routlaw

Just for clarity and for anyone else stumbling into this issue and conversation allow me to explain how one cuts off all power to all devices so there is no parasitic drain. On the street side of the camper in the storage area below that side of the bed (king for us) where the Blu Sky controller is mounted for those with the solar system there exist one large red switch that turns the Blue Sky off, but there are also two rather unusual circuit breaker switches, one for the solar controller and the other for the entire electrical system. Our Oliver is in storage several miles out of town otherwise I would provide a quick and dirty photo for those interested. Anyway the circuit breaker to the far right is the one that turns off all electricity flowing from the batteries thus preventing any parasitic drain. Just in case there is confusion on how these breakers work, given their unusual nature each of those should have a smallish push button mounted to the top, one is yellow the other red. Once that button is pushed a lever underneath swings out approximately 30 degrees or so while cutting off the respective circuit. The circuit it turned back on by pushing the lever back to its original position. Presumably those without solar power would have only one of these circuit breakers. Hopefully this will be helpful to prevent any major battery drains in the future.

Steve with all due respect this is not exactly correct. We have been storing our Oliver every winter since picking it up in a RV storage faculty with no electricity to plug in. The solar is turned off, and the master switch next to the Blu Sky is also off so that there is NO parasitic drain. I will go out about once every other month during our long winters to check the battery voltage, measured at the battery compartment and the lowest they have been after a long Montana winter is only 12.8 volts ± a fraction. Effectively we do have the capability to turn off all parasitic drains to the battery without doing any harm. However I do agree that once the solar package has a day or two to "reset" itself all of the needed information will display. We've gone through this several times now ourselves after taking the camper out of storage. Hope this helps. Rob

Indeed very nice. Like other comments we keep our Ollie some 15 miles out of town in a nice RV & Boat storage facility under a hanger so its at least not out in the open. Cost is $105 per month. Not too bad. We live in the downtown historical district so there just isn't space to keep ours at house. Nice job!

Why not just open the window above the toilet?

They got fish in Colorado? I thought Montana was the only place with fish. Ok just kidding, but what the heck is this fresh water tank mod all about. First I've heard of it. Thanks

Thanks for the info. I have a 2013 F150 that does not have the adaptive cruise, but we do have it on our newly acquired 17 Outback Limited and love it. Its a great safety device and would be a fabulous addition to the F150 while towing seemingly. Have thought often about upgrading just can't really justify it especially given that ours is paid for. Good info.

My tow cents worth. I think John has made the most salient point in the discussion here, but to that I will also add it has never made sense to me why people compare these two extremely different travel trailers. Other than the vague similarity in outside shape everything else is dramatically different, almost at the opposite end of the spectrum from each other. But the comparisons never seem to end. Not trying to be offensive to the OP by any means but they are just two different beast with completely different capabilities, solutions and purposes IMHO. And as John pointed out it really depends on what YOU want to do, and how you want to camp and travel. From everything I've heard and seen from other Airstream owners its true the Oliver wins hands down and by a long shot in the quality control and maintenance arena, but clearly the Airstreams tends to be the comfort champ. Not that the Oliver is comfortable, the AS jut takes it up several notches. But we don't set around the campground to relax, rather we are out on daily adventures, hiking, cycling etc so roughing it in boondock mode so the Oliver fits us to a T. There are places we would take our Oliver that we would unlikely consider taking an Airstream. But at the end of the day our Oliver is just a small motel room on wheels buried deep in the mountains or deserts where we can cook, eat and sleep after a long day of playing. This scenario isn't for everybody though. Know what you want to do, then seek a solution. One couple we've talked to who were full timing in an AS said they take a rivet kit along with them wherever they go to constantly replace/repair rivets. This was a 25 Flying Cloud only a year or so old. Granted it was out west where the roads and traveling can be a bit rougher than back east but it certainly raised our eyebrows and dropped our jaws hearing this. It also nipped in the bud my near lifelong lover affair and admiration of Airstreams. We had a T@b at the time, but bought our Oliver the next year.

Yep, that would be me. Come on by.

