ScentFreeInSC

Has anyone tried adding soundproofing under the bed opening, maybe the underside of the lid,near the install location? I found some stick on stuff I am going to try(link below). We just upgraded to the lithium package a couple weeks ago. FONESO Acoustic Panels High Density Soundproof Foam Panels for Walls, Sound Absorbing Panels, Acoustic Foam Panels Fire Resistant for Studio Recording 1"x12"x12" (12Pack), Black https://a.co/d/fbSY246

We have a 2019 elite II and are going to go to the mothership for a big tuneup. While the tires seem to look good, we do keep covers on them most of the time and they have less than 20k miles on them I am wondering if we should add that to the list of things to take care of. My guess is we have 1-2 good years left in them but not sure if others have seem them having issues earlier then i would expect. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thank you, thank you everyone! We haven't even turned the propane on yet this trip (it's only day two) and all of a sudden this evening our LP alarm started going off. We could NOT figure out what it could be and Chad suggested I check here. John, you are a life saver, because Chad might have followed in Mike's footsteps and cut the wires if we hadn't found that fuse. The wiring diagram in the user manual makes it none too clear. For reference, we have a 2019 LE II, and the date of manufacture on our detector was also 2015. It is a Friday night, so now we need to figure out how to proceed. Might try to find a battery or plug in one for the time being, as we have full hookups this trip. Can't tell you how much we appreciate you ALL for keeping us sane and reassuring us it probably is just malfunctioning. - Kathryn and Chad, currently east of Orlando, FL

Hi Dave and Becky! We're Kathryn and Chad, and we're in Traveler's Rest, not too far from you! We were complete novices when we got our trailer in fall of 2019, just before Chad retired, but if you read here and watch a lot of You Tube videos, you'll be fine. We just started traveling again and we're surprised how much we still remember after 16 months off, with nothing but bringing it back and forth from storage to do maintenance work. The learning curve is steep, but most of it sticks with you once you've done it all a few times. We're not here on the forum a ton, but feel free to send us a direct message if you have questions. Happy travels!

I know you are looking for a white fan( so were we) but we ended up getting thgis one and like it quite well. It sticks very well and with so many usb ports in the Ollie you can mount it pretty much anywhere. https://www.amazon.com/LEMOISTAR-Battery-Powered-Rotatable-Vehicles/dp/B07D7S7K3N?ref_=ast_sto_dp

Congratulations from 517! From a distance we're practically twins with the decal colors...we chose black and metallic dark blue. We picked up two weeks ago, and were a bit more like 30% terrified, but there were two of us to spread it out between, and we managed to have our freakouts at different times. After a few days, though, we felt pretty good about the whole thing, though still double checking everything we do! I suspect by the time you get back to Idaho, you'll feel like an old hand. My biggest advice is to take your time and just do everything at a speed with which you're comfortable. With any luck, at least, you won't be dealing with the 100+ weather we had.

