ScentFreeInSC

I am trying to find a good Jack block solution and ran across these https://www.fastwaytrailer.com/flip-jack-foot They semi-permanently attach to the jack base so I thought they would be one less thing to worry about since they are attached. We are not picking up our Ollie until Sept '19 so I cant run out to see if this would work on the Ollie rear stabilizers or front jack. Does any one out there use these? Thanks, Chad

LOVE this idea (that drawer is so deep it seems useless), and Chad needs projects to work on while waiting for the Ollie! Any idea what the dimensions are, or which tray you got from target? I agree that I would run felt on the top edges of the drawer to protect them and still allow a slide. Thanks oodles! -Kathryn

WE HAVE MADE A DECISION!!!! You may not find this as momentous as our families (who know that neither of us good at making a decision, particularly until we've researched it to death), but Saturday we went to the dealer and put in an order for a Lincoln Navigator. Our main thinking was that it had enough things that we really wanted, that would make driving and towing easier and more comfortable than the Expedition, that it was worth paying more for it. In particular, we both really think the Heads Up Display will be an asset to reduce driving fatigue. We also found that the Lincoln had a lot less noise and vibration over all (and I don't think it was just from the different tires - I know they have added insulating material and active noise cancelling). This might not matter to some, but because of my medical condition, this could have a big impact on me, particularly cumulatively on a longer trip. We ruled out the other large SUVs because they didn't have the mix of features that we were looking for, and the Lincoln did. It also had the best gas mileage. I am still kinda worried about taking it on dirt/gravel roads in parks and such, because they make it out to be such a frou-frou vehicle, but it's basically the same thing as the Expedition; fundamentally, this thing is a truck, right? We got the Reserve trim level with the Heavy Duty Trailer Tow Package and nothing else. We had a choice of three configuration options for the second row seating: bench seat for three, two captains chairs with center console or two captains chairs with nothing between them. We opted for the last option, since we have no need for seating for eight. I liked the ability to get to anything in the back more easily, to load older folks in easily, and the extra space for a large cooler or other items between the seats. (I'm going to want to strap them down, though.) I also figure one less seat or console is that much less unnecessary weight. The reason we got the Reserve trim level was because it was only about $400 more than the Select once we'd added all the options we wanted, and it came with the "Vista Roof" aka sun roof, along with a few other bells and whistles. I will warn anyone considering one to think twice about any of the "tricoat" colors. These are literally three coats of paint, and the middle one, with metallics and pearlessence, apparently makes it very hard to color match if you need to get anything touched-up or repainted. It is very hard to get the *exact* thickness that the factory did, and if you don't the first coat, with the main color, will show through too much or too little. They had no regular old white, so we ended up choosing a metallic blue. Even though most dealers are selling these at or above MSRP, our local dealer honored the X-Plan pricing that Chad could access through his employer, so we will pay just slightly above invoice. The big question now is what will our production date be and when might we actually take delivery? We've been taking bets, but my guess is just before the rally, so we'll have to take country roads during the break-in period. (I had no idea they still made you do a break-in period...my 2000 BMW had a factory broken-in engine.) So, thank you everyone for your thoughts and advice; we are grateful for all of the input. We're making plans now to attend the rally in May, so we'll hopefully meet some of you there. Now we just have to make decisions on Ollie options, gear, mods,....argh! -Kathryn (& Chad)

Hey all, I wanted to thank you so much for the input you've given us. We still haven't decided between the Expedition and the Navigator, but it's encouraging to hear that folks have found the Ford towing technology on them, and the F-150, to be worthwhile. John - I totally hear you about the Land Cruiser being better for off-road. When I saw it in some of the TFLTrucks videos, I was in awe. The thing is, I think we are looking for something different than you are. As newbies, we are looking for something to help us as much as possible with the towing aspects, and at least allow us onto unpaved roads. I'm sure when you saw the video of the Expedition on Gold Mine Hill, you thought it was pathetic, but my reaction was, "Gee, it got part way through something that I would never, ever attempt, so I'm sure it can handle what I want it to do!" Who knows, in a few years, if we're more comfortable with the towing side of it, we might be ready to get something with more off-road capability. I am still trying to figure out how we can swap down to smaller rims without having to just buy new ones and try to sell the old ones, as the trim level we're looking at means 22's. Matthew - I am extremely sympathetic to your having to trade the 911...I was planning on getting a Boxster some day (was even active in various East Coast Boxster groups), but health issues intervened. I do think we'd like and adapt to the truck, but Chad just can't get past the fact that it will only have about 6" to spare in the garage, and I don't blame him. We'd have to open the garage door in order to get around to the workshop area and the breakers, or he'd have to figure out how to move the whole workshop area to the near side, and then the truck would be blocking the breaker box. This being our only vehicle makes it that much harder, as we want something that will be easy to navigate around town and the shopping center, and comfortable on long trips, with or without the Ollie. Such an animal doesn't really exist. I'll keep you all updated if we make a decision. -Kathryn Edit: And John, I forgot to mention, the Auto Hold is definitely different from traditional Hill Hold. Hill Hold usually just stops you from rolling back for a few seconds while you transition from the brake to the accelerator, and is generally only activated on an incline. Auto Hold actually leaves the brake engaged until you press the accelerator, and works any time you've come to a full stop.

