Dave and Kimberly

It seems that many of us (with Oliver Sales increasing) are facing our first Winter down time and after winterizing the plumbing... are now wondering about our expensive Lithionics batteries. I spoke to both Oliver and Lithionics regarding the battery storage. Lithionics is careful to say that if you want to ensure "best practice"... you need to keep your batteries between 14~86 degrees. Whatever you have to do to ensure that range is what is needed. For the larger 690AH system has it's own battery heater and should keep itself protected from the cold. The smaller 390AH batteries do not have the internal heater but do have Olivers battery heater pad. Based on Olivers recommendation I am going to keep the plug and extension cord handy and keep the batteries charged up as needed to provide that heat pad the energy it needs to protect those batteries. An interesting side note: while talking to Lithionics, I told them I was looking for something like the Odometer on a car. Something that I could gauge where in the overall life expectancy these batteries are. The batteries are expected to last a minimum of 2000 cycles (with 3,000 cycles likely).. mine are 130AH batteries which equals 260,000AH (2,000 times 130AH= 260,000AH). I have used 1773 AH to date or only .0068% of it's warranted life expectancy. In fact, this is a "value added" feature on Lithionics batteries. Their battery (thru the app) has a quantifiable number that the consumer could use to calculate the prorated value in the event of any warrantee claim. Assuming that it has been used and stored in accordance with their guidelines.

Happy Thanksgiving to our Oliver Family!!

Very glad to hear your assessment John! Part of the secret is in what you said "Manual reading is next." It's not reasonable to own an Oliver (probably any RV) and not spend a fair amount of time getting educated on the "systems" in it. Three different plumbing systems, two different electrical, two different electrical sources, a third if you add a generator. A refrigerator that operates on three different sources of energy. A water heater that is has three different settings when it's on.... and its all exposed to a variety of conditions while in use and in storage. Oliver put a lot of thought into all of it... and everything has a reason. Between some effort to educate yourself and real world experience using it I'm sure you are going to give it the same assessment after a number of years. The other advantage in getting educated on the systems... is that when something goes wrong... it's not going to happen in your driveway, but rather when you are in the mountains, on the road, far from home... in the middle of nowhere. YOU have to become the RV tech... unless you want to be cold and go without dinner 🙂

Hey at least the yard looks great! I always watch for my latest aerial view of our little ranch so I can compare my "mowing lines" to the neighbors! 🤣 Out here in the sticks... we don't even rate for the street-view pics. UPDATE: Our ELLiRose was surfing the web and now she is jealous because all she gets is a stupid cover . She now wants her own dedicated bay too!

We just finished the North East … including Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and next we hope to do Pacific North West corner by going North on PC1… coming into Oregon, Washington and up into the Canadian Rockies…. But that’s a long ways from Ohio and expect it to take eight weeks!

Thank you! I can't believe I missed this! I'm on it now!

Ok... that is going to be embarrassing! I didn't know there was a fresh water drain valve! Where is that darned thing located??🤣

We just picked up our E2 in May and after some great travels, it is now time to get it winterized for a few months. I watched the Oliver University video on the whole process and even typed up the steps to have it for the future. The gray and black tanks are all cleaned and drained. The winterization process went as expected and I believe it to be fully winterized. My question is this: How do you truly drain the fresh water tank? The most I knew to do was run the pump until it was spitting part air and water. Is that enough?

I was just answering his original question about the above items. They are all there.

I think this might be what you are looking for. The location is certainly not very intuitive... but it's there. Go to "upgrades and add-ons" under Elite II. Keep going down to the bottom... at first you will see upgrades that you can do to your Oliver.... but clear down to the bottom you will find Clam shell tents, chairs, rugs, grills, solar panels and more. I found it because I wanted to get a Calmark cover ordered. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/travel-trailers/legacy-elite-2/upgrades-add-ons/

1 Bigger black tank (There is only so much room... but I've always thought the grey and black tank combined capacity should be just a bit more than the fresh tank capacity... so you should run out of fresh about the same time your gray and black tanks reach capacity) 2 a redesign of the sewer hose storage. The stinky slinky hose storage is really awkward (especially with a bike rack in the way). Oh wait... you said just one thing.

Actually I have no idea. I didn’t notice those either until I posted the pictures. At the time… I was just thrilled to get my old tire off and the spare on… because this is where we were in Nova Scotia when it went flat. And it was cold and raining!