Pictures at the end, plus a super long pick-up/trip report going from Hohenwald to Greenville, SC. It was a baptism by fire (almost literally thanks to the 100+ heat indices), but we managed to deal with most of the problems (a few not even of our making!), and made it home safe and sound with our new LEII. Sept. 8-12, 2019 About us: Never RVed, tent camped a bit decades ago, never drove a large vehicle or towed. Bought a Lincoln Navigator in April to use as a tow vehicle. We read all the manuals in Oliver University, watched 100s of hours of YouTube videos, and attended the 2019 owners' rally. Me: Medically disabled, severe reactions to chemicals/fragrances/foods/heat/sun/you name it. Thus, the Scent Free Ollie. First I'll give a shout out to Merriwether's Retreat in Hohenwald. The Voorhies House is a house rental/B&B right in downtown Hohenwald, making it easy to get over to the Sales Office first thing in the morning. Melissa, who runs things, was amazingly friendly and understanding of my chemical/fragrance/food issues. The house we stayed in was a lovingly renovated and restored historic home. Thus, it does have a slight musty smell, so I wouldn't recommend it for anyone with serious allergies to that sort of thing. I surprisingly didn't have too much trouble, though I took my own food, soap and pillow. For most people I think this would be a good option if you need a place to stay before pickup or while having multi-day work done. We showed up to find our lovely Ollie in the A/C'ed back of the Sales Office. Thankfully, the Oliver team was kind enough to have let it air out for a few days, so most of the chemical smell, other than in the cabinets and the back of the bathroom door, was gone. I am so appreciative of that, since it made it vastly easier for me to be in it. Chuck, our delivery specialist, gave us a rundown of the Ollie. He's new-ish to the company, so he wasn't as familiar with some of the systems as I might have hoped, though he was more than willing to find out answers to questions he couldn't answer. We've mainly seen 2018 and older Ollies, so we were rather surprised by some of the subtle and not-so-subtle changes to the Ollie compared to what we thought we were getting, from the extended sewer hose attachment to the location of the inverter to the fuse/breaker panels. Chad pulled the Navigator around and Chuck started setting up the Anderson hitch, only to discover he had the wrong size ball. He had to go back to the factory to get the right one. He showed us how to attach and detach the whale tail/triangle, but his instructions were not at all what I had read and seen in instructional videos. I expressed a concern about this, but we weren't given any explanation for the discrepancy, and we're still not sure that everything is set up correctly or that we're tightening to the right tightness (our Ollie rides a bit higher in front than in back, with 1" squat on the Navigator - back up from 2" squat without WD - and we have to tighten the chains 9 turns to get them tight). I'm thinking we may have to lower the hitch ball height? And maybe take out links in the chains? This was something I was not expecting to have to worry about. So, off we go, totally nervous newbies, heading to David Crockett State Park for the night. We were very pleasantly surprised as to how easy it was to tow, even to make corners. We drove slowly and just took our time and made it to the park with no trouble. We checked in, drove to our site, and proceeded to take hours to level, unhitch, hookup and generally get our crap together moving stuff from the Nav to the Ollie. In upper 90 degree temps. In the sun. While we could have taken a production date picking up as early as July, I had specifically decided to wait in order to avoid the heat of summer. The fates had a good chuckle at our expense. While learning anything this complicated (and expensive and/or life threatening) can be overwhelming, doing it in this kind of heat is another kind of crazy. After we got leveled and unhitched with the power plugged in, I went inside to turn on the A/C and Chad came to tell me the driver's side stabilizer wouldn't go down. He hand cranked it just to get it down and not slow progress. Later, we determined that it had a blown fuse! Replaced the fuse and all was well. We picked site 23 and I recommend it, and the one to the north of it. These are smaller, relatively level pull-through sites right along the creek. We sat outside for dinner and just enjoyed watching the birds flit through the trees. You know how when everything is new and unfamiliar, you have no idea what is normal and what is something you've done wrong? Well, we had an interesting experience overnight our first night. Some time in the night I woke to a *clunk* *beep*. Had no idea what had just happened. I eventually realized that the microwave was on 0:00, so the power must have gone out and come back on. I got up and looked out the window to confirm that our external surge protector/circuit analyzer attached to the post showed everything was A-OK as far as it was concerned. Weird. Eventually got back to sleep. Some time in the wee hours of the morning, happened again. Confirmed I saw microwave on, circuit analyzer on post happy, I may have even peaked at the EMS and saw E O, so I went back to sleep. Well, Chad gets up early and immediately informs me that there is NO power and we've been using the batteries for who knows how long (though I don't think we had much on). Far as we could tell, the power was fine at the post, but not coming into the Ollie, and thus was likely being stopped by the EMS or a breaker. Chad checked the