katanapilot

We don’t get our Oliver until early May. Are you guys saying the Dexter axles are equipped with Chinese bearings? Have any of you installed bearing buddies or equivalent devices on your trailers? And I agree with John - it’s unlikely a $5 bearing is a genuine made in USA Timken. I would be fine with most of the Japanese bearings too.

Great picture! No, I'm a little too risk averse for that. I have a neighbor that flies the smaller ones (single seat). He does that for fun and is a doctor the rest of the time. As mentioned, my hobby is building airplanes like this one - Sorry for the thread drift...

John, I can only assume you are an engineer or an A&P (or maybe both). Please take this as a compliment. I'm an engineer by degree, airline pilot by trade, airplane builder as a hobby and future A&P when I retire in a couple years. Your attention to detail is impressive. If you haven't built a plane, you should. Krea Ellis

Nope, have one and it's on the way outta here when the Oliver arrives. Spending almost as much on the Oliver trailer as we did on the Mercedes chassis Forest River motorhome. Not happy with the quality at all on the FR. Frankly, not thrilled that some of the same components are being used on the Oliver, but at least it sounds like Oliver will provide real warranty service. FR "warranty service" is a cruel joke.

I haven't done much towing with the Tundra - mostly an 18' utility trailer, so with the additional weight of towing the Oliver I wanted better front brakes. I could have installed the Tundra big brake kit or some other aftermarket setup, but they were all pricey. I wanted new rotors anyway, the cost of the cryo treating plus shipping to me was reasonable. I ordered all the rotors online and had them shipped to 300 Below (I had two other sets done at the same time). I am hopeful these will last longer and perform better, as that has been my experience with other "freeze-dried" rotors. Rotors were $50 each set to treat plus $100 to ship all three sets to me with insurance. So an average of $83 per set. I drive the truck about 7500-10,000 miles per year, but that may go up significantly when we get the Oliver, sell the motorhome and retire in 2 1/2 years.

The OEM rotors were starting to show some signs of warping. I'm not a fan of turning rotors as it removes some of the mass and therefore the heat absorption capability - which leads to additional warping. So I bought new OEM rotors and had them cryogenically treated. There is a good article here and in fact, was written by the firm that treated my rotors. I had a couple of other sets done at the same time. There are cryo rotors available directly for many models of cars and trucks - I just preferred to stay with OEM. As to the pads, given the slight warping of the original rotors, I had some concern that the old pads were not perfectly flat and would not provide even grip on the rotor - so I replaced them too. The rotor and pad replacement took less than an hour for both sides and I had never done them on a Tundra. Very easy. My old 4Runner - takes hours, since you have to pull the 4WD hubs to remove the rotors.

I have a 2011 Toyota Tundra CrewMax Platinum. I know it's not the most capable, the most luxurious or the highest rated - but I love my truck and would not buy anything but Toyota. I think many people are partial to whatever they own, so take my review with a grain of salt. In 90,000 miles, the only issue I've had is a defective driveshaft. It was a known problem and Toyota had a TSB for it . Fortunately I had bought an extended warranty (I don't normally do that) - so it covered the close to $2000 repair. If I had caught it earlier, Toyota would have paid under factory warranty. I replaced the rotors with cryo-treated OEM rotors at 85,000 miles. The pads were still like new, but I replaced them anyway. What I don't like about the truck - Toyota's are expensive, the interior on mine is a bit "cheap" feeling, transmission could use a couple more gears, mileage is not great, would like a diesel (Toyota 1VD-FTV engine, not a Cummins TD). The normally bulletproof reliability is what sold me. It's a pretty solid truck. People love their Chevys, Fords and Rams. I think the competition is better in most areas except overall reliability.

Got the list from Anita. Thanks all. I have a pretty good list of additional items that we carry on our Sprinter MH. I'll duplicate many of those things for the Oliver, plus items to support a pair of Honda EU2200i's when they are available for sale again. Seems like a stop sale order has been issued once again for a recall.

This is a very helpful post. Oliver will do this work for you, but they charge about $250 plus tax for the installation. They keep the 2" coupler. Seems to me, there ought be a bit more credit since they will be able to bolt the 2" coupler on a new trailer, but so be it. I don't doubt there is an hour or so of labor to install this. The PDF of the hole layout is very helpful. A 5/8" annular cutter mounted in a drill press and some cutting fluid ought to make quick work of drilling these holes. If you are worried about aligning the holes, you could probably go to 11/16" to take care of any misalignment. Planning to do this mod once I get the Oliver home. Anyone have the part number of the 2 5/16" Bulldog coupler?

Thanks for the info. Saved me ordering one!

Does anyone recall if a 30 amp power cord comes with an Oliver?

Just a single data point. We drove to Hohenwald for a plant tour expecting to order an Elite II with the larger, single bed. After seeing both, we ordered a twin. Our decision was based on the ability to get in and out of bed without having to slide off the end and probably disturbing the other person. I almost always get up once in the middle of the night. It also looks like the beds will be easier to make and the trailer feels a little roomier with the twins. Our current motorhome has a queen bed in the back and you have to slide off the end to get in or out. We haven't taken delivery yet (May) so I don't know if we made the right call, but we have experience with the queen bed in our MH and decided to make a change with the Oliver.

