Riverside travel trailers

[bigguy1]

Hi All, Does anyone own a Riverside trailer? http://www.riversidetrailer.com/Floorplans.html I know they're relatively new to the market, only been around since 2009, but I haven't been able to find anything at all on the forums. Could it be the owners are 100% satisfied and have nothing to ask / complain about? We're looking at the 29RKS model. Easily towable by our 2012 Tundra 5.7. Max towing cap 9800 and the trailer should weigh less than 8K fully loaded, which we'll check. We plan on using 10K weight dist. & anti sway hitch with 1K hitch weight rating so we should be good to go. According to my calculations, I should be able to take the Harley (800 lbs w/ramps) too in the bed of the truck and not be overloaded. YEA!!

[Hugheshay2]

Originally Posted by bigguy1

Hi All, Does anyone own a Riverside trailer? http://www.riversidetrailer.com/Floorplans.html I know they're relatively new to the market, only been around since 2009, but I haven't been able to find anything at all on the forums. Could it be the owners are 100% satisfied and have nothing to ask / complain about? We're looking at the 29RKS model. Easily towable by our 2012 Tundra 5.7. Max towing cap 9800 and the trailer should weigh less than 8K fully loaded, which we'll check. We plan on using 10K weight dist. & anti sway hitch with 1K hitch weight rating so we should be good to go. According to my calculations, I should be able to take the Harley (800 lbs w/ramps) too in the bed of the truck and not be overloaded. YEA!!

We just purchased our Riverside 31bhsk model this season. We have been camping with it a few times this summer and love it. We love the quality of this camper. We actually live near the factory and was able to tour it while our trailer was being built. We know Mark Gerber who is the vp of sales at Riverside. He is very good at answering our questions even after we picked our camper up. We certainly plan to keep this camper a long time.

[PO1994]

We purchased a 2011 Riverside 30Loft in February of 2011. We loved the floor plan and it worked perfectly for us. Everything was good for the first year and then it all started going wrong. We have had a short in the lights in the loft and bathroom, our steps broke, gas line ruptured, window in slide is leaking through the wall, and now our black tank is leaking. I have contacted several dealers to try and just trade it in and am being told that my 30,000.00 dollar camper is now worth at the most 14000.00. I have contacted Riverside Travel Trailer's and they were no help with any of our problems. I have noticed that very few dealers in my area are even carrying this brand any longer. I am probably going to lose money on this camper but I am going to get rid of it before it falls completely apart.

[RetroTwo]

My wife and I just purchased a new 15' Riverside White Water Retro 150. It has all the amenities we were looking for in a small light weight travel trailer. Upon getting it home, I began going over it and getting to know the systems and how they work. Now this is our first journey into a travel trailer with toilet/shower, A/C, furnace, refrigerator, microwave, water pump, holding tanks, etc. Riverside boasts that "True Amish craftsmanship goes into each unit". If I were an Amish Craftsman, I would be embarrassed and angry! Our 150 has three drawers under the 2 burner stove, and two of the three drawers were terribly twisted or warped if you will. The tracks were screwed into the edge of the thin plywood with self tapping screws - no pilot holes drilled first, and of course all the drawer bottoms were split wide open. I had to remove the hardware, glue up the split plywood, drill pilot holes and reassemble. I took the warping out with pipe clamps and weights while secured in a vise for around 12 hours each. The bracing inside the cabinet for the end of the drawers was almost nonexistent! I had to glue in bracing and readjust everything. Similar issues with the screws that hold the stove top to the counter. Major repositioning of attachment brackets were required. Also the rubber welt on the screen door wasn't even pushed into the groove in many places in order to attach the screen material. We still really like the trailer, but craftsmanship or pride of workmanship is difficult to find. I do enjoy correcting problems and performing modifications, so I'm not complaining, just reporting what I see as I get to know this trailer.

I can only hope that a year from now, we don't have the experience of everything falling apart as has happened to PO1994. Thanks for sharing what happened to you...and I hope you are able to either resolve your many issues or get out from under it without too heavy a loss.

We would not normally purchase an "Extended Warranty", but in this case, we did. We purchased it from Manteca Trailer and RV in the Central Valley of California. I hope other 'Retro' owners will find/join this forum and describe their experiences.

Clyde R

[myredracer]

I don't want to be the one to burst your bubble, but....

