New Owners

Topic: New Owners (Read 1566 times) previous topic - next topic

New Owners

September 13, 2017, 11:23:15 pm

After contemplating for a while my wife Jo and I have purchased our first motorhome. We bought a U320 4010 WTFE form MOT on Monday. We have no big trips planned yet cause all my vacation is planned till I get more in January. Now is just time to learn the coach and do some small maintenance/spruce up items. The ISM450 ran fine on the 2.5 hr trip home. We look forward to getting out and just chillin. Hope to meet some of y'all down the road sometime. Questions, this is my first coach/diesel , so I'm sure I'll have plenty so be easy on me. I am kinda anal and like things to be done right when I do it. We haven't got a toad yet but do have a 7x12 enclosed trailed that we can pull the bike in, although trying to back it is concerning me if I can't get a pull through spot, I guess I'll need to practice some. As far as driving the coach, I am a volunteer fireman so it's not much different than driving the fire truck. So I just wanted to jump in here and say HI... Our Motorcade # is 18070..

Keith and Jo Newlin

Re: New Owners

Reply #1 – September 14, 2017, 09:30:43 am

Welcome!! I am new also and they havnt kicked me out yet but I suspect they havnt caught on yet

Great bunch here and I have been privileged to meet a few so far . Hope to meet more in the coming years. No regrets in joining this site and buying a Foretravel. Probably one of the top decisions I have ever made next to my wife, well she picked me ( she married down and I married up).

Lots of info on this site so the search function is your friend and if that doesnt work we have some brainiacs in this place.

Re: New Owners

Reply #2 – September 14, 2017, 09:42:05 am

Sounds like great Hurricane Harvey therapy: buy a Foretravel so you can flee the area when the next one comes along☺

Welcome aboard!

Re: New Owners

Reply #3 – September 14, 2017, 10:12:02 am

Welcome, enjoy this time. A new coach is like Christmas morning. It will be loads of fun. If you have questions the forum is the place to look. What ever it is someone here has been there and done that and they will help set you on the right path. As far as backing a bus with a toad or a trailer, probably not going to happen. The few bus motorhomes we have had it was just not practical. Yes, physically it can be done but there is a safety issue involved as well as damage issues. I have always found it is best to avoid unless an extreme emergency. Pull troughs were our norm at the time or unhook, back, and then hookup if it was really necessary. I am sure there are folks out there that will claim "sure, I do it all the time" well, my experience is "good luck with that". It would be a personal preference on your part and how comfortable you feel trying it but at minimum you will need a competent ground guide to assist in the attempt. Also make sure your insurance premium is paid up in my opinion. Enjoy your coach and welcome to the Foretravel family!!

Re: New Owners

Reply #4 – September 14, 2017, 10:44:03 am

Welcome Keith and Jo!

Always happy to hear from new members. Ask any and all questions without fear. No matter WHAT you need to know, odds are somebody on the Forum has the answer. There are no stupid questions (except the ones you don't ask, and then get in trouble).

I gotta agree with Randy on the backing thing. With a short (12') trailer and a 40' coach, backing would be very challenging. With pre-planning, advance reservations, and liberal use of Google maps satellite view, you can almost always find a pull-through overnight parking place, no matter where you go.

If you DO insist on trying to back up the trailer, get in a LOT of practice in a big parking lot. I think you will find the large swings of the front of the coach (which are necessary to maneuver the trailer) will not be feasible in most RV park situations. It's tough enough just trying to back up a 40' coach by itself in a lot of older parks - many of them simply weren't designed for the monster RVs on the road today.

Here's a hint from our newbie days: If you have a adequate electrical hookup (30A or 50A) spend a few days or a week "living" in your coach while it is parked at your home. You will quickly figure out where you need to make adjustments/modifications to your normal lifestyle to fit into your new mobile luxury apartment.

Good Luck!

Re: New Owners

Reply #5 – September 14, 2017, 10:47:36 am

Welcome Keith and Jo! You mentioned concern about backing it into spots. If Jo shares in the driving responsibility/fun, you can have her drive and you direct from outside negotiating tight areas and backing into spots. You can use cell phones or hand signals. That way you have excellent visibility and if she (you let her) hits anything it is YOUR fault :-)

Shanna and I have been doing that for years. She saved my bacon a couple months ago too. I was backing her out of a tight gated driveway and she stopped and wouldn't keep following my directions. I walked up to the window to ask why and she said she though the passenger side mirror would hit the gate; sure enough it would have! Love her dearly!!!

