routlaw

If you download the pdf brochure and scroll dow the page you will see the general specs for height, width and length. With King Dome the Oliver is 9'7". although I will say they really need to fine tune some of their website designs as the brochure does not seem to download as a true pdf file, or at least I couldn't get it to. But the specs are there. rob

They are expensive but they are also very good, and also quite heavy the only real downside to them. But up here in the northern rockies its the only thing that is bear proof or at least certified to be so by the NPS, etc. What this means is you can leave them outside in your pickup bed for instance and not get a ticket from the park rangers when camping in bear country. You do have to use padlocks however. Earlier in the summer I noticed Costco was also selling a similar product made by Pelican case company the same folks who make photo and film location cases. They looked to be every bit as good and in some ways had some better attributes and also a bit cheaper. Its serious business out here, not something you have to worry about down south. But the coolers are good indeed.

Nice! Haven't been in that neck of the woods in a long time.

Understood, we do too… travel with gear in the back but we also have a long bed. It all fits though. With the Oliver and our solar pack our Yamaha gen will now go up for sale, and we gave away our water cans what with the ability for the Oliver to hold 32 gal. this was one among many reasons why we wanted a complete self contained camper where we didn't have to load a ton of various other items. Incidentally our T@b sold within less than 12 hours of putting it on Craiglist and could have probably sold some half dozen more if we had them. But going forward it will be the bikes and an our Yeti cooler in the truck bed. Thats about it. rob

We use one with our Subaru made by 1UP USA, blows the doors of any Yakima or Thule hitch mounted rack system. Over engineered would be putting it mildly. However when towing with our F150 we just mount our road bikes or mountain bikes into the bed of the truck. I see no reason why you couldn't do this with your Avalanche. Yakima makes some clamps just especially for this purpose. rob

Dave, you might also want to consider some of the AL state parks just south of the "border" still a relatively short distance from Hoenwald but good enough to get your feet wet. We have camped at Monte Sano, Little River Canyon, and Guntersville St Parks, all very good facilities, i.e. showers, bath etc are usually kept very clean and up to date. But Sherry's idea of hitting the Natchez Trace and some of those nearby campgrounds sound very nice too. Hope this helps.

LOL, its all relative. To me going to LA or anywhere near the gulf coast seems warm to me in Feb & Mar, but then I live in MT. Never heard of organized caravans such as you describe however.

We camped their in our T@b the night before we did our plant tour. Nice enough campground but you might get bored hanging out for too long. I suspect you will find much more interesting scenarios on the Natchez Trace Parkway which is just across the road from the Fall Hollow campground. Nice folks running it though. There are also several nice state parks in TN a short drive away from there as well. Will you take advantage of the "shakedown cruise" Oliver gives there in Hohenwald? We plan to spend at least two nights and perhaps more if it is a nice area. That will give us an opportunity to hustle over to the plant if any issues pop up.

Here are my two cents worth on the subject. Price: heck once your in this deep the full blown Solar Package is only another 5% ± more, its almost chump change by comparison. Cleaning: ladders work great, but only at home. Exposure: there are probably by now hundreds of thousands maybe millions of these things on RV's, home, buildings. I suspect they are reasonably durable or we would have heard more about it by now. Not that it can't happen but my guess is your tow vehicle is going to be in far worse shape and cost way more to repair should some disaster like a hail storm occur. Roof adjustments: Agreed the Oliver does not lend itself to an easy up on the roof scaling but at 320 watts even at 60-70% worse case scenario thats still 200-240 ± watts of solar power on a sunny day. Not bad IMHO. But I agree wish it were easier to make adjustments without carrying a ladder around with you all over the country. But those 4 Trojans charged up fully should last several days too. Hope this helps. This question is for those owners who have the solar option on their Ollie. Is it worth the price and do you actually benefit from having the panels? I am asking this because my trailer is in production, and I may still be able to order this option. I would use some sort of deploy-able solar even if I do not get the Oliver option. The Bosch 150 Watt suitcase panels appear to be a good value at $350.00 on Ebay so that is what I would go with. It has a built in 15Amp charge controller, and 15 feet of connector cable with battery clips. Most of our camping will be with electrical hookups, but it will be nice to have battery backup for occasional boondocking and emergency use. I do have a Honda 2000i generator with an extended run gas tank. I ordered the (4) Trojan T105 batteries. My concerns with the Oliver option are... Price Getting up to the roof to deploy and make adjustments Added wind resistance Exposure to the elements Difficulty of cleaning Thanks in advance for your comments. Dave

