Motorhome Shopping - Looking for Actual Owner Input (Sprinter & E450)

[jkoenig24]

In 2012, I bought 2010, 3500 Series MB Sprinter I used to tow a SOB trailer. I LOVED my Sprinter. I joined the "Mercedes-Benz Club of America" and, once a year, brought my Sprinter into a MB dealer for the recommended maintenance. Club membership always got me a 10% ~ 15% discount so, said once a year service set me back ~ $400. The unit I had was one of the few that had a tow rating of 7500 pounds (most Sprinters are limited to 5000 pounds). As mentioned earlier, the TOTAL carrying capacity is VERY limited and VERY easily exceeded. For me, that's the only real downside BUT, many (most?) "standard" C-Class RVs are also similarly limited (which is why I bought a Super-C Class Dynamax DX3). This limitation is FREQUENTLY overlooked by owners and, as far as I'm concerned, is a disaster waiting to happen. Mr Murphy is just waiting for the "best" time to zing careless owners.

[PenJoe]

We had a 2014 Sunseeker 2500TS on a Ford E450 chassis. The 2500 is actually 27' overall. We towed a 2012 Jeep Liberty 4-down without the Ford breaking a sweat. The chassis did everything we expected and never caused us a problem in two years. The only thing we did to it was routine maintenance. The only real complaint was the crowded cab area and the throttle and brake pedals were too close together.

DW thought a Class C was easier to drive. In hind sight, I would consider the Isata 5 for cab room or the Thor Vegas for overall usable space of a smaller Class A. If you are considering either the Sprinter or the E450, my strong suggestion is to test drive them before getting too serious. If you plan to travel, you will be spending a lot of time in the cab.

[dinkhauler]

Originally Posted by jkoenig24

In 2012, I bought 2010, 3500 Series MB Sprinter I used to tow a SOB trailer. I LOVED my Sprinter. I joined the "Mercedes-Benz Club of America" and, once a year, brought my Sprinter into a MB dealer for the recommended maintenance. Club membership always got me a 10% ~ 15% discount so, said once a year service set me back ~ $400. The unit I had was one of the few that had a tow rating of 7500 pounds (most Sprinters are limited to 5000 pounds). As mentioned earlier, the TOTAL carrying capacity is VERY limited and VERY easily exceeded. For me, that's the only real downside BUT, many (most?) "standard" C-Class RVs are also similarly limited (which is why I bought a Super-C Class Dynamax DX3). This limitation is FREQUENTLY overlooked by owners and, as far as I'm concerned, is a disaster waiting to happen. Mr Murphy is just waiting for the "best" time to zing careless owners.

As I have never owned a Sprinter I'm not arguing your experience, however, all the Sprinter chassis I have seen that list the tow capacity as "7500 lbs" have hitches that are only rated for 5000 lbs. I remember reading a forum where a guy actually swapped out the hitch for a higher capacity one since he thought he should be able to tow at 7500 lbs, and he ended up bending the frame because of it. He tried to blame the manufacturer for a faulty hitch until they noticed it was an aftermarket. I think that was bclemens on the Dynamax forum.


Regardless, as you already mentioned the GCWR is so low that it's difficult to hit either of those numbers anyways.

[dinkhauler]

Originally Posted by PenJoe

We had a 2014 Sunseeker 2500TS on a Ford E450 chassis. The 2500 is actually 27' overall. We towed a 2012 Jeep Liberty 4-down without the Ford breaking a sweat. The chassis did everything we expected and never caused us a problem in two years. The only thing we did to it was routine maintenance. The only real complaint was the crowded cab area and the throttle and brake pedals were too close together.

DW thought a Class C was easier to drive. In hind sight, I would consider the Isata 5 for cab room or the Thor Vegas for overall usable space of a smaller Class A. If you are considering either the Sprinter or the E450, my strong suggestion is to test drive them before getting too serious. If you plan to travel, you will be spending a lot of time in the cab.

Thanks for the input, I have read that the E-series cab is a little tight. I have not had the chance to check them out yet but will spend some time in them before buying for sure.

[brandon 2]

We have a 2014 25 foot Sun Seeker with 3 slides and like the way we can get into all camp sites, plus any parking lot we care to enter. The E450 V-10 is a great engine and when travelling the Rockies it can keep up with everything. We had the usual front end alignment and now it drives the same as my F-150. Decent amount of storage and fuel consumption is not much more than my F-150 with the 5.4 liter engine.




Brandon2
2014 Sun Seeker
2500TS

[chroniekon]

You don't say what kind of toys you have now in your toy hauler, or if you will want to take the toys with you in your new rig. The sprinter would be pretty limited if you would need to tow any kind of trailer that would add tongue weight.

[dinkhauler]

Originally Posted by chroniekon

You don't say what kind of toys you have now in your toy hauler, or if you will want to take the toys with you in your new rig. The sprinter would be pretty limited if you would need to tow any kind of trailer that would add tongue weight.

Good questions...right now we have two ATV's. We have found many of the places we want to go do not have ATV trails on site anyways. Fortunately we have a utility trailer and we figured that if we wanted the toys we could either hook it up to the class C or bring the truck along. (We are keeping the F350)


The main goal here is to be more nimble and "modular." Right now if I don't want to take my ATV's I still have 12' behind me that comes with me wherever I go.

