elkhartjim

Just a guess, but I'm not sure you would be allowed to drive a motorhome on to airport property due to security issues. Like Carl said, find a campground in Jersey or PA and bus/taxi to the dock.

Oh come on, Bill. You know we love you, well some of us do anyway.

Interesting, Carl, I hadn't thought about it but the shower door and cabinet doors are the only swinging doors I have. The half bathe door pivots rather than swing, another Newmar design.

Carl, have either of you driven one? Our 4369 is a bath and half and the rear bath is huge. The storage space is awesome. I would guess we have 12-15 feet of hanging space and so many drawers and shelves I can never find anything; some we don't use. The customer support from Newmar is tremendous. I have two people assigned to me and their office number rolls over to their cell phone for after hours needs. I don't know of another manufacturer that offers that. Example: I was having an tire balance issue. I talked to Freightliner about it and they didn't want to do anything under warranty. I called Newmar, Newmar called Freightliner and we had a 3-way conversation, Freightliner called the local Freightliner dealer and made an appointment during this conversation. Newmar followed up with me making sure I was satisfied. Newmar suggests we let them know if we take the coach into a dealer for warranty work so they can check on the progress of the work. Dealers would use the excuse they were waiting on parts or waiting on Newmar when in reality they had not contacted Newmar. Newmar wants to stop this from happening. There is a reason the only coaches they have built for the last few months are coaches sold to owners not dealers. Dealers cannot order a coach for inventory. I believe the wait time is about 6 months if you order now. They will cut off orders for 2018's soon after the first of the year.

I recently sold my 2008 Fleetwood Bounder diesel pusher. I looked at and drove three motorhomes. First was a Fleetwood since I was a Fleetwood owner and it was a rattle trap. The quality of workmanship was terrible. The dash squeaked and rattled and the salesman stated just get use to it because they haven't been able to figure out how to stop it. I was shocked in the quality of a MSRP of $375,000 motorhome. Next we drove a Phaeton, better but too much plastic and the woodwork fit and finish was lacking. Lastly, we drove a Newmar Ventana 4369 with tag. Same price range as the other two but it was like looking at a top of the line custom built home to a cookie cutter tract home. The workmanship is impeccable. The drive...there is nothing even close to driving the Newmar with the Comfort Drive steering. The only comment needed is my wife is comfortable driving this motorhome and after driving our Fleetwood for 20 minutes she said never again. I've driven it in 30 mph cross winds and the wind was barely noticeable. But don't believe me, go drive one but drive it last because it will be the last one you will drive if you drive it first.

We will do our annual birding trip in April for the spring migration staying at the LLano Grande Resort and Country Club in Mercedes. Our plan is to spend two weeks in the valley and then move to Big Bend and finally southern Arizona. South Texas is awesome plus a good opportunity to get the motorhome and Jeep waxed for much less than in the Canyon Lake area. Thanks for sharing, Tom, we should be getting our TPWD magazine any day. On a side note, we were blessed to spend the day with Larry Ditto in the Christmas Mountains a few months ago as he was setting up for a class he was holding an photographing hummingbirds during the Davis Mountains Hummingbird Festival. Wow...did he ever teach us a lot of new things about bird photography.

And "slime in the ice machine".

I know a 6 step procedure may appear overwhelming to a tiger but for an Aggie its a simple procedure. You could have stopped anyone wearing maroon and white at the game and they would have happily helped you, because thats what we do. Whoop!

Thanks, Brett. He just keeps repeating covering your tires will extend service life. Common sense tells me that but I would like to know the cost (my time), benefit (extended tire life) for me. I guess Roger is like a pathologist that performs autopsies. I guess he has data for failures but nothing to backup longevity. Maybe I'm looking for a cardiologist. And you exactly correct, without samples of covered and uncovered tires its just an assumption tires will last longer if covered. I've never seen a tire manufacturer state something to the effect, "if you cover your tires you shouldn't need to replace them for X years but if uncovered. continue with the recommended replacement in Y years. Thanks.

Can you publish any real time data to substantiate this claim? Are you suggesting if we only drive at night when the tire temperature is cooler and no uv rays that our tires would last longer? How much longer? That is the question I continue to ask and so far you have not been willing or able to answer that. I'm only being persistent because you're the only self professed tire expert on this forum that seems to think covering a tire will increase the tire life and I would like to know by how long. Thanks.

Hijackers

Recently it was posted the average members age was I believe 72+ which means they have Medicare coverage.

Welcome, Ken. If you post year, make and model of your motorhome plus the inverter make and model it will help you get better answers. My inverter has a float charge rate so I leave it plugged in all the time. What amperage is the 115v you will connect too?

Seriously?

Tell'em its a 13 Bill, they won't know the difference.

My thought has always been, if it looks good how do they know the age of the coach? Can anyone of us tell the difference in a 2005, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 15 Fleetwood Discovery just by looking?

Maybe they don't have any controlled testing data. My experience using 303 has been it makes the tires look better without harming the tires. Of course exposure to the elements is not a good thing. I'm surprised you are comparing gel coat to a rubber tire. I've seen 50 year old boats that other than the dark of night never saw a shade. They may have been faded but there were no cracks. My 2008 motorhome that I took delivery of August 2007 and sold in August 2017 did not have a crack in the fiberglass finish after being stored in the heat, uv and ozone near the Houston area. Probably some other nasty stuff in the air also. I did read your blog prior to my original post. That is why I asked my questions. I understand and agree that a tire exposed to the elements will deteriorate over time. I still have the same question, what does covering my tires buy me? I can safely estimate seeing maybe one coach with tires covered out of every 100+ coaches I see. Maybe those folks have my same question, what does it buy me? Thanks for your response.

Tireman, I'm curious in all your testing, have you done a 5-7 year test on a tire covered and uncovered? Same tire, same motorhome, same side, same use. The only difference would be one of course would be on a dual axle. My last motorhome is the only one I changed tires on due to age. I changed at 6 years, 46,000 miles. The motorhome was stored outside in the Texas sun and the tires were never covered and the tread showed hardly any wear when I changed them out. They were 22.5" Goodyear G670's, inflated according to 4 corner weight. I cleaned them with water and used 303 Protector on them. My reason for the question is, what would a tire cover have done for me? They were not showing any visible cracks at the time of replacement. Tire covers can be a pain to use and to store not to mention a muddy mess in rainy weather. My point, if the tires had been covered or not and regardless of their appearance, I would still have replaced them at the 6 year mark. Now if I could get 7, 8, 9 years or so, I would see a benefit if covering them. I appreciate you responding and Happy Thanksgiving.

Looks simple enough but I think the car wrap product is different from Diamond Shield and also the car wrap product has not been on this car for several years which would make it much easier to remove. It would be great if it were that easy to remove after it had been on a coach for several years.

Wait a minute or as WBill would say, weight a minute...I don't think he was being sarcastic and I'm pretty sure you shouldn't take it as a compliment. Just sayin. I think he was just being subtle so as to not hurt your feeling.

You guys haven't seen the dog Wayne travels with; he doesn't need a firearm.

Just curious, are you putting Carl and Five in the smart or some not so smart category?

Dang it, Blake! I was keeping the fix close to the vest waiting for the OP to come back now you've blown it. Each time I've needed to repair/replace the flux capacitor, it has been very straight forward and simple...even for an Aggie.

First thing you need to do is take a picture of your coach. I'm sure you have the Brownie Hawkeye still laying around.