breakers and none had tripped. He tried flipping the breaker off and on again (you know sometimes they don't flip all the way), and I went to look and see if the EMS showed a Previous Error Code and what it meant. Sure enough, it said that the voltage had been too high. Soon after, the power came back on. I don't know if it was because the voltage was only now low enough, or because the EMS waited the two and a half minutes after Chad flipped the breaker, but we were back in business! The nice lessons here were a) the EMS sure as shootin' did it's job and b) we have a decent handle on trouble shooting some of the basic electrical issues in the Ollie. Later, Chad went for a walk and saw them working on a transformer...aha, our culprit! That made us feel much better. The park has a nice little museum with outdoor exhibits (it was closed), so we drove up and parked near there and enjoyed those before we left. Skipping over the nitty-gritty: Hot, stressful morning and drive but nothing went terribly wrong, we spent the second night at Poole Knobs COE campground. Nice enough campground, terrible hike up to bathhouse, mostly pull-throughs, site 24 was not quite level, but our levelers made us off the other way. Gave up and went with not level. While we had a nice lake-front site, the ones on the inside of the loop have a nice lake view and tended to be more level, though steep to get up to and down from. Note that at this time of year there are very large nuts falling from some of the trees. Finally got smart and started the departure process while it was still cool-ish out. Couldn't figure out why, but the tow/haul light, which is supposed to engage automatically when we're attached, didn't go on until we were on the road out of the campground. We made it smoothly through Tennessee on I-40, including some traffic around Knoxville. It helps, as Chad gets used to the size of things, to have me keep an eye in the passenger side mirror to let him know how close he is to the lane marker/edge of road on my side, particularly with semis around us. The tow/haul mode performed beautifully without having to do much of any breaking or manual downshifting on hills. It was startling at first how loud the engine would get, since we never asked much of it before, but we got used to that quickly. Our last night was at Anchor Down RV Resort, which is a very highly rated private resort overlooking a lake. While the views were stunning and the facilities well maintained, it was packed with huge RVs, most with dogs (some who barked), had no trees to speak of, and had an unbelievable list of rules and regs. You had to be out by 11am, and if you weren't, they'd charge you $100/hr, minimum one hour!!! I was actually stressed that we had to make sure that we were out by 11am on the dot, since who knows how long we might take, being total newbies! We spent less time outside due to the heat/sun and the many people using lighter fluid and other things very nearby. I didn't think this sort of place was our cup of tea, and this confirmed it. It was nice to have full hookups so that we could dump tanks at our leisure, since this was our last stop and we were doing it for the first time, but we likely could have found a more laid back and much cheaper place. We left with 20 minutes to spare. The tow/haul mode decided not to come on for the last day of the trip, which is when we had to go over the Appalachians with 4% and 6% grades. Chad did some manual downshifting and a bit more breaking, but the Navigator did pretty well considering it wasn't in tow/haul mode. Of course, 20 minutes from home, not long after the 6% grade, the tow/haul light comes on! Chad almost immediately washed the Ollie and applied a coat of Duragloss Aquawax, along with adding silicone to a number of the chrome brackets around the tiny marker lights because they were loose. His first mod was to add reflective tape to the ends of the bumper and glow-in-the-dark tape to the stairs. The Ollie is now safely tucked away in a field at the storage place, waiting for it to cool off enough to go for a long weekend nearby and just relax! The Navigator has an appointment scheduled to see if they can diagnose this intermittent problem (not holding our breaths). Feel free to ask questions about any part of the trip or the campgrounds we stayed in, or put in your two cents if you have ideas for us to improve our techniques! -Kathryn (& Chad) P.S. I developed very extensive departure and arrival checklists, based on an amalgamation of those from the forum and other online sources. No good plan survives contact with the enemy, and these didn't, so I'm going to try to revise them. Once I have, and maybe after we put them through their paces a few more times, I'll post them for anyone who wants to use them. They really did help us (mostly) keep our heads screwed on straight when the heat and stress was making us more than a little scattered. And it really does pay for both people to do visual inspections inside and out and when pulling out of the site. We found things that were overlooked on a few occasions. P.P.S. One basic thing I would like suggestions for involves leveling. It seemed that everything we used , which included regular "lego" type squares and Camco's shorter version of the Anderson-type levelers (these are less likely to get caught between the two tires), wanted to slide. Nothing wanted to stay still on gravel, and the Camco levelers even slid on asphalt, despite being hammered in under the tires before starting. Do we need to get thin sheets of rubber to lay under these to keep them from moving? What have you done to deal with this?