Until I can figure out which camera will be best for me you will just have to enjoy my low res iphone pics. Maybe I will find something in the Black Friday sales. Have you tried to buy a point and shoot camera WITH a viewfinder lately? Hard to find, and I just don't like framing shots with a small screen on the back of the camera. C'mon guys. Perk up and let's get some action going on this forum. The iPhone and commensurate Androids have all but killed off the P&S camera sales. Effectively mobile phone cameras have become so good there really isn't a need to carry an extra P&S around that does not bring anything more to the table than the phone cameras. If you are looking to take it up a notch and yet still want to maintain some light weight mobility look no further than the Olympus OMD- ME 1, great camera, very small and lightweight, uses an EVF (electronic view finder) and can interface with your iPhone or iPad too. They are not cheap by any means but do have great capabilities. Highly recommended!

I'm not sure what the Packer (Green Bay?) T@b is but ours is silver with red trim which we have had for going on to 8 years now. Served us well but we are ready to take it up a notch or 3. The only map I know of that is current is in the Oliver offices. In the meantime we are still working on some color themes etc. But thanks for the welcome. rob

Just got back last night from a cross country trip, towing our T@b no less. Visited with the good folks at Oliver on Friday the 12th and did the tour. What an impressive operation. Really gives one another level of appreciation for the care and quality that goes into making these travel trailers. We bellied up to the bar before leaving and put out deposit down for delivery next year. To address your question, we stayed at Falls Creek many years ago, it was really nice. Two others worth considering if you haven't already been there are Monte Sano State Park in Hunstville, AL and Little River Canyon National Preserve also in AL. There is also the DeSoto State Park campground as well as the NP campground associated with both. You can't go wrong with any of them. Hope this helps

Stan Obviously I can't answer this not owning one yet, but as you know they have a load limit of 2800 lbs, GVWR minus the actual weight of the dry weight trailer. That is a huge amount of weight to carry around. We currently have a T@b which can carry roughly 400 lbs above and beyond the dry weight of the trailer. We have it packed up right now ready to hit the road to TN for the plant tour and visit family a bit further south for a two week stint. While we have packed a lot of clothes and as much food as it will hold I can assure you its nowhere near the 400 lbs. I suppose you could certainly put a bit more in the Oliver but if it got over 500 lbs I would be amazed. Well this assumes you are not traveling with your fresh water tank full which would add another 250+ lbs. rob

Sounds great, I'm sure you will be happy with this decision. One of the added advantages of going with the 4 T105's is if by some bizarre chance one of them went belly up on you, you could still have a 12 V system using only two of them. rob

You're right about this having now looked at the specs again. Not sure what is standard since that is not mentioned, but would guess a 12V Group 27 battery, or perhaps two? Also just spent some time going over the Amsolar website and have to say they seem to do an excellent job of configuring systems with very high quality components. They also seem to apply the same knowledge and technology and often same components which Solar Bob insist on except for the AGM vs Trojan debate. The website is full of instructional and educational material regarding solar for RV's. Regardless of which way you go I have complete confidence you will get a great solar system with the Ollie. I wonder if anyone is doing a portable solar system with the Oliver's? Might be difficult given the slide out tray mechanism for hooking up the charge controller wiring perhaps. Great idea though compared to tongue mounted batteries. Rob

Just to add a bit of confusion to the conversation, this subject just came up over on the FGRV forums. Don't know if you guys peruse and listen in there, but one fellow Norm stated he had a set of Trojan 105's that were 14 years old and still going strong when he sold that particular RV. Not trying to muddy up the waters but thought that was an impressive result, and from a financial prospective sort of puts the wet cell 6 volts in a league of their own. For me the only thing left in the debate is whether to go with two or four. rob

Thats really cool. Have heard about this area and that you can drive it for many miles, just never realized it was also open to TT as well. Fun stuff. rob

Cool stuff, learn something new every day. Thanks

Yes Oliver is still dealing with Amsolar as I understand it and likewise have always heard great things about their products. You make a valid point regarding 12 vs 6 volts. Its my understanding those Trojans if well cared for and fully charged regularly (and that is the big if) will last for a very long time, 8 years or more is not out of the norm. I'll probably go with the 6 volt system.

