tatlmt

Thanks for sharing your experience. There is no reason for me to reinvent the wheel at every turn. We’ve been driving around Europe for the past 17 months in a camper van that has a 159” wheelbase and is 250”, or 20’10” long. The cars, roads, and parking lots/spaces are much smaller here than in the US so it’s been an issue and my skills at driving in close proximity to objects and using my side mirrors have improved greatly. We’ll be returning to the US in December to start the shopping for a tow vehicle and caravan, aka travel trailer. The Oliver is our current favorite but you can only learn so much online and need to see it. Same with the truck, and I’ll need to drive and park it a few times. We’ll be traveling full time in the US and Canada, including driving the ALCAN, for a few years since 3 years ago, before we started our World Tour, we sold our house, car, etc., and retired, so we are literally “homeless and unemployed”! But not destitute. :-) It’s very liberating.

For a tow vehicle I’m looking at the Ford F-150 if I buy an Elite II. I could get it with a 122” wheelbase or a 141” wheelbase. I would prefer the shorter for the times I’m not towing for maneuvering in parking lots, etc. I looked up wheelbase vs towing stability on the internet and what I got talked about the distance from the rear axle to the hitch, that longer gave a longer leverage arm and so was more unstable. A blind man in the dark could see that. My real question is will the shorter wheelbase give a noticeable decrease in towing stability? I’m looking for the practical answer, not theoretically engineering answer, and I know the Oliver owner brain trust has this information, or at least a clue. Please help this “unstable” soul.

Back of Beyond: Thank you for your thoughtful post. I am impressed that nobody trashed me. It speaks well of Ollie owners/potential owners. Information is power and what I’ve learned from people’s posts gives me several more threads to follow. I’ll need to look at Consumer Reports when I get back into the states mostly for reliability information. Regarding international travel take a look at our blog: http://footloose-travel.tumblr.com Click on “archive” at the top and you can see pages of thumbnails by the month. You can contact me directly at: tatlmt@yahoo.com John & Charlotte

OK, I’m a new guy on this forum so be gentle with me. We’ve been traveling internationally continuously for 3 years and have decided to tour the US for a few years. Yes we are homeless and unemployed, aka retired. We would be living full time in our caravan, aka travel trailer. The Elite II is top on our list but we’ll need to see one before making a decision, obviously. We’re have been in Europe for 17 months. I am also looking for an appropriate tow vehicle and this is the real purpose of my post. My first choice is a 2019 Ford F-150 with the 2.7 L turbo. On paper it’s rated to tow over 7000 pounds and the total gross weights look fine, but the marketing people write those numbers. The question is will I be happy with the engine performance or do I need a more powerful engine? My brother, a long time F-150 owner and professional mechanic in Denver but does not tow anything has suggested that I would be happier with a bigger engine. If the turbo-diesel is offered in the XL I’d jump on it since I love diesels. I am soliciting your personal opinions/experience. I expect the responses to be all over the board, and that’s fine as there will be some valuable nuggets in there somewhere. Thanks for your help. tatlmt