Galileo

I don’t think that Chevrolet ate Cadillac’s lunch. There’s plenty of room in the RV market for different sizes and quality levels. Even though RV sales may be slowing down, Oliver owners are likely gonna see better prices for their “old” units on the used market. We had considered the Escape line of trailers as well. When we met an Escape owner, he told us he would have preferred the Oliver.

We looked at Casita before we bought the Oliver. I don’t think they had a larger unit in 2021. The current models were - in our opinion - far too small even for a couple. And we LIKE “small” - we simply can’t understand the logic of people pulling massive 5th wheel rigs or driving huge coaches - and pulling along a second vehicle to boot! We were (quite) unimpressed with the interior treatment of the fiberglass shell. Looked like carpeting or some kind of sprayed-on flicked surface. Insulation value aside, we both thought “that’s gonna be hard to keep clean”. The upside was it was build in Texas (as opposed to Elkhart). The nail in the coffin was the one-year wait time. (This was when EVERYBODY was buying RV’s during and right after COVID) At the time, Oliver has a pretty long lead time too, but Josh was able to move up our delivery by a few months due to a cancellation. Obviously the cost ($60,000-ish base at the time) was a huge issue - but this was gonna be a lifestyle and not a weekend toy. Aside from the running gear and the accessories/appliances - the Oliver should last forever. That’s longer than we’ll last. Yes, the Oliver beast is heavy for its size. It hasn’t been an issue for us to date - even with my minimalist approach to TVs- but I wouldn’t want to drag around anything heavier.

Based on my experience with the Furrion Stereo - I had to stop and take a breath before I started considering a much more expensive item from Furrion. Hopefully, they make A/Cs better than they make stereos…. As for Dometic - obviously the Penguin 2 A/C does not win them any customers. IMHO - the toilet is crap as well. The hob is fine - though the “bumpers” that cushion the glass cover only lasted two uses. Norcold? Great fridge - if the freezer hinges were tough enough to withstand normal use. Then again - Truma hasn’t impressed me much either. Im usually pretty easy to please. Maybe that old “they don’t make things like they used to” is the reason - or - I’ve just become more crotchety in my old age.

Don’t have one unfortunately, and $23 for one is nuts! (Likely worse than having to pay almost $80 to Helm for the owner’s manual that GMC no longer includes when you buy an $80,000 truck.) Maybe if you are buddies with any shops that install or service these, they’d have a dead unit laying around you could scavenge one off of. Maybe even find a “dead” unit on eBay and buy the whole thing for less than that one part. I would think that was the kind of part that Customer Service could “find” for you for free and mail it out. When my motor had issues - they sent it out for no charge even though I was out of warranty. I guess it depends if you catch the right person on the right day.

I just hit the on/off button and the open/close button in rapid succession and the door doesn’t do the whole open/close cycle. But yes, the mechanism IS quite noisy (especially in the middle of the night) and possibly worse - each button press gets you a damn beep! I’m tempted to muffle or kill the beep. Sometimes if I just want to open/close the vent I use the manual knob. Done slowly it’s pretty quiet. However, because of the deep roof it’s too easy to get your fingers caught between the knob and the bezel. That’s WAY more than a “pinch” and is quite painful. (Often producing more loud sounds than just pressing the button!)

I’m thinking that a hole could be drilled through the condensate pan with a “standpipe” that would allow water to collect in the trough/pan to wet the condenser fan and tubing - but drain before it could overflow and drip/run onto the roof. Whether it could be plumbed into existing tubing would be the question. As for “modifying” things that might void the warranty - aside from my vehicles (IOW - expensive stuff) I usually don’t sweat it. If I’m going to buy a piece of equipment from Amazon or Walmart and install it myself, IF there is even still a warranty at that point - I’ll navigate the CS to get whatever breaks under warranty resolved.

No need to imagine. My previous tow vehicle had an engine harness wiring that ran too close to an exhaust heat shield. At precisely 1,000 miles after warranty, the heat shield wore through the wiring harness and shorted out a fuel injector. I’m just lucky it happened within easy motor club towing distance of a dealer. (“Lucky” if you call having to change camping reservations at the last moment, rent a car, and fork over $500 for the repair.) Still, I guess I should count myself lucky that it happened in a city rather than the narrow, winding mountain roads I was driving with the trailer the week before. Anyway, it seems that just as with everything else, we’re often beta testers for the things we buy. If stuff holds together for the first couple of years, you’re basically in your own.

Seems like areas that I just cleaned and waxed yesterday have water spots on them by morning. If I could only direct rain or tree debris… The video didn’t mention if the ChillCube had a designated “outlet” for condensate that doesn’t get blown through the condenser coils. Does it just “overflow” when it reaches the top of a pan or channel, or is there a designated drain or even a handy barb or nipple one could slip a hose onto to direct the overflow someplace least harmful?

I suppose if one stayed in one geographical and/or climatic region - you could worry about this or not. We find ourselves in pretty much every area. (the “trying to towel off” illustration is something we’ve encountered far too often!) One can only assume (hope?) that the folks who designed, built, and teased this critter have taken varying climates where one might use A/C into account.