Re: New Owners

Reply #6 – September 14, 2017, 02:40:21 pm

Welcome Keith and Jo,
Backing up is a challenge but finding a spot deep enough for you to back into will be your biggest challenge. Coach length plus trailer trailer length, you are looking at about 52 feet. If your trailer box is 12 feet then add another 3-4 feet of trailer tongue length to the total.

Some camp grounds have areas to store trailers if needed, not all. When looking for a sight keep all of those issues in mind when asking questions.

Enjoy the coach, safe travels and yes, ask a lot of questions in this forum.

John and Carmen Morales

Re: New Owners

Reply #7 – September 14, 2017, 04:08:13 pm

Welcome Keith and Jo,
Now the fun can start, as to reversing with a trailer ......single axle trailer tends to wander more than 2 & 3 axle. The first thing I would say to you apart from practice is steer from the bottom of the wheel it makes more sense of what's going on in your rearview mirrors. IMHO.

Re: New Owners

Reply #8 – September 14, 2017, 04:37:01 pm

Don't back a toad if you are towing four down. Disconnect. Backing will load the tow bar and mounts more than designed for and can cause failures down the road.

Backing a trailer that is narrower than the coach can be a little tricky and require using the rear camera to guide you. Always good to have a spotter back there with a GRMS radio anytime while backing. Too easy to make a mistake. Make sure the spotter looks up as trees have a way of getting in the way.

Pierce

Re: New Owners

Reply #9 – September 14, 2017, 05:28:09 pm

WELCOME, YOU TWO!
May you enjoy your FT days as much as we have and are! It is a wondrous lifestyle and the FT "Forum/family" is a treasure that sets us WAY above our peer travelers.
You asked a question about toads/trailers: I see that you have gotten several trailer discouraging inputs so I'd like to provide some balance. Many of us enjoy using a trailer routinely without suffering significant strife or difficulties. We have done it several different ways (toads, trailers, motorcycle racks, even a short-lived car dolly trial, but, for the last several years (since early 2007) we have seldom travelled without a 24' Featherlite trailer in tow, first with the 36' U270 and now with the 42' U320.
I would suggest to you that you are a much better judge of your own comfort zone margins than we are.
Some things that I/we have learned over the years might be of benefit though:

Your own experience level is key to your own safety and to your trouble-free traveling enjoyment. You mention that you have large vehicle experience. I have had "off and on" experience with large buses and trucks all of my life. I also grew up with large farm equipment and learned how to handle large tractors and four wheel wagons long before I got out of grade school, so these sorts of backgrounds help us understand one's comfort zone and capabilities.

Selecting a toad based on convenience (of setting it up to safely tow and then how difficult it is to routinely use as a tow) is key. One can go to great lengths and expense to make many vehicles towable and then your selected option can be easy or highly impractical to routinely use. Adhering to the KISS principle in all of that will net you much more enjoyment and safety.

Just in case you were not already aware, towed (Toad) vehicles cannot be safely backed up without high risk of damaging the vehicle or the tow apparatus. There are one or two tow setups that profess to have overcome this, but even those are fraught with high risk of damage. Over 20 years of FT experience, I have come to adhere to a "Toad?-No Reverse" mandatory compliance.

Pierce is absolutely right: Any 7' X12' trailer would be very difficult to safely travel with in anything but forward motion. But, if a trailer is at least 20' long and is the same width (102") as the coach, it is far easier to live with than any towed vehicle. At 102", one can see both sides of the trailer and all of the tires, all of the time, going down the road, in tight maneuvering as well as during all routine backing — which simply boils down to being conservative with what is known (or unknown) behind you. Our standard routine is that Brenda takes over the driver's seat and I jump out with a radio and guide her if I have any concern about what's behind me.

Now that the OTR truck fueling brands (Pilot, FJ, Love's, T/A, etc. have abandoned their volume advantage to the smaller stations) we routinely use the smaller fueling stations as well as brand discount cards to tamp down our fueling costs (unless we are in some sort of hurry to cover long distances). Being able to easily maneuver the trailer is a huge advantage (over a 4W's Down Toad arrangement) in that regard. We use Gas Buddy and (satellite preview possibilities) and seldom have trouble finding a good choice at prices that ALWAYS run well under the current OTR truck islands.