Given your comments, I'm inclined to think the Ollie is not your best bet and as others have suggested I would recommend you look into the Bigfoots, its a larger heavier trailer but they are made extremely well. Their floor plans are much better than the Escapes, IMHO. In fact the only floor plan we liked in the Escapes are their 21 foot 5th Wheel, which we didn't want because our truck gets used for other things. Another trailer to look into which I recommend are the Lance. They are built like a tank, and while they may look like a conventional stick built trailer they are anything but. They do have a slide out dinette, queen bed that can be walked around. I'm not particularly fond of their obnoxious graphics or interior design but otherwise I think its a good trailer, though probably not perfect. The Airstreams look really cool, but to me they just aren't worth the money. In another thread here on this forum, just recently I posted about a very nice couple who pulled up behind me in their 25" Flying Cloud. They knew about the Olivers and were excited to see the inside and get the tour. As it turns out in the two years they have owned their AS everything one could imagine has gone wrong it with it, just one constant repair after the next apparently. All that said, we do have the king bed in our Elite II, live in Montana so if your coming up to this neck of the woods you're more than welcome to see ours. I disagree that the twin bed model is a better solution, we like our king, never use the larger dinette so it stays in place as a bed. We are fine with smaller dinette and if we need something larger there is always the great outdoors sometimes with picnic tables. We do use the area underneath for additional storage, works great so there is no lost space at all. Hopefully this helps.

Nice! Looks like we are going to need to put this area on our bucket list. In the meantime miracles do happen, its actually raining here in Bozeman today. This might be the first time in a two months been so long don't remember what it was like. I doubt it will be enough to extinguish our fires but it might clear the air for a couple of days at least.

I knew AZ was getting some rain, but it would never have occurred to me there is a monsoon season down in the southwest this time of year. Let alone green, and relatively cool. I've always thought of the SW as being the inferno this time of year, shows you what I know. Long haul from here but something to think about.

Got busy with a few things yesterday and couldn't get back. Thanks for the comments. We tend to camp in wilderness areas, i.e. BLM, USFS and National Parks rarely with hookups or boon docking depending on how you look at that. We do a lot of hiking, cycling, some kayaking though not so much this summer for obvious reasons. I do have the geezer pass, what a great deal that is. Talk about cheap vacations other than paying for gas to there and back. Got to love it. Unfortunately my window is not big this time around so at this point I'm either considering bagging it until the fall when the skies clear or a short jaunt down to the Tetons or over to the Beartooths on the MT/WY border. I can't seem to get a clear read on whether or not the Tetons have much smoke or not, might give them a call today and see. On the other hand I suspect that place is filling up fast due to the solar eclipse and Jackson being in the middle of the path.

John we have been flirting with triple digit temps all summer until this past week where we have had a cooling trend down to the low and mid 80's and we've even had a shift in winds on some days coming from the east. It has not made one iota of difference ± 10%. That said I'm thinking the Beartooth Plateau with elevations well over 10,000 feet might be above much of this stuff, but even that is crap shoot. Funny I used to live here for the magnificent summers, now we almost look upon them with dread. Most of our summers over the last decade or so have been like this plus or minus.

I just found the following website links that have a great deal of info on the western wildfires, includes satellite photos and all as well as graphics and AQI's that John refers to above. So for those folks considering a trip out west hopefully you will find this info helpful in making your plans. Cutting to the chase it ain't looking good though other than NV, UT further south, NM etc. http://wildfiretoday.com/tag/smoke/ https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=topics.smoke_wildfires http://svc.mt.gov/deq/todaysair/smokereport/mostrecentupdate.aspx

Have the Elite II's gone up in price this much? Woo Hoo! Steve is correct the link is DOA

Thanks Steve, you guys must have been "cooking" down in the southwest this time of year. Quite the inferno this time of year. We've spent a lot time in the Sawtooth Wilderness and Recreation Area but not familiar with Cascade Lake, will check it out. Thanks

Ed and Marsh. Its very bad currently. This mornings paper reported the town of Seeley Lake being evacuated. For a month now visibility here in the Gallatin Valley has been so bad on most days you can't even see the mountains that surround the valley. There are 11 major fires in the state of Montana alone plus we are getting smoke from fires in other states. I had heard as of last week the Tetons might not be too bad and that Wyoming only had one fire within the state. I believe Glacier is about as polluted as our location in the southwestern part of the state. Our daughter and son in law live in Butte which is also a mess, they even had ash falling last week. A lot can happen in two weeks but the long range prediction was there is no end in sight for this stuff clear through Sept. Unless you like to breath a lot of carbon my suggestion would be to have a back up plan.

Is there any place out west not inundated with these fires? I have a window of opportunity and would like to take off for several days, but its an ugly mess here in Montana, and hardly worth camping anywhere in the state. How about ID, UT, WY or other areas, anyone been to these places recently? Thanks, odd request for sure.

