Steph and Dud B

We also have the Platinum package with the built in battery heaters. Because I only had one shared 15A outlet outside I throttled the Xantrex back to only 5A (setting 28) and it did just fine sitting outside here in CT all winter. The heaters don't draw much.

We could do that with our Ollie. Once. And not go back out. Ever. Except in pieces. 😁 Glad to hear you're through your treatment regime successfully! That's huge. Every time you see the words "no evidence of disease" is a gift to treasure. Such a cool trailer. Have a blast with it. We just left the Maine coast. Check out Burnett's Campground in York if you're in the area and like seafood and ice cream.

@MAX Burner, is that a 10x12' bay door?

Well, construction has finally started on our 30x30' garage. Unfortunately those excavators are blocking access to our yard so "Eggcelsior" is homeless for the moment and living in a campground nearby. Cement work is supposed to be next week. After that Eggcelsior can come home again.

Thanks, John, I was hoping you'd see this. I've pretty much convinced myself this is a problem with that auto-adjust brake. I don't think a tech slipped the cable because they took the drum off for service each time rather than trying to adjust from the back and they were only supposed to inspect for damage. None of them mentioned adjusting the mechanism. In fact, one of them told me you can't adjust them because they'll just go right back to where they started, based on the cable length. So, based on the premise that the brake is dragging that leaves 3 questions: 1. Why isn't it running hot? Theory #1: it's only dragging very lightly. Theory #2: it's intermittent. 2. Why is it intermittent? Theory: it only happens after the auto-adjuster increments the star wheel a notch. 3. Why does it stop quickly and suddenly? This one's a little more confusing to me. Theory: after it happens, subsequent brake use retensions the adjuster cable or mechanism enough to clear the shoes off the drum surface. If those theories are correct I will consider this more of a chronic problem than a crisis and go on with my next trip. Will look for excessive shoe wear on my next inspection and consider future brake replacement. What a pain...

P.P.S.: Putting this in writing is helping me process my thoughts. The noise I sometimes hear now from the driver's seat reminds me of the sound manual brakes make when you adjust them until they lightly scrape on the drum. (Unfortunately, I haven't been able to stand next to the trailer while it's happening and Stephanie is less adept at recognizing and describing mechanical noises. If it happens again I need to find a place to get her in the driver's seat so I can hear it myself.) If I'm right, this may be a case of the auto-adjuster making that brake just a little too tight when it clicks up a notch, causing that shoe to drag just a little. On the highway, I'd never hear it and the light drag probably wouldn't heat the drum enough for my TPMS to detect. But it if it happens at low speed I could hear it with the window open. That makes some sense, but it doesn't explain why Steph says it goes "ping" and stops. Unless Steph was hearing the brakes engage as I stopped the vehicle? That would stop the dragging noise. And then when I release the brake it reseats or frees up just enough to stop dragging? Can someone check my logic here? (I really don't like these auto-adjust brakes...)

P.S.: These are Dexter auto-adjusting brakes, so I can't back it off.

On or way to OTT in April we had 2 occasions of very loud metallic squealing while braking, both after overnights in campgrounds. The first time, we pulled over into a parking lot and Stephanie walked next to the trailer while I drove circles to identify the wheel. It was the left front wheel. Seemed to only do it while turning in left circles. While doing this she heard a loud "ping!" and the noise stopped. We chalked it up to a pebble in the brake drum. It happened again on that trip, briefly after another overnight on gravel roads, but resolved itself before I could pull over. These were loud metallic scraping noises. We had OTT pull the wheel and no damage was found. Fast forward to the past 2 weeks. Twice at low speeds I thought I heard noise from the trailer, like something dragging in a wheel, but it would stop before we could check it out. We put 6 hours of highway driving on and the wheels ran cool based on IR scans of the drums. Happened again yesterday, and this time Steph was able to get out and hear it. Same wheel as before, this time a light metallic scraping and not while braking. Not nearly as loud as the previous incidents, either. More like a brake dragging, but again, wheel drum was cool after an hour of highway travel. And once again, she heard a "ping" and it stopped. Quiet now. I'm at a loss. At the moment it's in a campground so I can't pull the wheel. Aside from the OTT inspection in April I had the wheels off at a good service center twice last summer, once for the Dexter recall, and once to have the brakes and bearings checked after the recall work. There has never been a problem identified. These are 1 year old NevRLube bearings and the noise is very intermittent so I'm thinking maybe a brake is intermittently hanging up (and the pings Steph heard were it releasing?), but I'd expect to see a temperature difference on that wheel if that were the case. The trailer is currently in a campground because our yard is inaccessible due to construction. Our next move is supposed to be another 3 hour drive. Can't get into a service center before then. If it makes noise when we pull out of this campground I'll scrub the next trip and bring it home (1 hour, mostly secondary roads). But what if it's quiet again? Should I cancel anyway? We've put 3000 miles on it since the first incident last April and there have been no other symptoms besides these 5 isolated noises. I can get to a service center after this next trip. Can it wait until then?

Actually, the wet bolts are an upgrade. Most Dexter RV trailer suspensions have simple nylon bushings around the bolts. These bushings wear out pretty quickly and need to be replaced regularly. Most people don't do that, hence the myriad squeaking SOB trailers you hear all the time.

Just did (most of) mine today. On the road longer than expected because our garage construction is going slower than expected (big surprise, right?). Can't get into the yard so we're camped nearby and commuting home. Got 14 of the 16 zerks. Couldn't access 2 of the ones above the equalizer because the wheels are on a hill. Will have to get those tomorrow before we settle into the next campsite. Can't wait to have a level, clean garage floor to do this on. Wasn't fun fighting beach sand with a grease gun in my hand. 🙄

Sounds like it's time to go camping! (Same thing happened to us with the hitch height, BTW. Fortunately, we had an adjustable drop hitch.)

