all be connected with a implanted chip and we will just be able to think about it and we will have our answer, I can hardly wait for the day. trainman

I guess it's like some of the street signal lights you see, the LED pattern is disrupted and the light from them looks really funny or a weird pattern. I have a flashlight that is like that and the light from it is not too bright, now where is the trashcan.

I realize that wood workers are always looking for something to do and for those who do good work, then do it. I always say if you can improve on what the factory did, then why not. At 76 the wife and I have gone for the white/gray look in our home, vehicles, and trailer, I guess you could say, were wooded out for now. trainman

Airstream gave the fiberglass trailer a go and you see what happened to it, this doesn't compare to what Airstream did, but this is just someone's idea of what we campers would consider buying, maybe they should give it some good thought before they loose their shirt. trainman

Looks like a great vehicle as most Toyota products are, I don't see my wife giving up her new Lexus, but it is also a Toyota product. I personally never cared for a large SUV for towing, including Suburban, Tahoe, Excursion, Sequoia, etc., but now the new Waggoner has also interred in the picture. All probably good choices for towing the Oliver, but the Crew Cab pickup will always be my choice, just much more versatile for me.

Wow, a post that everyone pretty much agreed on towing, I see no one thought the mid-size pickups fit into this topic and can do the job, which they can't. trainman

I think that you should realize that the RV business will come to a slowdown someday and most manufactures will either face a large slowdowns, or go out of business altogether. There are so many factors out there that could cause this to happen, who know what it might be, but something will happen and the RV business will be one of the first to be effected. I only know this because I'm old enough to have seen this happen over time, everything is in a cycle, that's just the way things work. Manufactures like Oliver, Airstream are ones that can stand the test of time, but others who knows. trainman

I would think that Oliver would have set this number aside for a display trailer for this year and then sell it at the end of the year. Production numbers really don't do much for me, but glad to see Oliver is doing so well in selling their trailers. trainman

Many highly skilled people with computer design can drawer this stuff and I'm sure there are some out there that will think it's great and might even purchase one if actually manufactured. RV's that were manufactured 50 plus years ago are still selling pretty much today with the same design and features, yes there are many upgrades, but still the basic design is still there. So I would give it a pretty much no go for me, I just want to camp and not spend all my time screwing with trailer setup and take down. Plus it looks like it would blow away in a wind, or thunder storm. trainman

Thanks everyone, I got it all figured out from the responses you'all posted. trainman

I did fill out the survey today, looks like the main topic was the A/C units and as we all know they are all noisy and not much has been done to correct this. We installed a Mitsubishi Ductless unit install in our sunroom at home and it is super quiet and very efficient, why don't they make units like that for RV's. The outside compressor runs very quiet except for a fan and its noise level is low, plus the inside unit runs pretty much noiseless, why are RV units not made that way in two units and very easily moved to different locations with just the lines run between them. If you have never looked at a Ductless System check them out and tell me why they wouldn't work in the RV world. trainman

Thanks bhnch for the great explanation, I am now going to go out a check my bottles to see how much is in each one and set my valve to the lower bottle for first use. One quick question, do I turn on the reserve bottle before moving the selector to the center position, or after I move it to the center position for auto setup. Thanks trainman

I think some of you miss read my post, they was not speaking of the 3/4 ton truck diesel and larger, it was for the smaller diesels in the cars and smaller midsize trucks like the Colorado, etc. VW has already announced the ending diesel production in the coming years as many manufactures are doing for both gas and diesel powered engines. My only reason for purchasing a battery power vehicle is to drive it to Walmart to pickup supplies for daily use and you know there is one on just about every corner, so hopefully it will make it there and back. trainman

When we purchased our 2019 Ram Crew Cab Pickup we were given around $10,500 off of list price which included dealer discounts and all the factory discounts that were offered at the time. I will also like to say here that most manufactures of this size of pickups were all offering big saving on new vehicles at the same time. At todays prices I can still get about what I paid for it and it is in perfect shape and only having 18,000 miles on it, but to trade up to a different truck is unreasonable in today market. I have found out that purchasing just about anything today is out of the question and if you can even find what you might want, good luck. Just try to buy an new Kubota Tractor, Polaris Ranger, or a Jeep Wrangler at a reasonable price and that's if you can even find one to buy. I guess we just need to keep our "TOY" money and be happy with what we got, probably not the worst thing, for sure. trainman

I was listing to a automotive broadcast last Saturday on the radio and the subject of the diesel engine came up and the general feeling among the dealers on the program was the the diesel engine is going to be pretty much dead in the future. Now let me say here they are not talking about diesels for the full size trucks, but they were referring to the passenger car and smaller size trucks diesels that are offered in todays vehicles. One thing they sited was the cost of manufacturing these diesel engines is very high cost and as the electric vehicle becomes more popular is the biggest reason for the diesel decline. This is just what heard on the radio, so I just thought I would pass in on and wondering if you view it the same way in the future. trainman

Towing becomes a commonsense thing and towing with just a broader line tow vehicle for me is towing in an unsafe manor. I do realize why many don't want to purchase a large vehicle like a 1/2 ton truck, I guess they just don't like driving a truck of that size, but commonsense tells me it's just not the correct thing to do. Our camping friends do tow there new 2021 Elite II with a Tacoma with the factory towing equipment for an Elite II trailer, but they will admit that towing is not great, but they do finally end up at the same camping grounds as we do. trainman