Interesting this conversation came up. While just emptying our Oliver about an hour or so ago at one of the local dump stations a nice couple pulled up behind me towing an Airstream. They got out of their truck, said really nice camper, they new all about the Olivers and seemed envious but had never seen one in person. Their Airstream was only two years old but has had every possible problem you can imagine with theirs. All of them were fixed by their dealer, but still it seemed to have left a bad taste for the lack of quality control. Anyway gave them a tour of ours, they seemed impressed. Apparently they had just been camping in the mountains south of us and were on pins and needles due to the hail storms going on. Apparently the skin on the Airstreams doesn't fare to well in a hailstorm.

We have a 2013 F150 Lariat. If we've been towing, then disconnect the F150 will then tells us we are disconnected, but its never done while being connected… so far.

Weird, I'm late to the party on this one, but I've never experienced this issue with my F150 either with the Oliver or our T@b before that. Now that I've stated this it will probably happen soon enough.

And what a huge difference that would have made Dave. It would have been an easy fix rather than hours fiddling with this. I'll probably be on the lookout for a hatch to install from inside the compartment in the future. If any of those other wires come loose I sure don't want to go through this again. Thanks so much

Success at last! For those interested and for anyone who runs across the same issue here goes. The fast tab connectors had indeed come loose from the pump switch located under the pantry. I removed the 4 screws holding the backing plate for the battery, water, gray water & black water gauge which provided just enough light and access but only if you have very small hands. Effectively when the Oliver crew terminated these wires to the switch they provide absolutely no slack at all, and in fact those wires were pulled quite tight and in the large harness with a bunch of other wires. The weight of the harness with tight wires pulled them from their connections. I re-terminated all three of the double pole switch wires with two foot long extensions of 12 AWG wiring. Tested the system before reinstalling the entire enchilada and it all worked fine. Hopefully no one else has to go through this because it is a major PITA to accomplish. I did not have to drill any holes either in the battery box or hidden compartment either, however it would have provided far better access to do so from the compartment. As Dave pointed out one can wiggle the switch out of its socket with a putty knife and flat head screw driver, but start with the putty knife first. The bathroom switch comes out much easier just wiggling and pulling with your fingers. And oddly enough they provided plenty of slack with the bathroom switch. I'm attaching a few relevant photos for future reference. Hope this helps. The first image is provides the size of the cut out hole once the plate is removed for the battery, water etc gauge. Its small, the second image shows correct wiring for the switch, note the purple wire is always in the middle, and the gray & brown wire to the outside terminals. It matters not which terminal the gray and brown wires are attached to, same for the bath switch which is the 3rd image.

The battery compartment would not provide access to the back of the mounting plate for those switches unfortunately. Even if it did the stretch would prevent any way of finessing wires. Good idea on the jumper to the pump though, the same thing occurred to me later in the evening. I will try that shortly. BTW we do not have a switch anywhere near our stove, only in the bath room and just under the pantry area. Ours is an Elite II, but probably an earlier model than yours, ours is 2015. Thanks

Just brought back our Oliver this afternoon, but unfortunately its not looking too good. Tried all of the appropriate suggestions for our particular model year all to no avail. But for those interested and for whom it might help in the future the following is a short rundown of what I have done. Checked and double checked the appropriate fuse, even temporarily replaced it though it measured fine, and it fits snug in its receptacle. Pulled the two wires from the pump and measured for voltage there only got fluctuating mili volts, not good. Measured also at the fuse box receptacle and received more or less the same fluctuating mili volts. Its a double pole switch and the bathroom one comes outs quite easily and all 3 of those fast tab connectors were in solid. I was able to barely pull the main pole switch just below the pantry but not well enough to see all 3 wires with fast tab connectors. There is a lot of tension from the back of this switch. And this is where it gets really ugly there is absolutely no way to get access to these switches without either tearing the mounting plate off the interior body or drilling a very large hole on inside of the hidden compartment below the pantry. What the hell was Oliver thinking on this install? To the best of my knowledge there are no inline fuses upwind from the actual pump back to the fuse box. I suppose its remotely possible one of the pole wires at the fuse box has wiggled loose, but man oh man talk about opening a big can of worms to sort through that. Presently I'm a bit too aggravated to start drilling on the interior body just to examine fast tab connectors on the other switch which I am inclined to believe are intact in the first place. In the meantime I'm at a loss for the remedy on this one. Again thanks for all the suggestions.