BLT4SPD
Senior Member
1 year of ownership and A LOT of camping, what’s it like to own & live with an Isata5?
On 7/5/2019, we celebrated one year of ownership of our 2019 Isata 5 35DB. Prior to buying the Dynamax, we had never owned, camped, driven or even ridden in an RV. Literally, never. When I say “we”, I mean myself, my wife, our 3 kids (age 8,10 and 12) and our 115# dog. During those 365 nights of ownership, we spent a grand total of 244 nights in the Dynamax. Mathematically, that works out to 67% of the time we’ve owned it, we’ve been sleeping in it. In that time, we’ve been to 12 states, 33 National Parks, quite a few state parks, multiple private campgrounds and we have put on a grand total of 11,100 miles. We’ve stayed at some really nice campgrounds with every amenity you can imagine (and some I never would have thought of), boon-docked for multiple weeks in a row and just about everything in-between. We flat tow a 2007 Toyota Sienna (I installed a lube pump) and we’ve averaged 9.1mpg as indicated by the Ram’s trip computer (I stopped hand calculating early in our ownership because the computer was always spot on).
I suppose that’s the “highlight reel” for us and what we’ve done so far, but this is the Dynamax forum, so let’s talk about the coach itself. Hang on a sec…..a little bit more about me that you should know, I like to “Tinker”. I’ll take perfectly good stuff apart just to see how it’s put together and know how it works. As a result of that, I’ve “familiarized” myself with virtually every nook and cranny throughout the coach. It’s just WAY easier to do stuff like that in my driveway than it is out there in a campground somewhere….probably in the dark….and in the rain. At this point, I feel confident in saying that I know where virtually every wire (or wire bundle) runs and where every hot/cold/waste pipe runs.
Let’s start with a positive attitude and talk about the good/great aspects of our Isata 5:
Here’s the biggie, all things considered, it’s been really trouble free. I have no idea if that’s a testament to Dynamax or to our pre-planning and preparation or just luck, but all in all we’ve had a pretty stress-free ownership and nothing that would have prevented us from camping. Some of you are aware of the black tank issue we had right after we bought it and that would have really messed with any real camping trip, but we were crazy lucky that we were simply ferrying the coach home from the dealer and I was able to be able to deal with that in our driveway and not at a campground.
I’m probably jinxing myself, but we have had exactly ZERO issues with the slides. I hear about them, I read about them and I’ve talked to people that have had plenty of problems. We have not had to mess with ours even once. With that said, I am vigilant with the lubricant. I pull the seals back at least once or twice a month and spray the moving parts down with a good spray lube. Does it help? Is it just time wasted? No clue, but I’m sure I’m happy that I’ve never had a slide issue, so I’ll keep doing it.
I’m probably jinxing myself part 2, but we’ve never had a single issue with the leveling jacks. Never. Once again, I am always spraying a lubricant onto a rag and then wiping the cylinders down. I do that virtually every time we put the jacks down. Does it help? No clue, but I’m going to keep doing it.
We drive right at the GVWR limit and flat tow about 5,500# and it’s a pretty darn nice ride. I’ve read lots of posts here and on the Facebook group about how owner “don’t notice” whatever it is they are towing. That’s a nice thought, but I certainly notice it when the Toyota is hooked up. I’m not saying it’s “bad”, but I AM saying that I notice it. The reality is that is does very well, but that’s whole reason behind buying something with a turbo diesel. I simply can’t imagine doing this kind of traveling with the Ford V10 (or whatever gasser engine). I’m a guy, so the “guy thing” to say is, “I wish it had more power”. I’m crazy tempted to reflash the ECU with “just” the stock tune from a 2500/3500 to realize the potential that Cummins intended, but the drivetrain warranty is holding me back from doing that.
Overall, the layout really works for us. The flow and arrangement of everything in the coach feels like actual real-world thought went into it. We looked at a lot of RVs where you just KNEW that something was tacked on as an afterthought because some customer complained (or whatever) that it didn’t have something. The Dynamax just doesn’t feel that way. It feels like everything is where it is for a reason and if there is something missing, there’s a reason for that too. There are few exceptions, but hardly worth mentioning at this point.
