What Annoys You About Your FW?

[RV Guy]

If you were on the design team in charge of building a high end FW ($50,000 retail) what features would you include? What are the annoying things present in most RVs that your RV would eliminate? Are there specific "hassles" with all RVs that should be improved?

[Herk7769]

Oh, where to begin...

1) Better tank level indicator probes. Like: Horst Miracle Probes for Wastewater Tanks in Recreational Vehicles RVs

2) Eterna-bond the roof seams. ALL of them.

3) A power monitor system that tells you something about what is going on with your systems. Like: Trimetric TM-2025A Battery Monitor System

4) AC volt and ammeter to monitor AC usage.

5) Floorplans that allow two door access to the bathroom from the master bedroom and the rest of the camper.

6) High Output LED lighting inside and out.

7) Better speakers for the surround sound.

8) Better Surround Sound AMP and component switch that uses HDMI, Component, RGB, and Composite video inputs - RCA and Fiber Optic Audio inputs.

If a Built in DVD player, it should also play DVD-R, DVD+R as well as Blu-Ray.

A bumper you can hang a generator or a bike rack on that will not invalidate the warranty would be great too.

I am sure you will get lots more.

[donn]

I think I would fire the interior design team and hire a real honest to goodness interior designer.

[KyDan]

The thing that most disappointed us with our trailer
was the almost total disregard to maximizing storage.

Fer instance-- under the sofa is a heat duct.
The duct itself takes up 15% of the space under there but
the morons at FR stuck those flimsy panels in there and
cut the open space in half.
Same thing under the fridge. Same thing in the "basement"
storage.
Drawers under the bed and under the dinette seats are
MUCH smaller than the area they occupy. They are a
HUGE waste of space.
Wall cabinets that should have had 3 doors only have 2 which
leaves large areas behind front panels where you have
to reach around the corner to get anything out of the
cabinet.
The microwave was inserted into a cabinet opening
that was 50% larger than the microwave needed.
This resulted in a large reduction in available cabinet
space over the range/sink area.
I modified the cabinet to re-claim this space but it
was an all day job and it would have been just as easy
for FR to do what I did as the cabinet was being installed.
No more work for them one way or the other but they
didn't do it.
See my post here--
http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...rage-4285.html

I could go on.....

Our last trailer was 6 feet shorter and had more cubic feet
of accessible storage.

[yvesm]

I would buy a Carriage Home :: Carriage RV - Luxury Fifth Wheels or a New Horizon New Horizons RV | Luxury Full Time RV & Custom Fifth Wheels . Then I would get quality materials and construction in a unit that is designed for full time use in any weather condition.

[Herk7769]

Dan,

I also should have stated my unhappiness with storage. A giant cabinet over our dinette has 2 doors, yet they are so small there is a 2 foot space between them with NO access at all. The cabinet itself is not as wide as the slide it is in, so there is 1 foot of wasted space on either side. (I made shelves for books there).

Ditto on the space in the Entertainment center. The entire lower area (except for on spot opposite the sub woofer) is useless. I intend to remove panels and open that area up for storage this year.

The subwoofer could have easily been mounted behind the TV in that wasted space instead of tying up a "high value" area near the TV and Fireplace. That whole wall is poorly utilized. The drawers there are numerous and TOO SMALL. Bigger drawers would have solved a lot of those sins and more effectively utilized the space. The 8 small drawers could have been (and will one day) be replaced by 4 larger ones.

[Herk7769]

Yves,

I looked at those, and yes you are correct. They are gorgeous. They are also much more camper than I need. I would like an Ultra-lite (3/4 ton towable) that was laid out smarter; had a "reasonable" floorplan; and utilized something like the "state of the art" we expect when buying a new car. Cheap and light should not have to mean 10 year old technology and poor craftmanship.

[yvesm]

Just dreaming I guess. Some of the storage issues should be common sense. We also have cabinets that are very wide with only 2 access doors in the middle. Just taking extra time in building the units and adding a few doors here and there would make all the difference in the world. Properly located light switches and outlets would be nice also.

[Willis]

Tankless water heater. These should be standard on all RVs now except maybe the very lowest-end units.

[3 Happy Campers]

We are on our fourth RV over a 20 yr period.
Not to mention the half dozen we rented before becoming owners.

Started with a Jayco p/u
then a R-Vision TT
then a Coachmen Mirada Class A
now a FR Sierra 356RL 5er.

They all have engineering WTFs that made us at times want to slap the designers silly.

