Steph and Dud B

I wonder when that will translate into fewer RVs on the road/in campsites?

Yes, it did. And they are very nice.

Our last fifth wheel had heaters on all tanks, plus heat tape around the exposed tank discharge plumbing outside the trailer. Nice setup and it all ran on 12v. Didn't use it much so can't speak about battery draw.

Just saw one at an RV show today. Cute, but no storage and forget the shower if you're over 5'5".

Has anyone else been frustrated by the poor design and execution of the Girard awning remote control? From the start, I was annoyed by the dim display that can't be read outdoors. What's the point of having a battery powered awning remote if you can't use it outside? Then, one of the magnets in the mounting plate came unglued and fell out. Those little magnets can be dangerous to a child or pet that finds them on the floor and eats them. So, I replaced the magnet mount with Velcro. Last fall, I took the remote apart to remove the batteries for storage (why does it have three big button batteries??). No instructions anywhere on how to disassemble it. Turns out you just force the back plate off around 4 little plastic tabs on the face plate. This thing does not feel like it will survive too many of those operations. The worst was trying to put it back together after replacing the batteries today. The soldered battery clips are sloppy, so the batteries just kind of slide around. BUT, the three batteries all have to fit into very tight little ridges on the back cover. To add to the fun, there are little magnets on the back cover that love to grab the batteries and move them out of position right as you try to wrestle the cover into place. At one point, I managed to get everything aligned just right and the cover almost closed. No such luck! One of the little magnets had come loose, literally jumped across the cover plate, and stuck itself to one of its peers, preventing the cover from latching on. At this point I pried ALL of the magnets off the inside so I could go back to wrestling with the cover magnet-free. I must have spent half an hour trying to put that back cover back on before I succeeded And, no, it's no brighter with the new batteries. 🙄

Welcome!

That company got off to a rough start. Apparently, the CEO was indicted for fraud a few years ago. Here's a link: https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-spivak Their initial website was pretty sketchy looking. Today, their 27 footer is just a CAD drawing with no wheels. Be interesting to see if they can hang in for the long run.

There's a long discussion about it on this thread: (Essentially, the Norcold fridge has a hole in a circuit board that lets air through.)

This has been reported before. Your fridge wasn't running on propane? There's a theory that poor sealing around the fridge allows exhaust fumes from the fridge gas burner to blow into the trailer. (Either way, it seems problematic that wind can enter your cabin via the fridge compartment.)

Those all work but, honestly, I usually just type "Oliver trailers [search terms]" (without the brackets). 9/10 the forum results come up.

People should check with their manufacturer, but tow ratings are usually calculated with the tow vehicle empty except for a driver. Every other pound you add in the tow vehicle gets deducted from the tow rating. For example, a vehicle with a 4000 pound tow rating that contains a driver plus a 150# passenger, a 50# dog, and 100# of gear can tow a trailer with a maximum weight of 3700# without exceeding the specs. This topic is beat to death in every RV forum. Do people exceed their limits? All the time. Are they all dead? Nope. Could it contribute to an accident in certain conditions? Probably. If that accident caused harm to others, could the opposing lawyer use that against them? I think so. Should you do it? That's up to you. After 24 years of towing various trailers we have decided excess tow vehicle capacity gives us a buffer for unexpected situations and a more relaxed travel experience. I'm entitled to my opinion and so are you. If anything happens, either of us might have our opinions validated by a jury, one way or the other. We all have our own level of comfort with risks. But, information is always useful.

I'm going to disagree. I think it led to an important discussion about choosing an appropriate tow vehicle. An overloaded tow vehicle endangers not only its occupants, but everyone else on the road. If a thread like this encourages others to choose wisely, it's good for them and us. If somebody had come into this thread with data that said the pictured vehicle was, in fact, rated appropriately for that trailer, we would have learned something there, too.

But... the salesman said he could tow it just fine!

Same thing happened to us. I'll bet our trailers are littermates. What's your hull number?

My representation of salespeople was the usual SOB brands, not Oliver. OTT is indeed more reputable than many others. One of the first questions I was asked when I contacted OTT for information was, "What is your tow vehicle?" OTOH, I have listened to many SOB salesmen saying, "Of course you can tow this (42' fifth wheel) with your F150!"

I doubt there's any liability for OTT. The driver is responsible for the safe operation of their vehicle. As long as OTT correctly identifies the "as manufactured" weight, I think they're good. It's like every RV salesperson says: "Sure, you can tow this with your [insert vehicle here]!"

Towing with a full size van. Nice. Our second tow vehicle was a Ford E350 7-seater with the V10. Awesome tow vehicle. We went cross-country with it and our 27' travel trailer. Had to switch to pickups when we changed to fifth wheels, but I wish I had that van today. Congrats on your new Ollie.

If you choose ST tires, stick with the Goodyears, although I also had good luck with Maxxis on 3 trailers. There are lots of off-brand ST tires on the market, commonly referred to as "China-bombs" by other RVers. Most have a reputation for poor quality and many people have reported catastrophic blowouts and tread separations.

Goodyear Endurance are highly respected ST trailer tires. We use the TST TPMS system. Had a blowout with our first trailer.

Congratulations. Hope you have many adventures in your Ollie. What lured you away from Airstream?

That's exactly what I did in an earlier fifth wheel we had. Worked great.

There's this: CARMTEK RV Circuit Analyzer 30 Amp - RV Circuit Tester with Smart Diagnostic Chart and Indicator Lights - ETL Listed 30 Amp Circuit Analyzer for RV https://a.co/d/ifQ07Ip For $7 more, you can get it with a surge suppressor built in.

This isn't your first time ever connecting to shore power is it? You're not using any sort of adapter on your shoreline cord are you? I would NOT bypass the Oliver Progressive unit without further study. If you know how to correctly use a multimeter, I'd check the campground pedestal connection first. If you don't know how, find someone who can and see if the pedestal is wired correctly.

Incidentally, I also use a heavy duty long shackle padlock to secure my safety chains to each other and to the front basket. That makes it harder for a thief to just wrap the chains around a ball and drag the trailer away.