[Leprechauner]

We also were interested in the Forester 2501 TS/Sunseeker 2500TS. We decided on the coachmen Leprechaun 260FDS. We couldn’t be happier, easy to drive/park, plenty is storeage, great layout. Having a couch or recliners along with the dinette is what did it for us. We added the 5 star tuning engine mod, well worth it.happy shopping

[jkoenig24]

Originally Posted by dinkhauler

As I have never owned a Sprinter I'm not arguing your experience, however, all the Sprinter chassis I have seen that list the tow capacity as "7500 lbs" have hitches that are only rated for 5000 lbs. I remember reading a forum where a guy actually swapped out the hitch for a higher capacity one since he thought he should be able to tow at 7500 lbs, and he ended up bending the frame because of it. He tried to blame the manufacturer for a faulty hitch until they noticed it was an aftermarket. I think that was bclemens on the Dynamax forum.


Regardless, as you already mentioned the GCWR is so low that it's difficult to hit either of those numbers anyways.

Unless there has been a recent change at MB, there had been only TWO Sprinter models rated to tow 7500# (and both were 3500 series. There ARE 3500 series that are NOT rated for 7500# towing). ALL other Sprinter models have the 5000# tow limit. Sprinters are NOT built on "ladder frames"; they have "unibody" construction. Until very recently, RV builders could NOT cut or drill into the Sprinter base. They could ONLY bolt on their "stuff" (body extensions, tanks, etc). I forget exactly which vendor got permission from MB to alter Sprinters by cutting/drilling/welding but, the last I heard, was that ONLY that one company can legally modify how MB builds their Sprinter vans. Sprinters, like most standard C-Class RVs, leave RV factories VERY close to their rated GVWR. It's VERY easy to exceed one or more ratings on C-Class RVs. Many (most?) salesmen don't help when they assure buyers that the capacities of the C-Class RVs will carry everything the buyer might want to bring along. It also doesn't help that most RV buyers are unaware of the weight limitations all RVs face.

[PenJoe]

Aside from the chassis type, I would like to mention one other point having to do with what ever chassis you choose. The 2500TS is 27' bumper to bumper. It also had a queen bed slide out the rear. We anticipated towing the Jeep toad, a 19' double console boat, or a cargo trailer. We wanted to make certain that we could keep any one of them connected and still extend the rear slide. It worked out that the slide cleared the 3 possible tows. However, had we had a V-nose cargo trailer, or, a shorter tongue on the boat trailer, the slide could not be extended w/o hitting the trailer/boat. We made that a contingency on the purchase. Just wanted to mention this because many of the RVs in the size you anticipate may have a slide extending rearward.

[dinkhauler]

Originally Posted by PenJoe

Aside from the chassis type, I would like to mention one other point having to do with what ever chassis you choose. The 2500TS is 27' bumper to bumper. It also had a queen bed slide out the rear. We anticipated towing the Jeep toad, a 19' double console boat, or a cargo trailer. We wanted to make certain that we could keep any one of them connected and still extend the rear slide. It worked out that the slide cleared the 3 possible tows. However, had we had a V-nose cargo trailer, or, a shorter tongue on the boat trailer, the slide could not be extended w/o hitting the trailer/boat. We made that a contingency on the purchase. Just wanted to mention this because many of the RVs in the size you anticipate may have a slide extending rearward.

Great points, I have a question for you folks with the rear slide...


How does it do in extreme heat or cold? Does the bedroom area have trouble maintaining temp due to the slide?

[PenJoe]

Originally Posted by dinkhauler

Great points, I have a question for you folks with the rear slide...


How does it do in extreme heat or cold? Does the bedroom area have trouble maintaining temp due to the slide?

We stored the 2500TS in a cold climate, but never used it in cold weather. The slide has 5 exposed surfaces to the cold. We spent 3 months in a Florida winter. The temps got into the high 30s and into the low 90s. On the cold days, we may have used the furnace to get the chill off, then primarily used a small electric space heater with a fan that maintained a comfortable temperature. When using the air conditioning, the temperatures were pretty consistent front to back including the rear bed slide. We did have the slide awnings that assisted with keeping the sun off of the slide roofs. That said, albeit the rear slide or a slide side, the majority of the designs will incorporate a master bed in a slide arrangement.

The 2500TS has a large escape window at what would be at the head of the queen bed. The curtain that came standard was more for show. DW made a light limiting curtain to cover that window. It help for limiting temperatures, as well, when the sun was hitting the window. It also helped for privacy. One of the best and cheapest upgrades we did.

Note: The blind on that window was a pain. In order to watch TV from the bed, we stacked pillows against that window which distorted the blind. So, we just left it up and used the curtain.

[oldsmasma]

Originally Posted by dinkhauler

Great points, I have a question for you folks with the rear slide...


How does it do in extreme heat or cold? Does the bedroom area have trouble maintaining temp due to the slide?

We camp into our Canadian fall which can be cool. We rarely need the furnace. Even with the bedroom slide a small electrical heater is usually all we need.

[Prism 24G]

I did not tested on extreme cold, but heater
work perfectly when we need some heat, A/C
also work perfect, only I wash condensers
ones a year, and for regular warm we use
fan in bedroom area to take heat out, nice
melody for sleeping .....
If you are handy and know how to do
little things, no pay high dealer service charges,
you will be happy camper ...

[vjstangelo]

Take a look at the short Class A models as well. There are many 27 ft models available, all on the Ford F53 chassis.

FWIW, there are many stories of leaking top Class C bunks and owning a Class A negates this weak point.