The one universal thing I think all manufacturers have lost sight of is, In their quest to go lighter/cheaper they lost touch with some of the “nice to haves” that most owners would not mind paying a little extra for.

If I hadn’t gotten so used to the recliners, fireplace, flat screen TV, ceiling fan, A/C, I’d go back to tenting in a heartbeat.

[3 Happy Campers]

PS: my ONLY gripe is the flex in the floor around the island.
FR states they are aware of the issue but, bummer. And that’s all I could get out of them.

[BigRed]

I was just going to say Lou. Those are nice but they wiegh 13000 to 15250 Lbs.- Dry. (Dam!) If I had $135,000 starting price point!. I'm with you..stop the old technology. Its like they know how to make a better product, but its business as usual. Those units from goevergreenrv.com seem to be heading in the right direction. The price's are not to bad also !

[railrode]

Why does the roof have to slope down in the rear ? I saw a rear loft 5er yesterday that had straight roof all the way from middle to rear and it looked better. I don't like the 5ers that you can see the top of the rear A/C going down the road. Of course mine isnt that bad. My other complaint is the single motor, venture landing gear that almost boggs down but never does. I'm happy with the rest.

[Itsthetwoofus]

My gosh reading some of these remarks reminds me some of our 2009 Rockwood TT we had. that too had very few storage compartments and a lot of waisted space inside around the cabinets and there was no room for any thing. Small water heater, double sinks in bath room and the hot and cold faucets hooked up back wards, yes there were things that were dome pretty sadly. the normal person would have stayed away from Forest River products, but we kind of figured we got one made late on a Fri afternoon.
We needed something larger and settled on the 5th wheel we now have also made by Forest River. We are completely happy with this one and it seems like all the space in here was used wisely. It's a heck of a rig and if someone is looking to up grade some time soon, you are welcome to look it over at the FROG rally. There are a few little things that need to be tweaked, but that's to be expected with most things we buy now-a-days..

[Tkcakes]

Agree with all of the comments. After shopping around for our 5er, we haven't seen many changes in tt's as a whole. Why are they still putting that crazy fabric trim on everything but the kitchen sink? As we walk thru the different models, we see the same things over and over. LED lights alone would be a huge improvement over the current lighting and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to include them. We were seriously considering the Earthbound which comes with full house LEDs inside and out, on demand hot water, no extra foo foo trims and a central manifold plumbing system. They really are thinking outside the box here. Unfortunately, you need 50k to drive that one off the lot. We decided that it was just too narrow for us. We still bring the kiddos along and we feel that the EB is more suited for a couple.

[Johnny9r]

Originally Posted by Tkcakes

Agree with all of the comments. After shopping around for our 5er, we haven't seen many changes in tt's as a whole. Why are they still putting that crazy fabric trim on everything but the kitchen sink? As we walk thru the different models, we see the same things over and over. LED lights alone would be a huge improvement over the current lighting and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to include them. We were seriously considering the Earthbound which comes with full house LEDs inside and out, on demand hot water, no extra foo foo trims and a central manifold plumbing system. They really are thinking outside the box here. Unfortunately, you need 50k to drive that one off the lot. We decided that it was just too narrow for us. We still bring the kiddos along and we feel that the EB is more suited for a couple.

Are there aftermarket led's we can add to a fifth wheel? What about aftermarket how water on demand? Both seem like very legit issues that I would like to solve in my new fiver. Any insight appreciated

[BigRed]

There are some threads covering LED lights..answer yes they can be added to a new RV> aftermarket. Also you can purchase a On-demand Hot water heater for around $700 from Girard Tankless Hot water heaters. You also may want to check out goevergreenrv.com they make the new generation TT and 5er's, thier prices are very reasonable...some lines of Forest River offer the Tankless hot water as an option. Im sure in the next year or so they will switch to all LED lighting because the consumer is asking for it more and more.

[Tkcakes]

When is the FROG rally? I'm sure it is posted somewhere on here but I don't have time to look right now.

[grhodes50]

Originally Posted by herk7769

A bumper you can hang a generator or a bike rack on that will not invalidate the warranty would be great too.

I just looked at the new Wildcat Sterling Edition 5'ers on FR's web site. They have a 2" receiver hitch on the back as standard equipment.
Here's the link; Sterling Wildcat Edition Fifth Wheels

[rockwood06]

A lot of great ideas for improvement, but all of this would be a great reason to jack the prices up.
If the manufactures added one or two of these ideas every 5 years this would get people to trade in there campers and buy another new one and the prices would increase as well....not like they don't already from year to year for some small changes......Is there a perfect camper out there?