Palazzo Adventures

[Freedom65]

We left on a 3 1/2 month trip in our Palazzo on Dec 10th heading from Victoria BC to Southern California and Arizona. We will try to keep other Palazzo owners abreast of any issues we encounter.

Our trip started on the Coho ferry to Port Angeles Washington where we docked after dark so we pulled into Walmart for the night. Discovered that the water pump wasn't working. Still working on a resolution for that with Mike Burkowski from Thor.

Also, had difficulty getting the furnace to work without the air conditioner coming on. Thanks to Butte64 and gmadams I'm now straight on how the two thermostats work. We use only the thermostat in the hallway. We turn fan to AU then cycle down to furnace and set temp we want. Thermostat in the bedroom is off. Find the furnace is little loud but keeps us warm.

We were driving in rain for days 2 and 3. The Palazzo handles very well towing a Honda CRV. Lots of power and doesn't wander in the heavy wind we encountered on the 2nd day. I have to qualify this by saying that I haven't driven other Class A's but I didn't have white knuckles at the end of the day. I did find some water in the main storage compartment after the day with the heavy rain. Someone else on this forum had a solution for that and when we get to San Diego I'll fix that using their solution.

Third day took us over the 4000 foot Grant's and Siskiyou Passes on the Oregon and California border. I was impressed with the way the Palazzo handled these hills.

We learned a couple of things today. First, don't store glass jars in the pantry near the door. We stopped at a rest stop and I opened the door. Out popped a jar of cranberry juice. The lid popped off and the floor was covered in what appeared to be blood. It even dripped out the door. We had to take off quickly as I was afraid the trucker beside us would notice the red stuff dripping out the door and think I had committed some nefarious act inside the coach! Note to myself - put some sort of lip on the shelf ends.

Second when we stopped for the day and I was putting out the bedroom slide I noticed it stopped at on end. I retracted it and discovered that the drawer beside the bed had come open during our travels and was catching the slide. You need to get on the bed to make sure this hasn't happened. Fortunately no damage.

Will try to keep you up to date on any other adventures

[tcopeland]

Originally Posted by Freedom65

We left on a 3 1/2 month trip in our Palazzo on Dec 10th heading from Victoria BC to Southern California and Arizona. We will try to keep other Palazzo owners abreast of any issues we encounter.

Our trip started on the Coho ferry to Port Angeles Washington where we docked after dark so we pulled into Walmart for the night. Discovered that the water pump wasn't working. Still working on a resolution for that with Mike Burkowski from Thor.

Also, had difficulty getting the furnace to work without the air conditioner coming on. Thanks to Butte64 and gmadams I'm now straight on how the two thermostats work. We use only the thermostat in the hallway. We turn fan to AU then cycle down to furnace and set temp we want. Thermostat in the bedroom is off. Find the furnace is little loud but keeps us warm.

We were driving in rain for days 2 and 3. The Palazzo handles very well towing a Honda CRV. Lots of power and doesn't wander in the heavy wind we encountered on the 2nd day. I have to qualify this by saying that I haven't driven other Class A's but I didn't have white knuckles at the end of the day. I did find some water in the main storage compartment after the day with the heavy rain. Someone else on this forum had a solution for that and when we get to San Diego I'll fix that using their solution.

Third day took us over the 4000 foot Grant's and Siskiyou Passes on the Oregon and California border. I was impressed with the way the Palazzo handled these hills.

We learned a couple of things today. First, don't store glass jars in the pantry near the door. We stopped at a rest stop and I opened the door. Out popped a jar of cranberry juice. The lid popped off and the floor was covered in what appeared to be blood. It even dripped out the door. We had to take off quickly as I was afraid the trucker beside us would notice the red stuff dripping out the door and think I had committed some nefarious act inside the coach! Note to myself - put some sort of lip on the shelf ends.

Second when we stopped for the day and I was putting out the bedroom slide I noticed it stopped at on end. I retracted it and discovered that the drawer beside the bed had come open during our travels and was catching the slide. You need to get on the bed to make sure this hasn't happened. Fortunately no damage.

Will try to keep you up to date on any other adventures

Have a great trip. Look forward to hearing about your adventure and the Palazzo on a long trip.
i.e. We picked up some covered containers at WalMart to put in the pantry to hold items. Works great, fits with snap top lids.

[gramps2578]

Originally Posted by Freedom65

We left on a 3 1/2 month trip in our Palazzo on Dec 10th heading from Victoria BC to Southern California and Arizona. We will try to keep other Palazzo owners abreast of any issues we encounter.

Our trip started on the Coho ferry to Port Angeles Washington where we docked after dark so we pulled into Walmart for the night. Discovered that the water pump wasn't working. Still working on a resolution for that with Mike Burkowski from Thor.

Also, had difficulty getting the furnace to work without the air conditioner coming on. Thanks to Butte64 and gmadams I'm now straight on how the two thermostats work. We use only the thermostat in the hallway. We turn fan to AU then cycle down to furnace and set temp we want. Thermostat in the bedroom is off. Find the furnace is little loud but keeps us warm.

We were driving in rain for days 2 and 3. The Palazzo handles very well towing a Honda CRV. Lots of power and doesn't wander in the heavy wind we encountered on the 2nd day. I have to qualify this by saying that I haven't driven other Class A's but I didn't have white knuckles at the end of the day. I did find some water in the main storage compartment after the day with the heavy rain. Someone else on this forum had a solution for that and when we get to San Diego I'll fix that using their solution.