Hey folks, thanks for all of your input! I've been remiss in responding because you gave us so much food for thought, we went into a major research frenzy. First, on the Disco: I've talked to folks from the sales manager (who never got back to us) to actual service technicians at our local dealer (the latter through their receptionist) and the general response was they they didn't really know about the hitch restrictions that are listed in the manual, but that they were sure it would be fine. I called another dealership which is closer to horse country, and the sales rep I spoke to their said that she towed a horse trailer with her Disco and though she didn't know the rise, she knew it required some, and it wasn't a problem. I called Land Rover Customer Service and was told all they could do was read me the owner's manual. So, no one could tell me what the technical reasons were for the hitch restrictions, so we don't know what putting a >6" rise that is 8.5" away will do and how it will affect vehicle performance. We decided we didn't like the risk, or the total lack of information or knowledge, and decided to give up on the Disco. We took your advice and looked at the Land Cruiser. The problem is, while it looks like an amazing off-road vehicle, it doesn't have all of the driver assist technology that we want. Long before we decided to get an Ollie, we knew our next vehicle had to at least have adaptive cruise which worked in stop-and-go traffic. The LC doesn't even have that...the adaptive cruise doesn't work below 32mph. It only has a back-up camera, no front camera or 360 bird's-eye view. We couldn't find any particular towing assistance. At this point, I wasn't sure we'd find anything that met our criteria. Really, we wanted a small F-150. The new Ford Ranger doesn't have any of the driver assist or towing technology. The only way to configure an F-150 with the smaller Super Cab and a short box is in the Raptor, which is actually a foot shorter (not much, but better than nothing). However, this shorter one can only tow 6,000 lbs. At this point I said to Chad, "Ignore the outrageous prices," (I had already said this about the Land Cruiser), "is there anything out there, even in the monster size SUVs, that will do what we want and still fit in our garage/not freak us out about driving it?" We went back to the drawing board and looked at all of the huge SUVs and found that the (redesigned in 2018) Ford Expedition/Lincoln Navigator would basically be a shorter F-150, but with seats we don't need rather than a useful cargo bed. You can get them with the Pro Trailer Backup Assist and a build in trailer brake controller. The real test came when we went out this weekend and test drove them. We actually didn't freak out driving them. They're almost two feet shorter than the F-150 Platinum and have a shorter wheelbase (122.5" vs 145"), which I think helped with maneuvering. Still not thrilled at the idea of having our only vehicle be a giant lumbering beast, but with the parking assist the worst part becomes the horrible gas mileage. So, now, should I start a new thread to ask: What do you all think about the Expedition/Navigator? I noticed at least a couple people seem to have Expeditions here. We can purchase these at an employee rate thanks to Chad's employer, so, spec'ed out the way we want them, there's about a $12k-$13k difference between the Expedition Limited and the Navigator Select. We made a long list of the differences between the two vehicles (besides the price). The biggest ones are that the Navigator gets the same engine that the Raptor has, so it has 450 hp @ 5500 rpm and 510 lb-ft of torque @ 3000 rpm. The Limited Expedition has 375 hp @ 5000 rpm and 470 lf-ft of torque @ 3500 rpm. It looks like the Navigator gets a transmission oil cooler that the Expedition doesn't. It also has a Heads-Up-Display that we would really like to have to be able to keep eyes on the road and have easy visuals for navigation. It also has a feature I've never seen on any other vehicle...Auto Hold. This allows you to remove your foot from the brake any time you're at a complete stop, and it won't release the brake until you put your foot on the accelerator. This is really big for me, as having to keep my foot on the brake through a long light cycle was one of the things that made me stop driving. There are a host of other things that make the Navigator somewhat nicer and better performing, and I just felt it drove better in general. One of the interesting differentiators was free lifetime (for the original owner) roadside assistance including towing to the nearest Lincoln service center and even an extra $200 for towing your trailer if the car needs towing. (For John - There are six Lincoln Dealers in Wyoming, and I'm pretty sure any Ford dealer could work on it in a pinch!) The Expedition has a few things going for it besides price. It has a full size spare (need to see if there is room for one on the Nav) and would come with 20" rims, not the 22s the Navigator would come with. It tows more: 9200 lbs vs 8300 lbs. It has been driven off-road and demonstrated it's towing a bit more with online reviewers, so we know it can hack at least what we want it to do. We don't want to go bouldering, we just want to be secure on gravel/dirt roads. (Incidentally, I've become a TFLTrucks addict!) We checked and we can purchase All-Terrain tires for both of them, which we were struggling with for some of the mid-size SUVs. So, what thoughts do you all have? And should I put the last few paragraphs into a new thread for folks to find in the future, or does that risk splitting up the discussion too much? Thanks for all of your time and knowledge! -Kathryn (and Chad)