Have you looked at Bigfoot? A larger molded fiberglass camper, maybe not the same level as an Oliver, but more living space and still very nice. A bit longer and wider with the same advantages of a molded shell: https://bigfootrv.com/2500-series/b25-trailer

Yes, the other side of the coin. You are right. "Analysis paralysis" can cause you to miss out. There are no guarantees in life, something we've learned first-hand, so I understand your eagerness to get started. Sounds like you a have a general idea of what you're looking at, but you're still a little light on the specifics. Asking questions here is a good move. Have you looked at Escapees: https://escapees.com/ ? Their members have decades of experience full timing. Understand that full time RVing comes with most of the problems of full time house living: electrical problems, plumbing problems, appliance problems, leak problems, neighbor problems, plus a few more: drivetrain failures, accidents, difficulty finding a place to stay. It's not all sunsets and waterfalls. If you're sick, you may still have to pack up and move on because your reservation is up. Same if you're tired or the weather's bad. You will be transients. (At the start of the pandemic a lot of full timers had a big problem because the campgrounds closed and they had nowhere else to go.) I wanted to full time when we retired, but my wife insisted we still needed a home base. Turns out she was right, we like to be on the road but we need a place close to our doctors and family, too. I wish you luck and hope you are able to live your dream. Maybe ask a few more questions and try a few more outings before you commit. There are a lot of options.

It's right there in the instructions: "Orient the fan with the button toward the front of the coach." OTT installed ours backwards. Probably why it pops open. Another QC fail.

Same here. Pool noodle. 🙄

Get a big truck. Not just for towing, but for the storage space. We have a crew cab gas dually with a covered 8' bed. It's big. We don't full time but even so the truck is full. The Oliver cabinets are full if we're out for 2 weeks or more, loaded up with a mix of clothes, food, and gear for both dry camping and full hookup glamping. In effect, a lot of the stuff that was in the basement of our fifth wheel is now in the truck. Of course, we could cut back what we carry. We have a generator we've never needed. We have a Clam with us. We have a lot of bike gear. A small Blackstone griddle. We could cut back on clothes. We could get a cap for the truck instead of the hard tonneau cover. I'm sure it could be done, but I'm not sure we'd be comfortable with the choices we'd have to make to do it. But, as @SeaDawg points out, others can. There's a couple on YouTube who full time in a Class B van. That's even smaller. It's a big leap. Have you RV'd before?

Tux and tie event. Very classy! 👍

My few experiences with RV dealer-based service centers have not been good. Dealers have a hard time finding and retaining techs, and the techs they have are usually poorly-informed about the details of the various product lines they sell. Just read through any of the forums for SOB trailers and you'll see these types of comments over and over. "I asked the service tech what the red switch does, and he didn't know," "My trailer's been in the shop for 6 weeks now," "I finally got my trailer back and the problem still isn't fixed," etc. In our case, the dealer simply wouldn't return our calls and we ended up taking the trailer back to the factory in Indiana for repairs. Now we only deal with a local/mobile service facility that does NOT sell RVs. If OTT wanted to partner up with RV service centers, fine, but I'd be very wary of any dealership-based service they offered. As for sales, I think a dealer network will effectively cheapen the product, one way or another. To keep the price point the same while still allowing dealer profit would require lowering the manufacturing costs/cutting corners. We've already seen a bit of that to cover the COVID sales crunch: no more customization, no swoosh decals. Two of our previous trailers were from independent manufacturers not based in Elkhart. Slightly better quality than the Indiana trailers and slightly more expensive. Both those companies went under because they couldn't compete side by side with cheaper units on dealer lots. So, service centers? Maybe good. Dealer sales? I don't think so. But,OTT apparently needs to do something different. I hope it works out.

We use one of these to monitor my wife's medications, which have to stay in a certain temperature range: Govee WiFi Thermometer Hygrometer H5179, Smart Humidity Temperature Sensor with App Notification Alert, https://a.co/d/65LlkWV Hook it up to campground wifi or your hotspot and it will send a notification to your phone if the temperature leaves your preset limits. Works very well.

@mossemi, I assume your dog camps with you. How is he in campgrounds? Have you had any issues with other campers or campground management? We want to be good neighbors.

Our son and his new bride have a rescue dog. We think she's a German shorthair/chocolate lab mix. 4 years old. We had her with us for 2 weeks while they were on their honeymoon and she's a sweetheart. Smart, well-trained, and a real cuddle bug. Problem is, she's anxious and reactive to other dogs, and they already have another dog. The two dogs have fought in their house, which led to Truffle spending her days in a crate when they're not home and nights alone in a separate bedroom - which must be hard for her because she's a people-dog and spent every night with us in our bedroom. They've talked about putting her down before they have children because they don't think she's adoptable. We fell in love with her and would consider adopting her but we're worried about her behavior in a campground, especially while being walked. She tends to bark and lunge at other dogs who come within 10-20 feet while she's leashed, even though they have worked with a trainer to try to get her past this. She's absolutely fine with other people while being walked. The only people-problem she has is the mailman, who comes onto their front step and puts mail through a slot in their front door. (Our mail is delivered in the street and she didn't react to that at all.) Has anyone dealt with a dog-reactive dog while camping? Any suggestions or advice to offer?

We like the muted light through the frosted doors better than the harsh overhead lights.

You can submit a service ticket in the Owners section of this site and Oliver will get back to you. No charge for advice/help troubleshooting.

If you have lithium batteries you'll need to change a setting in the converter (Xantrex) to prevent tripping the 15A breaker at your house. It's setting #28. Change it to 15A or less.

Think I'll just let it run over the side until I get home.