We just came home from a trip. And we had a flat tire. It was in one of those remote places where you really don't want to have problems. I had just stopped at a service station and adjusted the PSI in the tires the day before and had a scare when one of the tires wouldn't stop letting air escape. Ultimately I was able to get all four tires properly inflated and we went on our way... thinking all was well. One of the four then went flat over night. I believe the cause was the "balance beads" used by Lionshead (a supplier to Oliver). I had the Andersen "rapid jack" which is just an oversized version of the camper leveler ramps...and with just a little assist from the Ollie's stabilizers, I was easily able to jack it up high enough to put on the spare and get into a town where the original tire was repaired... with a new valve stem. Since that time, I came home to discover that we (those effected by the balance beads) had received replacement valve stems that are resistant to interference from the balance beads... from Oliver. (Thank you Oliver!) I was on some very soft ground and with the Andersen rapid jack... I wasn't able to get the tire quite high enough for it to turn freely... but just a little assist from the Ollies stabilizer and she was clear. This also made it very convenient to tighten and torque the lug nuts... before putting it all down on the ground again.

Frank.. ( this is David now). Thank you so much for that life saving piece of info! No where in the Truma manual did it say that there was any other alternative other than completing a full decalcification process. I will be sure to print that page off and insert it into the Truma section. I hope others will learn from this and do the same.

Problem solved! You are a lifesaver Frank. Thank you so much. This forum is invaluable. David read through 40+ pages in the manual and it never talked about this. Now for my shower 🥰

Returned to our Oliver after being gone for the afternoon, turned on the hot water for use and got a rapid short flashing error code. Hot water will not work and cannot find in the manual what it means or what to do. Does anyone have any experience with this? We have three more weeks on the road and would love to have hot showers along the way. Thanks in advance for any advice. Kimberly & David

So a question to those of you who might understand this stuff better than I: In our case, we have the Solar panels, with the Lithium batteries (390AH)... and the 3000 watt inverter. I hear so many question how big of a generator would be necessary... and you will hear the discussion on surge watts and so on. Since my set up allows me to run the A/C from the batteries... why couldn't I operate off of a much smaller generator (even say a Honda EU 1000)... and then back fill the batteries from the generator as needed. I'm not sure I would do this... but it's just a thought and knowing it could work might be beneficial to some at least. The point is that the "generator" doesn't need to power the A/C directly. (I think?)

Ours is a 2022 Elite II, picked up in May. I had forgotten about the Valve Blade Lubrication Video in Oliver University. So, I poured 4 oz. of lubricant down each of the three locations, with no water in tank (per Jasons instructions) and now I'm waiting for it to do it's magic. Next step, according to Jason is too put a few gallons of water in both black and gray tanks and drive a bit... allowing the lubricant, mixed with some water to slosh around tank and against valves. We will see? If I go under forward dinette seat... I can feel that the black tank doesn't seem to seat fully in the closed position... even though handle on cable is fully closed from the outside. I've tried to be very diligent and keep the black and gray tanks very clean after each trip... do good flush's etc.... I don't want to get into taking out the valve just yet.

Those are beautiful pics and LOVE THOSE kayaks!

We are with Elli Rose 🌹 in the Traverse City Region of Michigan. Only 3 months since we picked her up. She’s a dream to travel in. Here are some pics along the way 🙂A good place for lunchOn the 45th!Leland, otherwise known as FishtownFrom the dock…can’t beat nature’s paletteA break for dinner from our trek on M22 Cherries everywhere 🍒 Sleeping Bear Dunes…the water looks like the Caribbean 🏝 Until tomorrow 🥰

That was a great movie and is also where I first learned of Sgt Alvin C. York. After the war he was very instrumental in bringing things like electricity to his home town. If you remember the movie... you might remember that when he went to the rail way station to join the Army.... there was a sign on the depot that said Crossville, Tn. (hence the reason I got everybody side tracked on this little story 🙂 )

Fun Story- Nearby Crossville, in Pall Mall, Tn., several ,years ago my father was touring Sgt Alvin C. York's (highly decorated WW1 soldier) home. While taking the tour, the man giving the tour seemed to have a lot of personal information on the life of Sgt York. Afterwards my father pulled him aside and asked him about that... and the tour guides simple answer was "Sgt York was my Daddy." Just six years ago I also passed thru and took the tour and while I didn't get to meet Alvin York's son, I was told he still gave tours from time to time.

I am pretty certain it is the "Cable Management Issue". They are big heavy cables and in the case of ours, it is a bit too short to allow the tray to fully slide out. After examining it, I believe it comes out enough to do anything I would need to do in there. Any longer the cables wouldn't neatly tuck up in there without some possible binding or interference.

Thanks for the info! Those fittings look awesome and like some others have said... I'm almost inspired to see how many I can change :-). (I probably won't until something fails)... but nice to know I can fix it on the road if something ever happens.

I have no problems with any of the plumbing to date with my Oliver... but watching my brother do some home repair with his $400 tool got me to wondering what I would do if a fitting should happen to fail on the road. These look like awesome fittings and I confirmed that our nearby Lowes had them (and you said Home Depot has them as well). So what "special tools" are needed to do such repairs? EDIT- Sorry... it occurred to me that I could watch a few Youtube videos rather than ask.😓