All of our assumptions are based on research and no real world experience so I really appreciate your willingness to help with your experience. While I do some research on the Sequoia( land cruiser is just to much $) I was curious why you would choose the Q7 over the discovery. The Q7 has a lower towing rating, less torque, no spare, less cargo capacity, etc. It’s a beautiful SUV and drove well but the discovery seems more capable in almost every way. Is it purely reliability or is there some other intangible I am missing. Some more background on how we may use it. I would expect more long term trips of 1 -3 month of more vs weekend getaways. say maybe 2 per year that may cover 5-6k miles a year. we are on the outskirts of a medium city but go into the city several time a month. Planned trips are a National park tour of the west, key west, and new Brunswick so the driving conditions are all over the map. We want to find a place to park and use as a home base and explore semi rugged landscape as day trips. Other big consideration is my wife has health issues that make driving difficult for her so we need every driver safety feature possible to allow her to drive comfortably. Its only the two of us with Minimal gear no bikes/kayaks etc. Thank you again for your time and expertise. Chad

(Disclaimer: Pardon us if this question has been asked before. We've used the search function, but came up with nothing...either it isn't there, or the search engine couldn't find it. ) We're trying to come up with an appropriate tow vehicle for an Elite II carrying most of the options. We thought we'd get the F150 until we test drove it and realized that it was WAY longer than anything we wanted to negotiate around parking lots and cities. Our current car is a VW GTI, so you can imagine how big a change anything larger will be. We are a one car family since, other than travel, we put no miles on our vehicles, so it doesn't make sense to keep a tow vehicle AND another car. We particularly want a vehicle with as much of the new driver assist technology as possible, to help us deal with the bigger vehicle, trailer, and our aging reflexes. So, we've looked at a lot of SUVs (at least the ones smaller than a truck!), and have found the Audi Q7 and the Land Rover Discovery. The Audi is mostly off of our list because it doesn't have a spare, and we don't want to deal with trying to tow with a flat run-flat tire, or finding the Audi-specific tires that fit their rims. We did a fair amount of research on the towing capabilities of both, and found that both of them have something in the owner's manual that indicates that the hitch ball can't be more than 6.5" from the linch pin on the hitch receiver. This basically means that you have to buy their hitch, which has a 2" rise, nowhere near enough to get up to the Ollie's coupler height. We can't find any rise hitches with less than 8.5" from ball to linch pin. Seems like a deal breaker, but the wording in the Discovery manual made it sound more like a recommendation than a necessity, so we asked the dealer to float it up their service chain to see what they had to say about it. (They clearly don't have many customers who do any serious towing with these, based on their inability to answer questions and the fact that they never order spec Discoveries with the tow package.) We were wondering if anyone here tows with a Discovery, or has looked at it seriously, or has any thoughts about it. The only other options we see as possibilities, and they're not out yet, are the new 2020 Mercedes GLE 450, and possibly the new 2020 Lincoln Aviator. Thanks for your input and suggestions!! -Kathryn and Chad (my silent partner)

Hi! We’ve just placed a deposit for an Elite II, with June production and September pickup (we didn’t want to pick up in the middle of the summer!). While we both love to travel and did a little tent camping as kids, this whole trailer thing is new to us and we’re pretty darn nervous, so we’re hoping you all will be patient with our many questions to come. We found our way to the Ollie because I have medical issues that have made it harder and harder to stay in hotel rooms (fragrances, smoke, chemicals), especially since I have to bring and prepare all of my own foods. A trailer seemed like it might allow us the most freedom. We have done a lot of research and after seeing our first stick-built trailers in person, realized they would not work for us. The Ollie seems to be the most benign of the trailers available out there, with great quality and hopefully fewer maintenance issues. (Thanks to Paul C. who gave us a tour of his while we were doing our research!) I’ll start a new thread over in Tow Vehicles, as that is where we’re stuck right now. We don’t have a tow vehicle and can’t find the right one for us. We really look forward to joining you all here on the forum and hopefully at future rallies! -Kathryn & Chad (my silent partner)