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Mike98465 · 03-23-2014, 08:59 AM

Greetings, all:
We are first time RV'ers and we just bought a Forest River R-Pod 178 from a dealer 3.5 hours away---we drove our 2013 Sequoia there yesterday, purchased the unit (was $3K less), went through orientation and drove it back over the mountain passes same day. All went relatively well! The trailer (20ft, relatively light compared to the maximums allowed for this vehicle) towed well and I was able to keep it at 60+ mph (with traffic) the entire way with relatively little strain. I did notice when we arrived at our house, the brakes for the trailer were smoking a bit---I was very careful to try to use the brakes sparingly so am wondering what I did wrong there? We did get a brake regulator installed on our Sequoia and it seemed to work well---the dealer showed me how to adjust it etc. Any advice on that? Oh yeah, one more thing I noticed: Our gas mileage TO the dealer (without trailer) was 15mpg (quite good for this beast), and our return trip was 7.9! I'd been warned that my car will suck up the flu when hauling---I guess was hoping that because we are towing a lighter trailer, it wouldn't be quite so much? Anyway, today we will attempt to "de-winterize"---wish us luck! And thanks in advice for any comments or advice.