Like the FT, it pays to invest in a trailer that is overrated in terms of net carrying capacity, axles, tires and brakes. Tires are your biggest reliability and maintenance issue and unlike the coach, high reliability trailer tire lives are about half that of high reliability coach tires.

One has to ask the right questions when calling/planning ahead for campground reservations. We always ask for 65' pull throughs first, 65' back-ins second, overflow options third (have often stayed in "full services" overflows that were the nicest sites in the park), and then just dry camping if the above options fail and we just have to be in that park/campground/area. It may be an "east of the Mississippi" thing, but we seldom have any parks or areas that we have any difficulty. We travelled about eight months (9,000 miles) last year and unhooked the trailer twice (only had to move the trailer once ,with the Jeep, after unhooking). Same this year and we have been traveling since May (TN, WV, KY, MI, MI-UP, OH, PA, upstate NY, VT, NH).

Regardless whether 4W's Down or trailer, KISS in setup and routine use is key to enjoyment. As another example, I have an overrated (4500#) battery operated tongue jack on the trailer so that if and when we do unhook, it is simple and easy to use and transfer towing duties to the Jeep.

Could go on and on, but our single negative with the enclosed car (plus touring motorcycle) hauler is that I have to get in and out of the Jeep through the rear hatch or the driver's window. I'm still flexible enough to do that but I can see the "handwriting on the wall." Maybe a few more years before we'll have to stick strictly to 4 W's Down towing and give up the touring machine.

HTH, and once again, a BIG Welcome,
Neal

Re: New Owners

Reply #10 – September 14, 2017, 06:21:10 pm

Great post, Neal, and you make a good case for advantages to pulling a trailer. I have a question, and I'm only asking out of curiosity - not trying to give you a hard time. Is your combo legal (length wise) in every state?

Re: New Owners

Reply #11 – September 14, 2017, 07:01:00 pm

Neal,

A well written post like yours really helps the new people. We were all there once and it's sure nice to have a forum like this to turn to for advice.

Pierce

Re: New Owners

Reply #12 – September 14, 2017, 07:13:11 pm

Great post Neal!

Those pictures look like the pull-throughs at Wakeda. We stay there often.

Re: New Owners

Reply #13 – September 14, 2017, 07:21:44 pm

Pierce,
The "information age" is very different from that age (in the mid 90's, just a few short years ago) when Brenda and I were trying to analyze and choose our "First and Last Coach". Well, that plan didn't quite work out as planned (we NOW have our Last Coach) but the miracle of a stable, well-run Forum, sure is wondrous to observe. It makes today's brand choice and the learning, as well as ownership processes so much less intimidating today.
We can't thank Steve and Michelle and our hard working moderators anywhere near enough!
Neal

Re: New Owners

Reply #14 – September 14, 2017, 07:53:48 pm

Quote from: Chuck & Jeannie – September 14, 2017, 06:21:10 pm

..............Is your combo legal (length wise) in every state?

Chuck,
I try to avoid the issue, but you are correct. I am a little under 68' overall. The majority of states are 65' combined length -- MAX.
I anticipate that I might have trouble if called on it.

That being said, I'm careful to always be a conservative, model driver. Having a son in Law Enforcement, I am well aware that law enforcement has their hands full with a multitude of other, more pressing issues. But, if their "radar" goes off, they have to decide on a whole range of possible reactions.

I have never received anything but respect and kind words from law enforcement over the years and I have been equally respectful in not causing them concern or alarm.

I have been pulled over in the coach three times in 19 years. Twice in California for driving over 55 MPH while towing on freeways that had 70 MPH speed limits (each stop for 60 MPH, or so, and 55 MPH felt downright dangerous). Both resulted in verbal warnings. The third, I was the victim of a road rage incident in MA. and the LLEO was highly informative on the details of the stop. He was highly supportive of my conduct throughout the incident. Each of these stops could have graduated into getting out a tape measure, but I don't think that "we, as a group of motorhomers" represent much of a threat to law and order. Thus, law abiding, respectful and reasonable behavior begets the same from LLEO.s,

I do keep a folder of information readily available, to be able to demonstrate conservatism in every other respect: eg: safety course certificates, coach and trailer design specs, GVWR's, scale weights, Blue OX, Air Force 1, Tekonsha trailer braking, etc.
Still an excuse, though, rather than verbatim compliance!
HTH
Neal

Re: New Owners

Reply #15 – September 14, 2017, 07:55:58 pm

Quote from: Chuck & Jeannie – September 14, 2017, 06:21:10 pm

Great post, Neal, and you make a good case for advantages to pulling a trailer. I have a question, and I'm only asking out of curiosity - not trying to give you a hard time. Is your combo legal (length wise) in every state?