I think I mentioned that the actual channel on the back side of the shade is cracked and doesn’t give the clip much to hold onto. Moving the clip to an untracked area helps - but once an area of the channel is cracked, it’s easy for the crack to spread to adjoining areas. So the clip needs to be moved more than one screw away on the window frame. I actually did try to bend the clip. Unfortunately, it’s pretty stout spring steel - so that didn’t work. One of ours was actually broken and half missing upon delivery - probably from either attempts to re-form it, or just whacking the window shade too hard when it was initially installed. Not surprisingly, that’s the shade with the cracked channel that likes to fall off.

Amen to that! We have one that likes to fall off - but it gives my wife and I something to bet on at the end of each trip before we set up the trailer. “Do you think the window shade fell off?!” I find that the one prone to falling off has cracks in the channel in the back where it “snaps” over the U shaped metal clips. You may want to try moving the clips up different locations if you find yours are cracked as well. They are more than a bit clunky - so if/when they start to fall apart, I’ll certainly look for other options. Perhaps “old fashioned” curtains have some merits after all. As for the windows themselves - I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that they’re about useless if it rains - at all. I haven’t delved into awnings or other devices to keep water from hitting the screens if the window is open. I also never leave the Girard awning extended when we’re gone, at night, if it’s windy, or in heavy rain. As @TimD discovered - the black, plastic inner “track” or guide the windows slide on isn’t (easily) removable from the frame. I’m sure there’s a way, but I haven’t gotten that ambitious yet. It turns out our leak wasn’t really due to fuel or clogged weep holes or drains. It was the screw that hold the window stop in place. The little plastic “foot” that keeps the window from sliding too far open-forward. The knucklehead who decided it would be a good idea to drill a hole in the bottom of the window frame is OFF my Christmas list. Happily, some sealant on that screw seems to have remedied the leak.

I think that was Morton’s YouTube (the electrical engineer with the super in-depth testing of ducted and ductless models?) But yes, he mentioned because the condensate gets flung onto the evaporator coils to assist in the cooling that it might be more susceptible to collecting, dirt, dust, etc. That makes sense as a wet surface is a lot more likely to hold onto airborne stuff - pollen, etc. The added moisture would also allow stuff to grow. The height might make it easier, but the water there would work against that. I suppose as with most things, YMMV as to how often you need to clean the condenser coils, what method to use, and if you’d need something like a commercial coil cleaner. I had a home window unit that did something similar with a ring around the condenser coil fan that sat in a pool of condensate water. It was in humid Texas, so the water didn’t evaporate that well, but did make sure that dust and pollen collected into a mud that required pretty aggressive cleaning. Once a season I’d pull the whole unit out of the sleeve, put aluminum foil over the electronics, and take a pressure washer to the thing. I don’t know how well that brushless DC motor that turns the condenser fan is sealed, or if any of those “many” sensors will appreciate being sprayed with a stream of water.

My father was covered by RRB and never had an issue with them. Though they are still a bit of a “monopoly” as far as who administers benefits (much like TRS and others) they seem a lot more responsive to member needs than SSA. Certainly more competent and they don’t (apparently) “lose” your paperwork with the impunity that SSA does. It’s pretty hard not to picture some resentful civil service employee just dumping his or her inbox into the trash on a Friday afternoon out of spite. Anybody can screw up once - but not being able to find a record of a request -twice- when sent with tracking? That takes effort.

General Discussion Talk about anything and everything Oliver-related — and beyond! (this would be the “and beyond!”)

I guess I’ll have to look into the lower-profile/heat pump variants that have been mentioned. We’re still suffering with the original Dometic P2 jet engine sitting on the roof - which means we either endure noise or heat/humidity. A version with heat pump would be nice - but I’d opt for the heat strips if that were the only option. Id prefer low-profile - but I don’t know if 3” higher is gonna affect mileage that much - and pretty sure our storage unit has 12 or 14 foot high roll-up, so likely not a factor. Thanks for all the data and tips @jd1923 and others! I have a few months to sift through the data. I watched the (whole) video - so just what’s changed since then is the big question. And yes - it seems that waiting a bit opens up more and better options!

That’s a pretty compelling video and testing. and…. You can get it through Walmart?! I think the concerns about the condenser coils collecting dirt are a bit of a concern. Otherwise - it sounds great.

Thanks for the info @jd1923! Our trip so far this year (Jan-June) has been pretty schizophrenic weather-wise. From NOLA to Reno we’ve had surprisingly cool weather - toying with needing tire chains, and once having to depart a camp site early to avoid having to get stranded by a major storm. I think we’ve run the A/C only 4 times - and just long enough to bring the temp down from high 80’s to mid 70’s. We’ve yet to make that “seeking 70’s” circle tour of the US work for us. Last year in Florida - we were freezing our butts off or running from mosquitoes. I guess I’ll look into this “Chill Cube”….

Pretty similar deal. The company doesn’t administer the pension program. So we’d be in an endless finger-pointing debate between the workplace and the pension administrator.