Good thoughts and comments Mountainborn, points well taken. With that in mind, wouldn't be nice if some company produced a relatively portable scale so that it would be easy to measure your tongue weight? At least theoretically as long as you stay within the 10-15% range of total TT weight you should be good to go with a well balance trailer. Thanks rob

Pete, nothing like extensive experience which you clearly have. It still begs the question for me at least why do the Oliver's seemingly tow so well without WDH's when other TT do not. I get the part about the smooth ride because of the unique suspension, and that the frame is very rigid due to the FG wrap at the tongue but none of this really addresses sway, or weight distribution as I understand it. As for side winds and large freight trucks, perhaps the somewhat rounded sides (i.e. tube shape) allow for easier air flow over the trailer vs a flat sided stick built? Interesting stuff. Rob

Stan I wouldn't say over the limits, well if you have a TV like Steve's GMC or my F150, but going by the specs it is at least theoretically pushing the envelop to not have a WDH. Like you I had not given WDH much thought either until just recently when it sort of more or less got shoved down my throat. When discussing this with the Ford rep this morning she and I both concluded that probably well over 50% of the people out there towing are way over the legal limits based upon these new ratings. Airstreams. I suspect pretty much everything over there can get intense at times. I do want to point out in no way, shape, form, or fashion am I complaining about the Oliver. They are in fact my favorite TT on the market today. To me nothing else compares for what we need, make that want. Rob So everyone thats pulling a Elite II without a WDH is over limits, per the manufacturers specs. Guess all those years I was pulling a horse trailer with 2 and sometimes 3 horses plus the slid in camper, I was really over weight. I didn't know anything about WDH's till I started looking at RV trailers. Over on the Airstream forum the subject gets pretty intense. Stan

Oh no don't do that, rob Guess the Outlaw Oliver will have to stay home since it's a lot heavier than that.

LOL, that was my reaction too when I first came across this blog. Its an eye opener for sure. Now if you take what he has to say verbatim and its certainly worth considering I would drop the AGM's and just go with the Trojan wet cells if its not too late. The charge controller that Oliver uses ramps up voltage to 14.2 or 14.4 volts can't remember which and that is better than most but having a charger that can be adjusted to output 14.8 until the battery is full would be much better assuming you can still go with the Trojans. The other unknown is what gauge wire is used between the solar panels and charger, his recommendation is a full 4 AWG which is some pretty big wire yet he claims anything less and you have voltage drop from panels to charger to battery if longer than 6 ft (i think i got those numbers right). Initially it struck me as extreme when I first read it but then he goes on with his anecdotal stories of proof. Hopefully they can or will be willing to accommodate you on the upgrades on your Elite II. Doesn't hurt to ask. If not it may be possible for you to retrofit at least the heavy AWG wiring without it being too disruptive. Rob

Quick followup. Called Ford customer service this morning and sure enough I was informed that towing capacity and tongue weight are relatively half when not implementing a WDH. The representative had me go to the following link where you can download the appropriate pdf guide for towing capacities for all of their vehicles by year. I was informed this scenario was implemented a few years ago but she did not tell me exactly what year. And just to be certain she looked at the build of my truck to verify it was a Class IV hitch. If you have a Class III presumably these numbers would drop precipitously, and ramp up with a Class V. I would assume all auto/truck companies provide the same information and would encourage you to look there as well. For those with Ford TV's (or anyone curious) I am providing the link below. http://www.fleet.ford.com/towing-guides/ Suffice it to say there is a bit of hidden misrepresentation when it comes to advertising the towing capabilities with any and all of these TV's regardless of manufacturer. Hope this helps