Mods to the navigator to handle the dirty stuff. We made removeable sides side and back compartment protectors so that as we load and unload sometimes wet and dirty items into the back we keep it looking nice.

One thing of note is that with the navigator and an Ollie with a front basket, is that we have not been able to get a sticker placement that will work with pro trailer assist yet. We tried a vertical placement within the 7-22" zone on the basket itself as I had seen as a possibility but the minimum distance for one of the measurements ( "C" I think ) is 30.5" and ours comes out to 28" and the pro trailer backup assist will not take it. I am thinking of mounting a small plate to the bottom of the basket to the right side that has a platform just big enough for the back up sticker to get those extra 2.5 inches needed and allow it to be mounted horizontally as well for it to work, but that will be a project for a couple weeks from now.

I tried our harmony remote works fine, I think the radio could work ok with a lot of programming but the maxfan was a no go. even though I was able to use the learning function of the harmony it would not control the fan. I might try again as at least on key did seem to do something it just wasn't what I programed it to do and most of the learned actions did nothing. so for now I will keep the three remotes

Just got back home with the Ollie and may post some of our thoughts on the ollie later but initial thoughts on the navigator was that it worked like a champ. Towing the ollie from Hohenwald, TH, to Greenville ,SC ( 450ish miles with some stops over three days to test out the Ollie) it did very well even across the mountains. For the most part it was hard to remember it was back there it was so smooth. I think that is helped by the anderson hitch as I do not think it was tightened enough for one short leg of the trip and I had a bit of bounce but once I got the hang of setting it up it was very smooth. Ascending hills was barely an inconvenience as the tow haul mode did its job fantastically, on the last leg we had an issue with the tow/haul mode indicator not lighting so I am not 100% sure it was engaged and I had to do a little manual downshifting on a 2-3 mile long 6% grade with one brake push as well but that was it. So I am very happy with the navigator as a tow vehicle so far. I had it on the adaptive cruise control for 90% of the trip and I got about 20ish MPG on the way out and about 14.5 on the way back with the ollie. It was better then I had expected given the hilly terrain and at that MPG you have about a 350 mile range with the 26 Gallon take ours has. I expect it would be a bit more through say nebraska. Comfort wise I think the Navigator is also top notch and I think the vehicle weight is a big plus for feeling safe while towing and heck just driving in general it hugs the road wonderfully. So far the 20 inch tires have been very good, but I think if we were going to do more boondocking we may swap them out for something smaller and more aggressive but so far I have never felt like the tire have slipped no matter what we have done with or without the Ollie. So that my initial impressions on the Lincoln navigator as a tow vehicle

Thanks for the advice, it made me feel a bit better about some of the stretches on the way back and in general. Now I have to think up something else to worry about :)

We are picking up our Ollie next week and planning out our drive home. Ideally a pilot or Flying J with RV fueling lanes is in the ideal spot to fuel up but I am wondering if in general most "normal" gas stations have enough room to pull through and gas up (note we do not have diesel engine)? or if we have to use end pumps and a lot of google sat map/street view investigation to make sure we can get in and out while towing the ollie. If so are corner gas stations better then ones set parallel to a street? are there any red flags that would make you keep going if you saw at a gas station? This will be our first towing experience so what the combined turning radius will be, rear end visibility end swing are all theoretical right now :) Towing Vehicle: 2019 Lincoln Navigator so we are about 41' from the front of the lincoln to the back of the elite II.

Thanks for the thoughts. Since we only a few weeks out i guess I will wait and see what we think of the included monitor. We won't be doing any serious boondocking right off the bat so it should be good to start with.