We have really enjoyed seeing the evolution of the product. The Isata 5 is new enough that we, as shoppers and eventually customers, have seen it evolve over the model years. The first one we looked at was a 2017, but it was a sold unit. We then looked at a 2018, but it was also sold. We then eventually bought a 2019. We also ran into another owner at a campground that had a 2018 and we toured that one with him. It’s been neat to see all changes that have taken place and the tweaks that Dynamax has done in, what we assume is, an effort to improve the product.
I’ve really come to enjoy the people who frequent and contribute here on the Dynamax forum. I’m a car enthusiast to the core and the over the years have come to really like some car forums and really hate others. The Dynamax forum reminds me of the ones that I like/love. There are LOTS of hand-on people here and that’s MUCH more my speed than the people who say “I dropped it off at the shop and they did…..”. There is nothing wrong with that attitude and there are LOTS of people who SHOULD do that, but it’s just not me and it feels like most people on this forum are that way too…and I like that. As a new owner, it’s been GREAT and there are several times where I would have been pretty “stuck” if it hadn’t been for the true hands-on knowledge that lives here.
We REALLY liked the fact that Dynamax was willing to work with us and our “special requests” during the purchase process. Once it became obvious that we weren’t going to find one sitting on a dealer’s lot or a used one, we just became comfortable with the fact that we were going to be buying a new one (despite virtually everyone saying that buying new was a mistake). We wanted it to be _OUR_ coach and it really felt like they were they only company that was willing to work with us on that. In that same vein, I have also been to the factory and it was FAR different than I expected. I’ve seen the videos on YouTube of the inside of a Jayco factory and semi-expected something similar. However, I was pleasantly surprised by just how “mom and pop” it felt. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a big place with lots going on, but it made me feel a tad happier seeing just how small it really is considering the industry. Plus, virtually everyone I talked to remembered building our rig. Granted, it’s a tad “unique” so it’s easier to remember, but it gave me warm fuzzies inside having people that build these things day in and day out, remember our specific coach.
Well, let’s talk about the not-so-good stuff…..again, stressing that I am a first time buyer/owner:
I am absolutely mesmerized by how much crap was and is left over from the construction process. Saw dust, screws, wire ends, wire nuts, cut off pieces of woods….and on….and on….and on….it was just never ending. I’ve been through, in, out, behind, above and below our rig with a shop vac in tow and I am STILL finding stuff to this day. It is downright shocking.
The seat cushions for the dinette are about as bad as it gets. I sit at the dinette for long stretches and the cushions are just flat-out terrible. On top of that, they are already breaking down after a year. As in, un-zip the zipper and foam cushion “dust” comes falling out. I thought about trying to have them replaced under warranty, but I’m not sure I want them. I’m looking into buying a thick memory foam mattress topper and cutting new cushions out of that.
The carpeting under the dinette? Oooph, terrible. After 1 year, it looks like it’s about 10 years old and we never…..ever….ever, wear our shoes inside the coach. So, that’s just socks or bare feet doing that. Again, something I’ll probably handle myself just to get something nicer and more resilient under there. We talked about doing something like the vinyl floor in the rest of the coach, BUT the dinette is on a slide, so if it’s chilly or cold outside, that floor gets especially cold and it gets cold very quickly. So, we’d like to keep the carpet just to make it more tolerable in the cold weather. In fact, I’ll probably even do carpet padding in-between the booths for a little added insulation and noise suppression.
Minor gripe; I really wish the shower curtain was mounted higher. I’m 6’0” and I simply cannot take a shower with getting water outside the shower. Maybe it’s because I’m bald and water splashes off my head easier, but it’s annoying!
The drawer slides! Argh, they are garage and make my blood pressure rise! I’ve had to replace some on the road because they flat out broke. Even buying some cheap ones from Home Depot, I feel like they were an upgrade. I have a box of new KV drawer slides in the garage right now and I’m just trying to carve out some time to replace every single one in the coach (20 total).
The storage under nightstands in the bedroom is practically useless. It’s like they were designed to fit a laptop or an ipad and nothing else! I know Brian/Dynamax won’t have any part of a bedroom design that doesn’t include a walk-around bed, but I would trade one of the nightstands for a king size (“RV king” of course) bed ANY DAY of the week! I know I said that it feels like Dynamax put “real world” thought into the floor plan and how things would get used, but this is in the one place that philosophy seems to fall apart. A future modification for us will almost certainly be removal of the rear-most nightstand, widening of the bed support frame and installation of a RV king mattress. The window sill for the rear window is so close and so wide that my usual nightstand “stuff” can easily get relocated to there.