We swapped out our Dometic noise maker for an Atwood (now also Dometic) Air Command heat pump in our Sprinter based motorhome. Best $800 we ever spent on the MH. I did the install myself. The Atwood is very quiet (especially on low), draws less amps and cools better than it's BTU rating implies. Unfortunately, it is a bit tall of a unit and I believe Dometic is slowly killing off the line. It is no longer available in a white, ductless 15k heat pump model - or we would be installing one on our soon-to-be Oliver.

Nice job on the mod to install the hatch. As to fiberglass - honeycomb is very common, very strong and lightweight. Cutting through it and then reinforcing where you cut through can be an issue. I'm going through this right now with an airplane cowling. Now a question. The option list shows a "backflow preventer" valve, which seems to be an automatic (electric) drain valve. Does anyone have one installed and does it replace the T-handle mechanical drain valve or does it serve some other purpose? If it does, this would be another, albeit more complex, solution to continuous gray water drainage when hooked up (and I assume you could keep the drain door closed).

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately there seems to be a race to the bottom as to RV components and there are limited choices at reasonable prices. Dometic is on my list as one of the worst. I see some have modified their Oliver’s with compressor type fridges and things, but one of the reasons for us buying the Oliver was to avoid the excessive mods we had to do to on our MH to make it more reliable and comfortable. I really hope the Oliver will prove to be better than the MH. And yes, although I wish Denso made RV components and Lexus made RV’s, I know they don’t!

One of our motivations moving from our Sprinter based motorhome to the Oliver was the expectation that the Oliver was much better constructed than the "production" motorhome. Over the past 5 years, I've worked out most of the bugs in the MH - some of which were due to sloppy (read little to none) quality control at the factory, but also due to component failures. While I am convinced that the Oliver pays a great deal of attention to assembly quality, one of my lingering concerns is the quality of components (fridge, a/c, fans, etc.). Oliver has little control over the quality of these components - other than that of specifying what they choose to install. As I have mentioned in other posts, the no name batteries is one example where they could choose better components. Stuff is going to break and my experience with the large MH manufacturer for warranty service was abysmal. So for those of you that have had to deal with Oliver (since they don't have a dealer network) - how do you get stuff fixed - especially if you are on the road? What about at home? Will they pay for a mobile repair service? Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

Excellent and thanks! Looking forward to having a well built travel trailer. We like our Sprinter based motorhome, but the travel trailer will suit us better for our Alaska trip.

Maverick, Top Gun, what's next Viper, Goose, IceMan? Sorry, had to chuckle a bit about that. Best movie ever, BTW.

Please share the results, as we have the same model Tundra that we intend to use as our TV. I can't imagine there would be any issues with the Tundra. Thank you.

You and me both. When I saw that they had changed tires and are no longer installing Trojan batteries (opting now for Chinese/Malaysian made no-name brand) I almost cancelled our order. I hope that Oliver isn't going the way of other trailer manufacturers and changing components to cut costs. I've had Michelin LTX tires on my 92 4Runner, my 2011 Tundra, my son's 2012 Tacoma and wouldn't install anything else. At least the Cooper truck tires are better than the "China bombs" that are on a lot of travel trailers. In the grand scheme, the construction quality is so much better than average and tires and batteries can be replaced easily.

Thanks. A bit disappointed that both the tires and batteries have changed for 2020 vs. 2019 (not for the better IMO). The Brightways are a no-name foreign made battery, so I'm probably going to just go with the supplied batteries until they die and replace them with Battle Born LiFePO4 or Trojan AGM's.

Just wondering if anyone has experience using the now-provided Brightway batteries versus the Trojans that used to be installed on the Oliver. I was going to get the AGM option, but for the same or less money I can probably install Trojan batteries and sell the Brightways. Also has anyone kept the flooded batteries and installed a watering system? Flooded batteries perform and last better than AGM's generally, but I'm bad about keeping them watered.

Thanks for all the replies.

Always wanted a Land Cruiser. If Toyota would ever sell a LC with their wonderful VD twin turbo diesel, I would be all over it. Even a Tacoma/Hilux diesel would be great. I have a 25 year old 4Runner that refuses to quit.

Just made the plunge to move from a small motor home to an Ollie. We took a plant tour a week ago and were impressed. Primary motivation was for our Alaska trip next year. I don't trust either the Mercedes chassis nor the (unnamed) coach on the Alaska highway. I completely trust my Toyota Tundra and from what we saw, the Ollie is more than capable. We did see "Pura Vida" and several other almost completed trailers on the line during our tour. Probably not the place for a question - but here goes. What are folks using for bed linens, etc. for the small twin/cot mattresses that are used on the twin bed configuration? Looking forward to joining in the "family" in May. We signed up for a February production slot that became available. The Ellis Family from Locust Grove (Atlanta suburb)