Has anyone found a universal remote that will work for all three of these items to reduce the clutter of several remotes? I am pretty sure a harmony will work for the TV and Stereo but I can't determine what type of remote the MAXXfan is IR or RF? We don't pick ours up for another 2 weeks, so I dont have one in hand to test. Thanks for any suggestions

I was looking at this one at amazon "AiLi DC Battery Monitor 300V 200A Voltmeter Ammeter Voltage Amp Meter Gauge with Hall Effect Sensor Transformer" for $35 to give me a little bit better feel for the the battery health/usage. We are not picking up our Ollie for another 2 weeks so I was holding off until I can see what the monitor they give you can do but the manual makes it look a little primitive though even compared to this cheap monitor. Not sure if anyone has a thought on this vs the more expensive monitors listed above?

I've lived from Massachusetts to South Carolina, and my folks live in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, but I've never camped to see the leaves. The biggest piece of advice I have is to keep your eye on the fall color forecast. I know this may sound a little crazy, but there are actually people who give forecasts based on the year's weather, current color, and forecast weather, guessing when "peak" color will be. Some also just give you forecasts based on historical record...those can be WAY off the actual, so look for someone who is using current year data. These historical ones can be helpful during your planning stages so that you get an idea of the progression through the area. For instance: https://smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map/ You can often enjoy an area even if it is before or after "peak" (and note that different species of trees change at different times, so its really hard to define "peak" in mixed forests). However, if your destinations are somewhat flexible, you can try to move toward the places where there is better color. I would also recommend that if you're in an area that is past peak, consider going towards the coast if you don't want to head south. The coastal areas are warmer, so they peak later and some are quite stunning. I highly recommend Acadia National Park if you've never been there. I couldn't agree more with GraniteState about trying to do your driving/peeping during the week, and save laundry and down time for the weekend when the hordes are out on the roads! I also concur on the Kancamagus highway (make sure you have fuel - there are limited services on it and if there's lots of traffic, you don't want to run out!) In fact, I recommend fueling up any time you leave a highway because some of these areas are surprisingly rural and you burn a lot of fuel going up and down and up and down as you pass through ranges. It doesn't help that the only East-West interstate is the Massachusetts Turnpike. Be especially aware of traffic conditions if you want to pass through North Conway, NH, just north of the east end of the Kancamagus, as the congestion through town can be brutal. Assuming you already visited the Finger Lakes region on your way to Cooperstown (Watkins Glen, Ithaca and the lakes themselves), you'll be relatively near Saratoga Springs, which is a lovely college/spa/horse town. One other thought I had...while Olivers generally don't have to worry so much about height restrictions, New England has some VERY old roads, bridges and trestles. It would probably be worth running any routes through a trip router that takes height into account just to make sure you won't have a problem. I'm sorry I don't have more camping info, but we're total newbies and don't pick up our Oliver for a few weeks! Hope this added a little more food for thought. -Kathryn

We're definitely one part excited to two parts nervous about our first time towing/RVing. We have an entire room upstairs devoted to bins full of stuff for the Ollie. As for where we're staying, I actually found a B&B/house rental in downtown Hohenwald called Meriwether's Retreat for the night before. I spoke with the owner extensively about fragrance and chemical issues and she was great! They were already trying to make sure the place was chemical free, and I was able to recommend some additional products she might want to try. So, I'm hopeful we'll have a good, trigger-free night before we pick up our trailer. I'll post more to the forum if it's a nice place, because being right in town the night before seems to be the easiest approach. Jason, our sales person who replaced Heather, happened to call last week and let me know that he saw our trailer in quality control, so it should have a number of weeks to off-gas, and hopefully I'll be able to handle it without resorting to steroids. I'm very jealous of Hobo's Hideout, because the best we were able to find was a grassy field at a storage place, though the owner though she might be able to stick us up in a paved portion because we'll be smaller than most. We've been on a waiting list for months for an indoor RV storage place, but that costs $300+ per month. If you ever need to justify the costs of the Hideout, use that as your comparison figure, and then factor in the convenience, as that place is a good 20-30 minutes from us. At least the grassy field is less than 10 minutes away. Congrats on the new grandson! Sounds like you've got a full travel agenda for the fall. We certainly hope it all goes smoothly, and maybe we'll even see you out there, as we were looking at some South Carolina low-country places ourselves for the fall. -Kathryn (& Chad)