The “local office” (40 miles away) isn’t even available to make appointments at any longer. Our signing up was a breeze - all online before the big reduction in force. No issues there at all. Things you can do online are also quite simple. What we’re asking further is also really quite simple - it SHOULD be something you can do online. When Deb called to inquire 120+ days later about her form - the person at the other end of the line said: “we have a huge mailroom…” We’re probably gonna have to go through our Congressman’s office. Supposedly they can make SSA do its job. Biggest issue is that 2 years of retroactive pension payments are likely gone forever. Though, you can be sure that once we establish that she did indeed work there (at this Fortune 509 company) that they were negligent losing her records and owe us 2 years of pension payments.

I guess not pulling the trigger on replacing the NOISY Dometic (Penguin 2?) A/C that came with our LE2 back in early 2022 has opened the field for more upgrade options? I’m still hoping to DIY this project - so is the latest consensus the “Chill Cube”? Is some kind of external roof support still an issue? NOT on lithium or solar, almost always plugged in, so AH’s are not on our criteria list. We like the condensate drains through the tubes between the hulls as opposed to running off the roof - but not opposed to running it through an external tube if that is an option. One big reason that we haven’t rushed into anything as of yet is that we -rarely- use the A/C. It’s got to get to the high 80’s before we opt to break out the earplugs, crank the TV volume to 100, and run the A/C until we get to 70-something and shut it off again. I guess I’ll run the original equipment until it stops working at this rate. (That, and avoid Texas in August…)

AI keeps telling us that the local SSA office CAN print out the report we need IF we can convince them to. But these days you need to make an appointment online and “I’ve tried mailing this and it keeps getting lost” isn’t a choice if the appointment system. AI also says if all else fails “Call your Congressman” yeah - if you haven’t had enough of inefficient bureaucracy yet.

We do the clean-up each time we break camp. (Though around the cat little box - every time we attend to it.) We have a carpet runner - that goes from the bathroom door to under the edge of the (king) bed and covers the width of the “linoleum”. I shake it out to get rid of the loose dirt, and we wash it about once a month or so. Our biggest issue is cat hair - which seems to be magnetically attracted to the upholstery. It’s not a big issue for the furnace return register as we rarely use it. We go through the sticky “lint rollers” at a pretty good rate. We did inherit one of those large outdoor rugs/mats that we use if we’re going to be in one place for more than a few days. Out West, we found it likes to blow away. We found it two or three camp sites downwind once.

Hi folks, Totally non-Oliver and not even travel or trailer related - but wanted to ask if anybody had any tips for getting the Social Security Administration to actually do their job. About two years ago Debra contacted a former employer’s pension administrator to claim the pension she had coming for 20 years service. They told her they had no record of her even working there, and would need to obtain a detailed report from SSI to prove she worked there. OK - a bit wired, but not the first time we’ve had something odd happen. (My theory: Debra’s last name starts with two “A”s, so my data processing background tells me that first record in a database often gets pulled in as a column label and lost.) Anyway - download, print, fill out the form from SSI online, send it in with the required fee, and wait - up to 120 days. 120 days - and then some - come and go and no report in the mailbox. Several calls and holding for hours online and the final answer is “we can find your request and we’ll have someone look into it and get back to you.” (Guess what happened…) Several more weeks/months later we have to contact them again - still no record of the request - they DO show the payments received though. Fast-forward to a year later after several more phone calls. They send a packet out that says they couldn’t complete the request because they couldn’t find the signed form - so she has to start all over- but - they do send a voucher of sorts showing payment. So - she re- mikes the whole thing with the voucher and a new, signed request form - and we wait. No reply 150 days later. So the phone calls begin. Again. Last week - the person on the phone says “We have no record of your request… we’ll escalate this to a priority level” (which they did twice with the first one.) So - here we are with a pension we can get because SSI can’t fulfill a fairly routine report of the records the pension custodian needs to do their job. Debra wasn’t even going to pursue it, but I worked for the same company and am receiving a pension. (Different last name.) so I KNOW there’s $$$ on the table. Any suggestions besides tearing hair out?!

Is THAT what the Oliver looks like without the front storage basket?! I barely recognize it…

I figured if I got totally locked out - even though we kept a set of trailer keys in the truck - I can just slide a side window open from outside and climb in cat-burglar style. The 2025 Sierra has the keyless entry (fob in pocket or purse) which is reliable (so far) and you can also unlock it with your smartphone. (Which is usually reliable - u less there’s no cell service…) So I’ve kinda gotten used up not using it needing a key. As I mentioned before - I know there are a lot of keyless locks around, though most likely not suitable for RVs. I’m sure there’s some other ones out there that are simpler and less prone to failure. As I also mentioned - using our trailer for several months at a time for five years now, I’m not going to gripe too much about things that quit working. I’ve had to replace the smoke alarm twice, the CO/propane detector, swap out the tire valve stem cores, stop the Truma water heater from sending fireballs out the side of the trailer, replace the television, yank out the awning seal, replace the Nor-cold freezer hinges twice, the Furrion Stereo, one touch-light and another one failing, replace the black tank valve, patch up a leaky window frame, tear the MaxxFan down to replace the motor, oh - and the dang Dometic A/C still sounds like a 747 with full takeoff power. (see there? You got me started….)