Bunkhouse specific gripe: We found it puzzling that the bunk beds had no curtains. It was the ONLY bunkhouse RV we saw that didn’t have SOME way of closing off the bunks from the living space. We remedied it ourselves and in our own way, but the fact that the factory didn’t was a tad…..”odd”.
I’ve mentioned it in my other thread where I installed the SeeLevel tank monitors, but the OEM tank monitors with the 3 probes is almost inexcusable as to how inaccurate it is. We were fortunate enough to spend enough time in the coach to just know when things were getting close to full or close to empty. I could easily “thump” the black/grey tank with my fingers and get a good feel for where they were at. The mechanical gauge on the side of the propane tank works well too, but you have to climb under the coach to see it.
One thing I get a great deal of humor from: The gas “helper” springs for the bed. Whoever thought those were going to “help” lift the weight of the bed is kidding themselves! Dynamax, you can go ahead and stop installing those now.
I’ll stop there and sum it up: Everyone has their list(s) of “must haves” and “want to haves” when shopping for an RV. We certainly did and our lists narrowed down the field VERY quickly to just a handful of coaches. Oh, we LOOKED at a lot of them, but the ones that really worked for us were few and far between. We knew, while we were shopping, that we’d be spending significant time in the coach, so our list of things that we were willing to compromise on was really, really short. The Isata 5 checked A LOT of boxes for us and at this stage of the game, we view that as a good thing. The coach has been very good to us, the factory support has been very good to us, this forum has been very good to us and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull out the checkbook for another one.
Also, as I’ve mentioned, I am into tinkering and modifying/improving, so my list of mods is fairly long, but I’ve been pretty quiet about them. Now that we have some time under our belt with the coach and all the various stuff I’ve done to it, I promise I’ll try to be a tad more active on sharing those mods and what’s worked and what hasn’t.
Side bar: I am EXTREMELY disappointed that Dynamax has chosen to discontinue the bunkhouse floor plan of the Isata 5. My hope would have been to watch and see how that floorplan evolved over the years and maybe incorporate some of the factory evolutions into our own coach. I guess we’ll see if Dynamax has another version up their sleeve for a future release.
On 7/5/2019, we celebrated one year of ownership of our 2019 Isata 5 35DB. Prior to buying the Dynamax, we had never owned, camped, driven or even ridden in an RV. Literally, never. When I say “we”, I mean myself, my wife, our 3 kids (age 8,10 and 12) and our 115# dog. During those 365 nights of ownership, we spent a grand total of 244 nights in the Dynamax. Mathematically, that works out to 67% of the time we’ve owned it, we’ve been sleeping in it. In that time, we’ve been to 12 states, 33 National Parks, quite a few state parks, multiple private campgrounds and we have put on a grand total of 11,100 miles. We’ve stayed at some really nice campgrounds with every amenity you can imagine (and some I never would have thought of), boon-docked for multiple weeks in a row and just about everything in-between. We flat tow a 2007 Toyota Sienna (I installed a lube pump) and we’ve averaged 9.1mpg as indicated by the Ram’s trip computer (I stopped hand calculating early in our ownership because the computer was always spot on).
I suppose that’s the “highlight reel” for us and what we’ve done so far, but this is the Dynamax forum, so let’s talk about the coach itself. Hang on a sec…..a little bit more about me that you should know, I like to “Tinker”. I’ll take perfectly good stuff apart just to see how it’s put together and know how it works. As a result of that, I’ve “familiarized” myself with virtually every nook and cranny throughout the coach. It’s just WAY easier to do stuff like that in my driveway than it is out there in a campground somewhere….probably in the dark….and in the rain. At this point, I feel confident in saying that I know where virtually every wire (or wire bundle) runs and where every hot/cold/waste pipe runs.
Let’s start with a positive attitude and talk about the good/great aspects of our Isata 5:
Here’s the biggie, all things considered, it’s been really trouble free. I have no idea if that’s a testament to Dynamax or to our pre-planning and preparation or just luck, but all in all we’ve had a pretty stress-free ownership and nothing that would have prevented us from camping. Some of you are aware of the black tank issue we had right after we bought it and that would have really messed with any real camping trip, but we were crazy lucky that we were simply ferrying the coach home from the dealer and I was able to be able to deal with that in our driveway and not at a campground.