State Road Laws for RVs - RV Trip Wizard

Re: New Owners

Reply #16 – September 14, 2017, 08:20:58 pm

Quote from: Travelin' Man – September 14, 2017, 07:13:11 pm

Great post Neal!

Those pictures look like the pull-throughs at Wakeda. We stay there often.

T-Man,
Good eye! We are in the area for a couple weeks for annual Dr's/Dentists, etc.
We owned property in adjoining Exeter and East Kingston for 38 years (full timing for 2 years now).

Mandy (Amanda) and her cousin in the office grew up in our neighborhood and with our kids. The grand parents (he has passed now) are turning Wakeda ownership and operation over to the grandchildren now and we think (admittedly, we are biased) that the park is very well managed and maintained. We recommend Wakeda to everyone that we can reach out to.

Wakeda is local to the NH and southern ME beaches, there are several trains daily into and out of Boston/PortlandME at the Exeter station, Hampton/Seabrook, Portsmouth and Kittery shopping, Nubble and the Yorks nearby, etc. More great restaurants within 20 miles than you can check off your "must do" list in a year.
Neal

Re: New Owners

Reply #17 – September 14, 2017, 08:29:36 pm

"You can use cell phones or hand signals." We prefer two-way radios. We tried the cell phone idea a couple of times when the service was less than ideal and the delay was just not acceptable. Hand signals only go so far. Today, for example, Jo Ann needed to move from one side of the coach to the other. She was well back, so crossing behind me was quite safe, but what hand signal says that? Instead, she just told me on the radio and I kept creeping back.

We used a set for a couple of years and eventually wore them out. We bought new ones and the old ones will become toys for our grandsons (or maybe something to be disassembled to see how they work).

Re: New Owners

Reply #18 – September 14, 2017, 09:34:29 pm

Welcome. We all have our own ways of doing things. I hate directions when backing up. Any signal beyond telling me to stop because I am about to hit something is too much. I let dw (dear wife) take dog and child duty and prefer to do the rest on my own. Lots of well meaning people will want to help but their unintelligible signals and theories on what you can and cannot do in your unit only stress me out.

Re: New Owners

Reply #19 – September 14, 2017, 10:36:03 pm

Welcome to the foreforums, enjoy your new home a way from home. I believe you will like the comradery here.

Re: New Owners

Reply #20 – September 14, 2017, 10:42:10 pm

Welcome!

Re: New Owners

Reply #21 – September 14, 2017, 10:49:20 pm

Welcome Keith and Jo Newlin,

You have the same coach and engine that I have and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have over the two years that I have owned and lived in mine. Lots still to learn but I enjoy the challenge. I have now put on 14,000 miles in the two years and have enjoyed every mile.

This forum has been a great help to me and I know you will find it helpful to you.
Ken

Re: New Owners

Reply #22 – September 15, 2017, 12:25:49 am

thanks everyone! great info... I have put on hold trying to pull the 12'er for now...it is a tandem axel by the way... the long term goal was to get a 24'er like you have Neal to pull a car and the bike so I am envious of your set up, well except for the gold wing.. lol I'm a HD guy hence my forum name. I am also a volunteer fire fighter which represents the second part of the name... we will just have to see how things go we just need to get out and see what we need and can do. we are going to do a 2 niter this weekend toadless at a state park a couple of hours from us just to get our feet wet. I wish we were able to go full time now cause it definitely sounds like fun, especially once we get the hang of it. the FT seems like a fine coach I am ready to enjoy her....

keith

Re: New Owners

Reply #23 – September 15, 2017, 08:21:14 am

Great Photo! I didn't realize a Hog could lean over that far! In West TX we only ever see them going straight down the highway...

Re: New Owners

Reply #24 – September 15, 2017, 11:31:36 am

Welcome from Another Newbie Couple -

Great place...great people...great fun to plan, buy and dream bout the next travel adventure.

Enjoy.

Randy and Karen

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