Koliver

Last year our next door neighbours at the CG we were in told us about having a tire burn up on their Jeep that was following behind the MH, towed 4 down. The rt front wheel had, for unknown reasons, gone out of balance and bounced itself to death, then caused serious damage to the fender, wheel, etc. It was noticed in the rear camera eventually, when the smoke coming off the tire was obvious. This year we had a similar occurrence, the rt side wheel of the tow dolly went out of balance and bounced itself to death. I found it when stopped for a break, when I used my IR temp guage, found the dolly tire at 140F when the rear wheel of the Volvo was at 80F. I examined the tires carefully and found the tire damage, so stopped freeway driving til I could get a replacement tire. I would far rather replace dolly tires than have lost or severely damaged the car. Nice to have that extra layer of security.

Easy to measure the angle of the rear wheel to rear bumper, to see what clearance will be left when on the dolly. Chance are there is no problem. Others put a Mini on a dolly without any problem.

You may need to raise the ends of the ramps with a 2x4 so the lowest part of the front air dam clears it.

mhdawdy: I tow a Volvo fwd on a dolly. I put it in park, withdraw the key, lock the doors and don't need to worry about the steering wheel lock or the battery. The car sits where you put it on the dolly. You don't need to worry about steering, as the dolly wheels do the steering, acting like steerable front wheels for the car. The car's front wheels don't move a millimeter in any direction while strapped to the dolly. When you get where you want to take the car off of the dolly, just unlock and go. No mileage accumulation, no car brake system to worry about, no transmission problems, ....... a trouble free way to get your car to follow you on your trip. If your car is a front wheel drive, this will work for you.

8-D and Golf Cart designations are just size, as are "group", 4-D, etc. 8-D, being roughly 2x the size of GC, means you need the help of someone young and strong to move them. If your battery bay was designed for 8-Ds, you will likely need extensive modifications to switch to GC. Where differences come in is if you compare wet cell technology to AGM or what have you. You need to stay with one technology for all of your batteries that are connected to a single charging source. If $ is important, the cheapest way to store amperage is still the old, low tech, wet cell, in whatever size fits your battery bay.

I have some mats on my garage floor to protect the concrete from any oil drips off the cars, etc. These mats are made from chipped up rubber tires and have been there since 1986. I can seen no signs of deterioration of the mats yet. The concrete under the mats looks less worn than the concrete beside them, so they have done their job. I can't see how parking a rubber tire on anything they are designed to run on could cause any deterioration of the rubber. If there is a scientific explanation for this practice, that would be infinitely better than "Someone told me" and I would pay attention. Until then, I will continue to believe that the rubber will outlast the concrete or asphalt, and use other materials only to more easily achieve a level park. I do park on concrete most of the time, and I take up the weight by using the leveling jacks, but this is just in case there is a leak of air from one or more of the tires.

It is all in how you will use the coach. If 99% of your useage is while parked, how it handles on the road is incidental. If you go more days than you are stopped, road handling will be more important than the layout. IMHO, if $ is not the issue, go for the longer coach, it will please in both departments.

The other alternative is the "Amish" cooling unit. Many threads on this site discussing it. None dissing it. I put one in last Nov, with labor, the same cost as a Norcold replacement without labor. Without labor, the same cost as the Samsung without labor. Saves you Norcold box, so no carpentry to do. Looks and cools better than Norcold.

Your Marinco cover needs to be removed from the side of the coach. The 50 amp receptacle is attached to it, so will come out with it, then you can undo the two screws you were concerned about in order to access the wire terminals, if you need to. A 30 amp version of this is what we use on our boat. Other than a jump in size, the 50 is the same design as the 30.

QuiGonJohn You will have between 4 and 5 cu ft of air in each tire. Topping up will add some, but not likely more than 1 or 2 %, especially if Nitrogen leaks out more slowly than air. In that 1 or 2% will be 22% other than N, or .less than .5% of the total. I don't think you will detect the difference. You can add an inexpensive dryer to your home compressor. I have one I bought at Princess Auto for a few $. Try Harbor Freight.

My Beaver has a sticker by the jack controls that cautions "slide must be out before extending jacks". Don't know why there are so many contradictions among different RVs.

I did my floor this winter, while holidaying in Southern California. This is the stuff I used: http://harmonics-flooring.com, which I found a Costco for cheap. I particularly liked the relatively narrow planks, at 4 7/8" wide. The most difficult part was making the decision to do it. Our carpeting was original off-white Berber (why a motorhome manufacturer would ever choose white carpet is totally beyond me) from Beaver in 1998. I left the bedroom, but am getting some pressure to finish the job there too. Getting the fixed furniture out of the way was the only tough part, as finding all the fasteners proved elusive. Once that was done, the driver's and passenger's chairs removed, the flooring installation was done in about 4 hours. So total time, from unloading the flooring from the store, to having the celebratory drink, was under 12 hours, spread over 2 days. Having a friend with a chop saw and a table saw that I could borrow, and staying in a park where nobody objected to the commotion of operating those power tools, was a great help. My Beaver has one slide, and the new flooring goes under the slide floor, a few inches. The galley floor is oak, engineered planks, that meet the new front floor on an angle across the coach. Getting the angle just right takes some care, but isn't difficult. Getting the elevation to match the oak took the addition of a 1/4" plywood subfloor, over the existing OSB subfloor. The only part of the whole operation that I couldn't do without help was to return the driver's and passenger chairs to their mounting bolts without dragging them across the new flooring. That little bit of extra help cost one beer, and only took 5 minutes. We did this 4 weeks before heading for home, so have had time to get used to it. The change is definitely worth doing. We will never go back to carpet. You can pay $3 per sq ft in Lowes or Home Depot, for similar flooring, or $2 in Costco, or lots more in specialty shops. This should allow you to put estimates into perspective.