I’m probably jinxing myself, but we have had exactly ZERO issues with the slides. I hear about them, I read about them and I’ve talked to people that have had plenty of problems. We have not had to mess with ours even once. With that said, I am vigilant with the lubricant. I pull the seals back at least once or twice a month and spray the moving parts down with a good spray lube. Does it help? Is it just time wasted? No clue, but I’m sure I’m happy that I’ve never had a slide issue, so I’ll keep doing it.
I’m probably jinxing myself part 2, but we’ve never had a single issue with the leveling jacks. Never. Once again, I am always spraying a lubricant onto a rag and then wiping the cylinders down. I do that virtually every time we put the jacks down. Does it help? No clue, but I’m going to keep doing it.
We drive right at the GVWR limit and flat tow about 5,500# and it’s a pretty darn nice ride. I’ve read lots of posts here and on the Facebook group about how owner “don’t notice” whatever it is they are towing. That’s a nice thought, but I certainly notice it when the Toyota is hooked up. I’m not saying it’s “bad”, but I AM saying that I notice it. The reality is that is does very well, but that’s whole reason behind buying something with a turbo diesel. I simply can’t imagine doing this kind of traveling with the Ford V10 (or whatever gasser engine). I’m a guy, so the “guy thing” to say is, “I wish it had more power”. I’m crazy tempted to reflash the ECU with “just” the stock tune from a 2500/3500 to realize the potential that Cummins intended, but the drivetrain warranty is holding me back from doing that.
Overall, the layout really works for us. The flow and arrangement of everything in the coach feels like actual real-world thought went into it. We looked at a lot of RVs where you just KNEW that something was tacked on as an afterthought because some customer complained (or whatever) that it didn’t have something. The Dynamax just doesn’t feel that way. It feels like everything is where it is for a reason and if there is something missing, there’s a reason for that too. There are few exceptions, but hardly worth mentioning at this point.
We have really enjoyed seeing the evolution of the product. The Isata 5 is new enough that we, as shoppers and eventually customers, have seen it evolve over the model years. The first one we looked at was a 2017, but it was a sold unit. We then looked at a 2018, but it was also sold. We then eventually bought a 2019. We also ran into another owner at a campground that had a 2018 and we toured that one with him. It’s been neat to see all changes that have taken place and the tweaks that Dynamax has done in, what we assume is, an effort to improve the product.
I’ve really come to enjoy the people who frequent and contribute here on the Dynamax forum. I’m a car enthusiast to the core and the over the years have come to really like some car forums and really hate others. The Dynamax forum reminds me of the ones that I like/love. There are LOTS of hand-on people here and that’s MUCH more my speed than the people who say “I dropped it off at the shop and they did…..”. There is nothing wrong with that attitude and there are LOTS of people who SHOULD do that, but it’s just not me and it feels like most people on this forum are that way too…and I like that. As a new owner, it’s been GREAT and there are several times where I would have been pretty “stuck” if it hadn’t been for the true hands-on knowledge that lives here.
We REALLY liked the fact that Dynamax was willing to work with us and our “special requests” during the purchase process. Once it became obvious that we weren’t going to find one sitting on a dealer’s lot or a used one, we just became comfortable with the fact that we were going to be buying a new one (despite virtually everyone saying that buying new was a mistake). We wanted it to be _OUR_ coach and it really felt like they were they only company that was willing to work with us on that. In that same vein, I have also been to the factory and it was FAR different than I expected. I’ve seen the videos on YouTube of the inside of a Jayco factory and semi-expected something similar. However, I was pleasantly surprised by just how “mom and pop” it felt. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a big place with lots going on, but it made me feel a tad happier seeing just how small it really is considering the industry. Plus, virtually everyone I talked to remembered building our rig. Granted, it’s a tad “unique” so it’s easier to remember, but it gave me warm fuzzies inside having people that build these things day in and day out, remember our specific coach.
Well, let’s talk about the not-so-good stuff…..again, stressing that I am a first time buyer/owner:
I am absolutely mesmerized by how much crap was and is left over from the construction process. Saw dust, screws, wire ends, wire nuts, cut off pieces of woods….and on….and on….and on….it was just never ending. I’ve been through, in, out, behind, above and below our rig with a shop vac in tow and I am STILL finding stuff to this day. It is downright shocking.