First, it's not the towing capacity that is the deciding factor, it is the payload capacity of your Toyota. It looks like from a quick google, the payload capacity is under 1400 lbs. Right off the top, this only includes the driver (150 lbs) and a full tank of gas. DW, kids, the dog, groceries and cargo is going to be easily 500+ lbs leaving 900 lbs of payload capacity left. But you really want to know the actual available payload by going to a scale and subtracting the weight from your GVWR.

Dry weight of the trailer is shown as 6780 lbs and the dry tongue wt. is 770 lbs. You can't use dry wts., for determining if a tow vehicle can handle a trailer. They don't include any factory options, dealer installed items anything you install and any cargo. For a 34' trailer like that, I'd allow 1500 lbs as an estimate an actual/loaded trailer wt. of 8280 lbs. Tongue wt. is usually 10-15% of that so you could be up around 1200 lbs of tongue weight. I could not find the GVWR, but I would use that as a max. TT weight to be on the safe side. Many trailers are close to that when loaded. Loaded tanks will drive that up even more and as much as another 800+ lbs.

If your Tundra payload is under 1000 lbs, there's no way you can handle that large a trailer, even without any cargo in the bed. If you want to put a Harley in the truck, you most likely need a 1 ton truck to tow that trailer.

Using a dry tongue wt. to pre-purchase WDH spring bars is risky. We did and the tongue wt. ended up being nearly double the factory figure. We had to purchase larger rated ones afterwards. You don't want undersized bars, esp. with a rear kitchen.

As far as quality goes, all trailers have problems of some kind or another some more and some less. There's a total lack of quality control at plants and is an industry wide problem. I'd be looking into the level of support the factory generally offers and what the quality of the dealer is like. If you want a better trailer, I would start by looking at Lance. Knowing what I know now, I would look very carefully how the fram is built. Some frames are significantly under-designed and have extreme flex in them. I suspect you'll find all the typical fit and finish, improperly installed, missing, broken, etc. issues owners find on any brand.

[sdbserv]

We drove 650+ miles and purcahsed a Riverside Loft30K from a dealer in Pa sight unseen. We did son after much research and many conversations with the dealer and most importantly, Mark Gerber. He was always responsive to our inquiries and even met us in Bedford, Pa. when we drove up. The quality of the trailer is excellent. We have had a few (very) minor issues and Mark's response has been astounding. These issues were mostly NOT related to manufacturing but were outside supplier type issues (external trim piece cracked, freezer door issue, etc.). Mark has sent replacements and offered to coordinate repairs with a local repair facility since there is no dealer in my area. I simply made the easy repairs myself.

As for the problems described by another poster, I find them hard to believe. The gas lines are among the best i have seen, custom fabricated as a hydraulic line would be...no black pipes with leaky fittings. We have never experienced a leak, ever.....and we live in the Low Country of coastal SC. The stairs to the loft are study enough to support my 225 lb frame and are extremely well made. The outside steps are industry standard, the same type found on most other rv's, and they are welded on.

One of the most impressive things to me is how absolutely sturdy everything is. The aluminum on the outside is 50% (!) thicker than the skin of my previous big name camper (.019 vs. .028) and you can really tell the difference. I highy recomend Riverside Travel Trailers, for their customer care and the quality of their product.

As an aside, this is a different company than the Riverside that RetroTwo spoke of.

[trailerman1]

We bought a new 2014 Retro 177 several months ago. So far, so good.

James

[Highway 4x4]

Good luck Big guy. Let us know how it went with that Toyota and that much weight.

[LJThistle]

Looks like it has been some time since the Riverside Retro has been discussed, Hope that isn't a negative ? We purchased a retro 150 and find the floor plan to be perfect for our needs so far. Everything is working like a charm. A friend informed me that ALL RV's will have things that need adjusting. We did re-aline a drawer clip on one drawer, it was off set just a bit. we are going to reinforce the bunk, it looks a little iffy. I took out the shower curtain and installed a washable levolor blind above the door inside the shower. the 78" length extends to the floor of the shower perfectly. The smoke alarm is very sensitive so I will need to learn about cooking in the camper but we mostly use the fire pit for camp cooking. Added a mattress topper to the bed (A must) After two extremely rainy Pacific Northwest camp outs earlier this year, we are so far thrilled with the trailer. Would love to hear more from other Retro 150 owners and how things are going with performance and upgrades. Thanks!

[RetroTwo]

Good Evening LJ,

It's good to hear from another Retro 150 owner! Interesting use of a levolor blind! Don't see why it shouldn't perform well for that purpose! Thanks for a nice write-up on your Retro

A new gathering place for owners of all models of White Water Retro trailers has been recently started. Linda (my wife) and I are members of both the free Forum and the Retro Roadies Travel Club. The web site is: http://www.retroroadies.com/ Hope you visit us soon!