SL1 is front engine, front wheel drive. Park should act only on the front, which is on the dolly, so park is what you do. I have a Volvo front drive. That is the way it works on my dolly.

We tried Time Warner, who used the CG cable to access the site, provided their own modem, and charged only 29.99/mo for the service. I put in the stuff myself so there was no setup fee. When it didn't work right away, their phone trouble line was helpful, pleasant and successful to get it running. Thay also had a promotion on, for a phone, first 2 months free. I told them I was not staying that long, but they threw it in anyway. All I had to provide was the handset, which I already had, for my Majic Jack. They are around most of southern California and Arizona, provided there is already cable they can come in on.

I have a Roadmaster dolly, part no 2000-1, that I bought in California. http://www.roadmasterinc.com/products/towdolly/towdolly.html I bought my coach in California, while there with my Volvo XC90, which I had to get home to British Columbia. Ended up getting the tow dolly, from Craigslist. Since then I have towed my Volvo S70. I have paid attention to the time it takes others to hook up their tow bars, and never found much difference in the time, from what it takes me to hook up the tow dolly. One RV Resort has refused to allow the dolly on the site, all others haven't cared. I usually roll the tongue under the coach, front or back, and lower the ramps, so it is inconspicuous and not a trip hazard. Backing up is tricky, but so long as I watch for the wheels to turn and stop backing before they are turned too far. A "not so spry" 71 yr old may have some difficulty with the weight of the dolly (620 lbs.) if it needs to be pushed up a slope by hand, but so far I haven't been in a campground lacking in willing hands to assist. The wheels are secured to the dolly with straps, and there are safety chains from the frame of the dolly to the frame of the car. The coach has to be fitted with a brake controller that will apply the brakes proportionately when the coach brakes are applied. I had the dealer throw that in, but have seen them at Camping World for under $100. Total cost of towing is less for a dolly, and you get to change cars without any hassles, but you need to weigh all the factors before making your decision.

Ours needed cleaning when we bought this coach a year ago (1998 Beaver Contessa), so to the bulk laundry it went, hung so the pleats would be preserved, then back up and it looks like new.

IMHO, it is all a matter of weight. If you want to have all the amenities, your weight will be more than a gas engine can comfortably handle and you will have a Diesel. If all you want can be accommodated in a coach weighing much less than 20,000 lb, gas is what you will get. It is only in that narrow weight range between where the smallest diesels come into the market and the largest gas top out, that a choice can be made. There the factors such as flat floor, engine noise, type of fuel, reliability, longevity, will come into play. For me, the smaller coaches were out, so there was never a choice of gas. Having an engine that will need its first major overhaul when I am 140 yrs old (at present usage rates) is comforting.

Lyle: We did the "Amish" conversion last November. The price difference covered the cost of labor to install, using a pro who had done several of them before ours. The warranty difference was, a one yr parts and Labor from Norcold, vs a three yr parts only on the Amish unit. The big difference in reputation centered on the quality of construction and the quality of the materials used in the construction. The Norcold reputation was poor, as a replacement didn't guarantee the number of years of good service we had already had with the Norcold. The Amish rep was so good, we haven't heard of any failures at all. Norcold are still fighting a reputation that they have a tendency to cause fires, and their "Recall" for that failing was into its 9th iteration when ours was done, but the Amish unit was not susceptible to that failure, so no recall parts were required. So far we have no reason to doubt our decision to go "Amish".

Use a GPS to verify the odometer. Mine was over 5% off. As if my tires were 5% too small. Saves getting a ticket, but leaves you thinking you are getting great mileage when you are not.

Planocat Sounds like you are talking about the step cover, that moving piece of floor that slides into place to give the passenger a place to set her footstool while driving. We have one that was set up to bang out hard, but would come back in only when good and ready, sometimes right away when you press the button, sometimes 5 or 10 minutes later. At the CA fruit border check, coming in from Oregon, the guy with the badge wanted to see what we had in our fridge, so my wife opened the door, I hit the retract button, and the step cover stayed put, at about belly button height. He looked at it for awhile, then said "have a nice day". Ha.

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? Worked fine in Chilliwack BC. last I checked, still part of Canada.

Or you could fix it yourself. Get the seal kit from http://www.daverootrvglassrepair.com/. I did mine for snakey seals. Saved about $100/hr for my time. Got the satisfaction of seeing it done right. Dave will give you good instructions when you buy the kit.

JimT, Arky The 5 amp fuse is easy to replace, is behind a black cover over the circuit board, and if it blows again, (Brett above) the heaters are the likely culprit. When the heaters wouldn't move without breaking the rusty tubes they sit in, I had the cooling unit replaced with the Ahmish one, for less than the Norcold part, including the labour to install. The CU I now have looks like it should last twice as long as the one that came out after 13 yrs. It also works way better, as the lowest setting now gets what the highest used to get. I wouldn't go to a household fridge, as I think the alternative of propane is valuable.

If, at age 60, you can`t afford to purchase your toys outright, you shouldn`t. Toys depreciate in a normal economy. In a recession, the value of anything recreational drops faster than anything else. At best, if you want it badly enough and can pay it off before you retire, ok to borrow, but only if that borrowing will not impact your ability to continue a decent lifestyle on the income you have left.