The seat cushions for the dinette are about as bad as it gets. I sit at the dinette for long stretches and the cushions are just flat-out terrible. On top of that, they are already breaking down after a year. As in, un-zip the zipper and foam cushion “dust” comes falling out. I thought about trying to have them replaced under warranty, but I’m not sure I want them. I’m looking into buying a thick memory foam mattress topper and cutting new cushions out of that.
The carpeting under the dinette? Oooph, terrible. After 1 year, it looks like it’s about 10 years old and we never…..ever….ever, wear our shoes inside the coach. So, that’s just socks or bare feet doing that. Again, something I’ll probably handle myself just to get something nicer and more resilient under there. We talked about doing something like the vinyl floor in the rest of the coach, BUT the dinette is on a slide, so if it’s chilly or cold outside, that floor gets especially cold and it gets cold very quickly. So, we’d like to keep the carpet just to make it more tolerable in the cold weather. In fact, I’ll probably even do carpet padding in-between the booths for a little added insulation and noise suppression.
Minor gripe; I really wish the shower curtain was mounted higher. I’m 6’0” and I simply cannot take a shower with getting water outside the shower. Maybe it’s because I’m bald and water splashes off my head easier, but it’s annoying!
The drawer slides! Argh, they are garage and make my blood pressure rise! I’ve had to replace some on the road because they flat out broke. Even buying some cheap ones from Home Depot, I feel like they were an upgrade. I have a box of new KV drawer slides in the garage right now and I’m just trying to carve out some time to replace every single one in the coach (20 total).
The storage under nightstands in the bedroom is practically useless. It’s like they were designed to fit a laptop or an ipad and nothing else! I know Brian/Dynamax won’t have any part of a bedroom design that doesn’t include a walk-around bed, but I would trade one of the nightstands for a king size (“RV king” of course) bed ANY DAY of the week! I know I said that it feels like Dynamax put “real world” thought into the floor plan and how things would get used, but this is in the one place that philosophy seems to fall apart. A future modification for us will almost certainly be removal of the rear-most nightstand, widening of the bed support frame and installation of a RV king mattress. The window sill for the rear window is so close and so wide that my usual nightstand “stuff” can easily get relocated to there.
Bunkhouse specific gripe: We found it puzzling that the bunk beds had no curtains. It was the ONLY bunkhouse RV we saw that didn’t have SOME way of closing off the bunks from the living space. We remedied it ourselves and in our own way, but the fact that the factory didn’t was a tad…..”odd”.
I’ve mentioned it in my other thread where I installed the SeeLevel tank monitors, but the OEM tank monitors with the 3 probes is almost inexcusable as to how inaccurate it is. We were fortunate enough to spend enough time in the coach to just know when things were getting close to full or close to empty. I could easily “thump” the black/grey tank with my fingers and get a good feel for where they were at. The mechanical gauge on the side of the propane tank works well too, but you have to climb under the coach to see it.
One thing I get a great deal of humor from: The gas “helper” springs for the bed. Whoever thought those were going to “help” lift the weight of the bed is kidding themselves! Dynamax, you can go ahead and stop installing those now.
I’ll stop there and sum it up: Everyone has their list(s) of “must haves” and “want to haves” when shopping for an RV. We certainly did and our lists narrowed down the field VERY quickly to just a handful of coaches. Oh, we LOOKED at a lot of them, but the ones that really worked for us were few and far between. We knew, while we were shopping, that we’d be spending significant time in the coach, so our list of things that we were willing to compromise on was really, really short. The Isata 5 checked A LOT of boxes for us and at this stage of the game, we view that as a good thing. The coach has been very good to us, the factory support has been very good to us, this forum has been very good to us and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull out the checkbook for another one.
Also, as I’ve mentioned, I am into tinkering and modifying/improving, so my list of mods is fairly long, but I’ve been pretty quiet about them. Now that we have some time under our belt with the coach and all the various stuff I’ve done to it, I promise I’ll try to be a tad more active on sharing those mods and what’s worked and what hasn’t.
Side bar: I am EXTREMELY disappointed that Dynamax has chosen to discontinue the bunkhouse floor plan of the Isata 5. My hope would have been to watch and see how that floorplan evolved over the years and maybe incorporate some of the factory evolutions into our own coach. I guess we’ll see if Dynamax has another version up their sleeve for a future release.
of ANY experience. Like you, I am pretty easy going and like to tinker with stuff...I took a Keurig apart just to see how it worked. So, we appreciate your attitude during this process and you have been more understanding than even we could expect/ask.
