Presently now in Memphis and spending the night at Graceland RV Park. Going to tour the mansion before our next leg of the trip to a Texas State Park in Tyler. We picked up our new Forester 2151LE, 25 ft, 7.2 V8. We flew up to Ohio to pick it up, purchased from RV Wholesalers. This is our shake down cruise and so far the punch list, though not empty, is fairly clean. Enjoying ourselves!
I have to admit, the auto-leveling system is really cool. Just touch a button and stand back. Its like the RV takes a life of its own.
iRV2.com RV Community - Are you about to start a new improvement on your RV or need some help with some maintenance? Do you need advice on what products to buy? Or maybe you can give others some advice? No matter where you fit in you'll find that iRV2 is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with other RV owners, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create an RV blog, send private messages and so much, much more!
Presently now in Memphis and spending the night at Graceland RV Park. Going to tour the mansion before our next leg of the trip to a Texas State Park in Tyler. We picked up our new Forester 2151LE, 25 ft, 7.2 V8. We flew up to Ohio to pick it up, purchased from RV Wholesalers. This is our shake down cruise and so far the punch list, though not empty, is fairly clean. Enjoying ourselves!
I have to admit, the auto-leveling system is really cool. Just touch a button and stand back. Its like the RV takes a life of its own.
I have been talking with RV Wholesalers too about a Forester LE. Did you get the solar package? How are you managing with the battery setup? I would opt for the auto leveling system too. Glad to hear it is working well for you!
I have been talking with RV Wholesalers too about a Forester LE. Did you get the solar package? How are you managing with the battery setup? I would opt for the auto leveling system too. Glad to hear it is working well for you!
We just got back from the trip last night. I think RVW has an interesting system. I first learned of them when I listened to a YouTube where the owner Mike was talking about a war on the RV industry. He made some interesting points and put out his vision where they refund the money dealerships normally pocket from the banks who finance the purchase. Our credit was $6000. I believe travel trailers are less, but hence the name "wholesaler". The math works for me.
We worked with Jaime Spofford. Very friendly gal. I'm seeing if she will create an ID here and be available to answer vendor-type questions. I'd definitely recommend Jaime so far. What I liked best was the way she quoted me pricing up-front and included all the pricing on options too, even going so far as to giving me the entire list of available options and costs so I could literally build and price it before any commitment. I also went to a couple local (relatively speaking) RV dealerships and confirmed that the $6000 rebate was indeed less than what I could have bought a similarly built unit.
To answer your questions, re solar, yes we did. I opted to buy the extra deep cell battery. Somehow, either by buying the extra upgraded battery or something else I don't quite understand yet, the solar actually comes with two panels up top. Also, it's supposed to come with a Solar On the Side port for portable solar. It's missing both the 2nd panel and the port but Jaime is going to work with us to get that added with warranty items.
The fridge is 12v and depleted the 2 batteries the first night, but to be fair, we stopped the first night at Walmart and bought provisions. Plus the fridge was set to maximum, so the combination of the two probably caused a higher than normal drain. After the first night, the batteries were good, but we spent the balance of the trip back to Texas in RV parks.
Re the auto-levelers, I AM IN LOVE WITH IT. The coach takes a life of its own. You just step back and let it take care of itself.
I wish I had listened to my gut feelings and added the co-pilot swivel seat. It's a 25' RV so there is limited seating to put on shoes, or sit and read. That seat, either the passenger or both, facing to the rear would have made excellent lounge seats.
Another observation, we get about 500-550 range on a tank of gas. Our fuel efficiency was about 9.9mpg from Lakeview OH to Austin.
A nice looking rig, neighbor. (Waves from Austin). Auto leveling is one of the features that we looked forward to moving from a trailer to a coach.
Huh. Tyler SP looks a lot like Ft Parker SP.
Hey Red Wolf! Thanks!! Those photos weren't of Tyler, btw! The one with the picnic bench near the coach was in Cave City, KY. The other by the tree is at Graceland RV Park in Memphis TN.
AND... I heard from some folks to be cautious about Graceland as it's not in a great part of town, which is true, BUT Graceland RV Park really was a great park to stay at. We never felt in danger or uncomfortable. And we toured Graceland which was really an amazing tour. Saw the mansion, stables, both of Elvis' jets, plus a ton of other museum artifacts. Well worth the $75 per person tickets. We were there on Monday and there were no lines, so if you go, don't spring for the expensive front-of-the-line add-ons.
I also had a really good experience with RVW when we bought our 5th wheel from them. We were up at RV Outlet Mall in Georgetown, saw a Rockwood we liked, but it was the pricey upscale model. A bit out of our price range. The next day I saw the base model for a great priced. Bought from them, and they delivered it from Ohio to Austin for a reasonable fee.
As for Tyler SP - I looked it up, as it's one of the few we haven't visited. That's the one that reminds me of Ft. Parker. :-)
Thanks for the feedback! One other thing, can you tell me about the walk-through? For example, how long did take? How thorough?
Honestly the walk through just just OK. First, the guy was on the young side and didn't quite take his time. He was polite and answered questions but if you're a total newbie you'd probably not have understood much of what he was pointing out. I've owned a couple travel trailers and one older Class A a couple decades ago, so I'm fairly confident I picked up on the high points he covered. Again, this is a roll of the dice I'm sure. Depends on who you get, how they're trained, etc. I'll admit that when he didn't know the answer, he got a senior tech with us so we got the right answer. The senior tech stayed with us the balance of the duration as we went over some of the other equipment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusbet
So I thought with the solar add-on, you get one 100 watt panel plus an extra group 27 battery. Is there another option available?
I'm not sure how to answer this one. I thought, like you, that you got one panel. I wanted to equip it with a 2nd battery and upgrade them to dry-cell. They then told me that it came equipped with two solar panels anyway. So, whether we got the 2nd panel because I bought the 2nd dry-cell battery, or if it comes with 2 panels any way, I really am not sure.