Hey Paul, we haven't gotten into a good routine of checking the forum, so I just stumbled across this post from June and wanted to say how lovely the Hideout looks! Hopefully the rest of the construction has progressed well (or has been put on hold while you're enjoying HOBO!). We've been scrambling to make sure we have everything in order for our September pickup (reservations, tools and supplies, checklists, etc., etc.). We keep adding things to our never-ending packing list. Give our best to Donna as well! -Kathryn & Chad

Ken/Judy, May I ask how much they offered the package of fuses for? I have several fuses in my amazon wish list but if Oliver has a package of just what I need for less, that would be a better option depending on $.

Thank you so much for your feedback. I may go for a more low tech solution to start with and see where we spend more time camping , in nice flat RV resorts or in lumpier State/Fed/local parks.

As Coy mentioned, there are plenty of places to stay right in the park if you don't have your Oliver for one reason or another. I wanted to let you know of one option that is offered from one of the park's concessionaires: Camper Cabins. These are rather pricey, and they won't give a group discount as you would get booking a Lodge Room or Chalet with Sandy when you book for the rally, BUT, these are right down in the camping area where everyone else will be. They look somewhat newer, and you bring your own towels and linens, but they provide kitchen items and even have a screened porch. We thought it would be a great way to get our first taste of trailer camping even though we won't have our Oliver until September. (We'll be watching and learning as everyone does their set-up and tear-down routines!) Just make sure to call Sandy to pay for your rally participation as well. https://camprrm.com/parks/lake-guntersville/ Looking forward to meeting everyone! -Kathryn (& Chad)

Thanks! I found some dimensions of all the drawers, but your insight on actual fit is very helpful. I think Chad may try to construct this himself from scrap wood. He was thinking of just one divider down the middle (his/hers), and has some plastic pieces left over from something that may make great slides. It'll give him a reason to play with all his shiny power tools.

I'm in total agreement with y'all on the wheel size...I haven't convinced Chad yet. I too was wondering if I could swap these out somehow when it arrived, but it's not like the dealer is ordering anything with the smaller rims right now that they'd be willing to swap them with. I did consider the idea that we could even go down to the Expedition's 18" rims, and I think we'd have a bigger tire selection too, including all-terrain. I think, we'll likely drive with these for the first year or so, since initially we're going to be sticking closer to home as we learn the ropes. If we feel they are an issue at parks, then we'll definitely need to address them before heading west. About the spare...I finally got the dealer to confirm that it was a full size spare. I asked was it a smaller rim, but same total diameter, to save weight, and they said it was full sized. And gosh darn it, I just looked at a pic that Chad snapped of the inside door stickers, and wouldn't you know it, the spare is an 18 and isn't even the same total diameter - a full centimeter smaller, with a lower load rating. I specifically asked, because I wanted to know if the space was big enough to even hold a full size spare, since I think we should have one. ARGH. And yes, John, I think that is the color, though honestly it is really chameleon-like depending on the lighting. Doesn't look so monstrous next to a large rockwall. And yeah, it does look like that Land Rover, and is prettier....okay, now you've got me liking it more! Russell - Break-in is 500 miles in general, 1000 miles before towing. We will be getting it dirty, guaranteed! -Kathryn

I think these are the equivalent fuses on ebay? https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-LOT-Qty-5-Fuse-MDL-30A-250V-30A250V-Slow-Blow-Glass-Fuse-30-Amp-size-6X30-mm/142868147224?hash=item21439aec18:g:SHYAAOSwhkRWevOQ:sc:USPSFirstClass!30303!US!-1:rk:2:pf:0 acn anyone better versed in reading fuses confirm? 5 for $5.25 with free shipping. Thanks