We still 'love' the Retro 150 and I have done quite a number of updates and/or modifications to it. Things like replacing the exhaust fan with a Fantastic Fan and an aerodynamic roof cover for the fan to keep out rain while the fan cover is open. We are going to install a "sling style" storage area above the dinette area. I also added a 2" Thetford toilet riser, which makes it a lot easier for a tall guy like me to use.

Did your 150 come equipped with the fold down counter extension? Our didn't, so we ordered the extension and the 'cover door' for easy access to the storage under the dinette seating area. I'll have to frame in the opening and install the cover. Yours may already have this feature. I think these two items were on the 2014 models. I've also built a couple of shelves and an articulating arm for our 19" flatscreen. Mounted the spare tire on the bumper with a very strong mounting bracket. Many photos are on the Retro Roadies site.

We just acquired a new 2013 RAM 1500 crew cab 4x4 to do towing duties. Feel free to PM me and I'll share my e-mail address with you. Enjoy your new Retro !

Clyde and Linda Ramstead

[gambi23]

We bought the retro 181 bunkhouse from Paul evert rv. My wife was sold because if the cute retro look and the bunk beds for our 2 girls. Unfortunately Our table broke the first night we used it and now going on 3 weeks for a replacement so we are more than a little disappointed that we have only been able to use our camper 1 night after spending so much money. It appears it was made from cheap particle board. As another person commented, our caulking was also done very sloppy. One improvement that could be made is the storage closet has basically no shelves which makes the storage space not very practical. I will be adding additional shelves to make better use of the storage cabinet. Hopefully we do not experience other issues and it will be quicker to get them resolved.

[gggplaya]

I think you would be overweight if you tried to put a harley in the bed of your pickup and tow. The dry hitch weight of this thing is 770lbs. The loaded hitch weight is more, plus 100lbs for the WD hitch, plus 200lbs for fuel in the pickup, and a few hundred pounds for passengers. You'd be way over payload.

The riversides looks like a very traditional wood frame travel trailer, nothing special about construction. These type generally last 10-15 years, and you must make for certain you recaulk it every year. 1 Leak will ruin it.

If you want to bring your harley, you can get a Grey Wolf 27RR trailer, made by forest river or similar style bike hauler travel trailer.

[Farfman]

Just curious. What did you finally end up with?

[Farfman]

Originally Posted by RetroTwo

My wife and I just purchased a new 15' Riverside White Water Retro 150. It has all the amenities we were looking for in a small light weight travel trailer. Upon getting it home, I began going over it and getting to know the systems and how they work. Now this is our first journey into a travel trailer with toilet/shower, A/C, furnace, refrigerator, microwave, water pump, holding tanks, etc. Riverside boasts that "True Amish craftsmanship goes into each unit". If I were an Amish Craftsman, I would be embarrassed and angry! Our 150 has three drawers under the 2 burner stove, and two of the three drawers were terribly twisted or warped if you will. The tracks were screwed into the edge of the thin plywood with self tapping screws - no pilot holes drilled first, and of course all the drawer bottoms were split wide open. I had to remove the hardware, glue up the split plywood, drill pilot holes and reassemble. I took the warping out with pipe clamps and weights while secured in a vise for around 12 hours each. The bracing inside the cabinet for the end of the drawers was almost nonexistent! I had to glue in bracing and readjust everything. Similar issues with the screws that hold the stove top to the counter. Major repositioning of attachment brackets were required. Also the rubber welt on the screen door wasn't even pushed into the groove in many places in order to attach the screen material. We still really like the trailer, but craftsmanship or pride of workmanship is difficult to find. I do enjoy correcting problems and performing modifications, so I'm not complaining, just reporting what I see as I get to know this trailer.

I can only hope that a year from now, we don't have the experience of everything falling apart as has happened to PO1994. Thanks for sharing what happened to you...and I hope you are able to either resolve your many issues or get out from under it without too heavy a loss.

We would not normally purchase an "Extended Warranty", but in this case, we did. We purchased it from Manteca Trailer and RV in the Central Valley of California. I hope other 'Retro' owners will find/join this forum and describe their experiences.

Clyde R

Your trailer is not manufactured by Riverside Travel Trailer company. It is a different, smaller company that does mostly smaller trailers. Riverside Travel Trailer does NOT manufacture smaller trailers. Happy Trails.