Third day took us over the 4000 foot Grant's and Siskiyou Passes on the Oregon and California border. I was impressed with the way the Palazzo handled these hills.

We learned a couple of things today. First, don't store glass jars in the pantry near the door. We stopped at a rest stop and I opened the door. Out popped a jar of cranberry juice. The lid popped off and the floor was covered in what appeared to be blood. It even dripped out the door. We had to take off quickly as I was afraid the trucker beside us would notice the red stuff dripping out the door and think I had committed some nefarious act inside the coach! Note to myself - put some sort of lip on the shelf ends.

Second when we stopped for the day and I was putting out the bedroom slide I noticed it stopped at on end. I retracted it and discovered that the drawer beside the bed had come open during our travels and was catching the slide. You need to get on the bed to make sure this hasn't happened. Fortunately no damage.

Will try to keep you up to date on any other adventures

Bought some spring loaded refrigerator bars, the shortest ones available and cut them down to fit right in front of the pantry shelves.Works great and stops everything from sliding. Good luck and have a safe trip

[TheArnolds]

We envy you...safe travels and please keep the post coming

[Freedom65]

Made it to San Diego with no more problems other than a few loose screws (in addition to the ones in the driver and co-pilot seats!) Some pretty rough roads around LA which gave the Palace a good shaking. My slide out creaks but I don't hear the popping noise others have mentioned. And the slide works well (as long as I remember to take out the slide locking lever!). DW says I'm not allowed to use it any more since my memory isn't very good.
Mileage is reading 10.2 mpg. We are towing a CRV. Thor have said they will replace the water pump. I just have to get into a Thor approved maitenance facility. Tried Camping World just north of LA but they couldn't take me until Wed and I already had a reservation at San Diego for Sunday so passed that one up.

[tcopeland]

Originally Posted by Freedom65

Made it to San Diego with no more problems other than a few loose screws (in addition to the ones in the driver and co-pilot seats!) Some pretty rough roads around LA which gave the Palace a good shaking. My slide out creaks but I don't hear the popping noise others have mentioned. And the slide works well (as long as I remember to take out the slide locking lever!). DW says I'm not allowed to use it any more since my memory isn't very good.
Mileage is reading 10.2 mpg. We are towing a CRV. Thor have said they will replace the water pump. I just have to get into a Thor approved maitenance facility. Tried Camping World just north of LA but they couldn't take me until Wed and I already had a reservation at San Diego for Sunday so passed that one up.

Sorry about the water pump.
Safe travels and keep us posted!

[Freedom65]

We have finally stopped traveling long enough to get the water pump fixed. A very good mechanic from Giant RV in Palm Springs confirmed that the water pump was non serviceable. Nice to confirm that it wasn't some stupid thing I was doing or not doing. He said he has had to replace a number of water pumps on Thor RV's. He replaced it with a SHURflo pump. All done under warranty. Works fine now so now we can visit a few National and State parks.

[ChallengerRN]

Mine went bad too. Mine actually worked ok but about 1/4 of what it pumped went out the floor of the RV. I took it apart and it had a crack in it. Thor sent me a new one.

[tcopeland]

Heading out to Disney's Fort Wilderness on Friday with four grandkids (ages 6-14).
Should be an interesting trip!

[TheArnolds]

Originally Posted by tcopeland

Heading out to Disney's Fort Wilderness on Friday with four grandkids (ages 6-14).
Should be an interesting trip!

Safe travels Tom!

[TheArnolds]

Originally Posted by tcopeland

Heading out to Disney's Fort Wilderness on Friday with four grandkids (ages 6-14).
Should be an interesting trip!

How did the Disney trip go with the Grandkids?

[tcopeland]

Had a great time.
First time we had used the sofa bed and the dinnet bed at the same time. Kids had a ball "camping out".
Campground was super. We were in the 1600 block and it was easy to get anywhere we wanted to go. No need for a toad. Bus stop was about 100 yards from the site. We did three theme parks in three days.
There were a few full timers in our block that were there for the winter. Was surprized at that.
Did not see any Palazzo's there or on the road. I-95 was pretty good but I-4 was busy during rush hour. Guess I did not plan that very well. Only got cut off one time from a guy coming in on the on ramp. Air brakes worked great! Kept the engine brake "on" in traffic after that. Lesson learned. Coach did great.

[TheArnolds]

Originally Posted by tcopeland

Had a great time.
First time we had used the sofa bed and the dinnet bed at the same time. Kids had a ball "camping out".
Campground was super. We were in the 1600 block and it was easy to get anywhere we wanted to go. No need for a toad. Bus stop was about 100 yards from the site. We did three theme parks in three days.
There were a few full timers in our block that were there for the winter. Was surprized at that.
Did not see any Palazzo's there or on the road. I-95 was pretty good but I-4 was busy during rush hour. Guess I did not plan that very well. Only got cut off one time from a guy coming in on the on ramp. Air brakes worked great! Kept the engine brake "on" in traffic after that. Lesson learned. Coach did great.

Sounds like you had a wonderful time...thanks for the update!

[tcopeland]

We went on a short trip of six days this past week. Visited two "resort" campgrounds in NC & SC. One of those deals with free camping is you endure their presentations to buy a membership.
Wondering if anyone is involved in the "campground membership" program.
It does seem to be something we do not want to get involved in, but don't know.
Expensive to say the least and tied down to particular campgrounds. Does not seem worth it but everyone I talked to seems to love it.