2022 #11: "Break"-in period

We've had the Oliver for more than a month now but, due to unforseen circumstances, we only have a couple of trips under our belt. We've done some dry-camping in Connecticut and some full-hookup camping in Cape Cod.

The Oliver has had some issues. I already mentioned the problem with the axles. That wasn't Oliver's fault. Dexter was great to work with and it was fixed by a mobile tech who came to our house. Next, the flange ring for our toilet broke, probably due to incorrect installation at the factory. Oliver shipped us a new flange ring and I installed it myself without too much difficulty, but it did put us out of service for about a week.

The electronic keypad lock failed and I discovered the cause was improper installation at the Oliver factory which led to water intrusion into the lock. Oliver shipped a new lock, which I installed myself and I added sealant to prevent a recurrence.

There was an issue with the air conditioner running very short cycles. Oliver shipped a new thermostat which I installed and we'll see if that took care of the problem.

One of the stabilizer jacks creaks, apparently rubbing against the fiberglass where it passes through the trailer body. I don't think it's a major problem, but an annoyance that maybe the factory can address on a future visit.

And, yesterday, we had a 120v electrical failure that cut shore power to our fridge. I found a melted splice connector in a junction box that I suspect may have been caused by improper installation. I was able to repair it myself in a few hours.

To be perfectly honest, we've had more issues with the Oliver than we had with our previous trailers, although 2 of the previous rigs had water leaks, which were potentially more damaging than any of the Oliver issues we've had so far.

Now, an update on some things that have worked well for us:

Our Clam Quick-Set Escape Sport screenroom has been great, giving us extra outdoor living space with very easy setup and teardown. Fits over a picnic table, too. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Highly recommended, especially this model, which has opening windows.


Our Diamondback truck cover has worked well, too. Although not completely waterproof, the design has allowed us a to carry a variety of items on top of the truck bed while still securing the contents underneath and (mostly) protecting them from the weather. Good for travel trailer owners who want more storage but don't want a full truck cap over their truck bed. ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Now that we've worked some of the bugs out we hope we can get some more camping in this summer and fall. We'll update as we go.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2023 #4: Stretching the Tanks

Image
We returned to one of our favorite places, Hammonassett State Park, for our longest run of dry camping yet. Hammonassett has lots of decent bathhouses in the campground. We always try to book a site close to one of them. The question was, how long could we stretch our black and grey tanks before we had to dump? The plan was to use the bathhouses as much as possible, saving our black tank for mostly middle-of-the-night liquid deposits, and only showering in the trailer rarely. We booked 12 nights but Steph had to return to our house on 2 of those days because of severe weather and doctor appointments. We never dumped. When we left the campground on the 13th day our tank readings were: Black 69%, Grey 75%, and Fresh 25%. Based on this, I think we can go a max of 15-16 days before having to dump in this situation.  There were definitely compromises we had to make. We either used the campground showers or used medical body cleansing wipes we found on Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod
Read more

2023 #3: One Year In and a Lithium Challenge

Image
Happy Fourth of July! We just spent a week (6 nights/7 days) camping in full shade on mostly rainy/cloudy days. We were at one of our favorite oceanside campgrounds in Connecticut and we scored a site in a wooded section next to the tidal marsh. The clouds and 2 huge trees overhead mostly took our solar panels out of the picture. Mostly. More about that later.  We figured this would be a good test of our Lithium Platinum Package with its 640 AH batteries. We left home fully charged and used the fridge on 12v power for the hour drive to the beach. Since it was cloudy, that used 4% of our charge before we even set up camp. We proceeded to dry-camp for the week pretty much the way we had with our other trailers. We ran the fridge on propane, pumped water from our tank, used minimum interior lighting, and remembered to turn off lights we weren't using. In the end, that wasn't really necessary. Unlike our other trailers, we also ran the inverter to make coffee and run the microwave.
Read more

2023 #1: Mothership

Image
First trip of the season. We took Eggcelsior back down to Hohenwald, TN for some warranty work at the Oliver Trailers service center. On the punchlist: check some drawer glides, replace some interior trim (the silver strip around the belly joint) that fell off, and (top priority) replace a faulty jack mounting plate that had a hole too big for its carriage bolt. This would be our first big trip with the Oliver after we brought it home, and the first real Oliver trip where Steph was feeling well. We ran short hops - 4 to 4.5 hour drive times according to Google Maps. Our days of 8 hour drives are in the past. Our first stop was Locust Lake State Park in Pennsylvania. We had advance reservations and chose a site right next to a bathhouse, (which we didn't really need because we were able to dewinterize before we left). A little unlevel, as you can see, but OK otherwise if you have a smaller RV. Wouldn't recommend for larger rigs. The next day took us to a commercial campground, W
Read more