Community Forums

leber8tr · 02-11-2016, 10:17 AM

The legs of the bed can mar the floor surface. We lay a rectangular mat on The floor surface where contact with the bed legs meet. We have not had any surface marring using the mat (rug).

Karyl McC · 02-12-2016, 02:39 PM

Yes, as stated above by leber8tr, the bed can mar the floor. My husband put those thick felt pads for furniture feet on it. He used the long 'cut to length' type. No problem since.
Our dimmer switch is a sliding kind, not a turning knob. Our RV guy put it right beside the original light switch and it is in a 'twin' type plate. looks just like the original but has slots for both on/off toggle and dimming slider. We thought about a remote but figured that would be one more thing for us to lose! or forget where we put it. lol

Enjoy your new rig! SO exciting!

Karyl

glenbaker · 02-14-2016, 08:21 AM

So we picked up the rig yesterday and are taking it on a (very) short shake down trip. The first thing that's driving me nuts is the Pioneer AVIC-5100NEX unit. For the life of me I can't figure out how to turn it off other than to turn off the entire coach.
I have got to believe that somewhere there is a switch to run that thing off the car system rather than the house system, but for the life of me I can't find it

Is there a switch somewhere that I just can't see?

RobertBC · 02-14-2016, 12:50 PM

I have a question about the Villagio. Just started looking at it. I notice it has a 13,500 BTU AC/Heatpump as its standard and a 15,000 BTU is optional. On the Renegade Vienna, the 15,000 BTU is standard. Can anyone comment on the adequacy of the 15,000 BTU AC in hot weather? Also, has anyone added aftermarket HWH auto leveling jacks?

JimGraves · 02-14-2016, 10:38 PM

Actually the radio/GPS runs off the starter/cab battery not the house battery.

The way you turn it off is to press in and hold down the volume adjustment button on the left. After about 2-3 seconds it will go off completely.

Jim Graves
2015 Villagio QRS

Karyl McC · 02-15-2016, 04:00 AM

Bob, We live in NC but haven't done what I would consider extremely hot weather but have so far had no issues with comfort and we have the standard one. (I guess! We did not upgrade)
As for levelers, we have not found a need for them. We do carry leveling blocks and on a couple of occasions have used a couple under a wheel or 2 but nothing major. I would caution you with the HWH Levelers that they will add weight that cuts into your CCC. There is only so much weight that these engines/chassis can safely support without stressing the engine. This is our 3rd MB/Sprinter chassis -- the first being a B ...PleasureWay Plateau..that was light enough we never had weight issues, but the second was a Fleetwood Pulse (comparable to View/Navion in weight and build) and we constantly were concerned about what we put in that unit because it was a heavy unit and our CCC was not large. Some people did add these to their Pulse but they weight 500 pounds or more and while we really could have used them in that rig, we didn't feel we had any CCC to spare as it was, much less for something permanent like HWH's. One deciding factor for the Villagio for us was that it was built with lighter cabinetry components and other things that allow it a fairly high CCC. We travel for a few weeks at a time cross country, NC to OR to visit family, and CCC is extremely important to us. We boondock en route (water is heavy!) and we like to bring items back and forth (Oregon wines are heavy too!) Clothing for various climates we travel through adds weight as well. So CCC is a big deal for us. Plus, we plan on keeping the Villagio throughout retirement and want to take care of her. We don't need nor want levelers but others may have a different experience.

In fact, the Villagio is so stable, we rarely even put the stabilizers down. Don't need them.

Hope this helps!

Karyl

glenbaker · 02-15-2016, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimGraves

Actually the radio/GPS runs off the starter/cab battery not the house battery.

The way you turn it off is to press in and hold down the volume adjustment button on the left. After about 2-3 seconds it will go off completely.

Jim Graves
2015 Villagio QRS

Hmm...pretty sure mine runs off of either. If the radio is on but the key is removed from the ignition it still works, however if I turn off the house batteries the radio immediately powers down.

Thanks for the tip about the volume adjustment button, I'll give that a try this afternoon. I scoured the manual and the web for that information and couldn't find it anywhere...thanks!

..glen

glenbaker · 02-15-2016, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karyl McC

(Oregon wines are heavy too!)
Karyl

What?? Wine? Don't you know we're the beer capital of the United States? Every time I leave Portland I feel like I need to bring my own supply just to survive what the rest of the country calls "beer" (hint: if it has the word "Lite" in it it's not beer!)

leber8tr · 02-15-2016, 11:03 AM

The A/C unit has worked well for us most of the time. The A/C unit keeps the interior at the selected temperature with shore power or Generator power. Blocking light from entering the cabin is necessary. With all the glass, insolation causes rapid heat build up. Keep the glass covered.
We had a strange problem. The thermostat constantly read a high interior cabin temperature. I believe it showed 85° and my sense was the interior temperature was much lower. A portable thermometer indicated an interior temperature of 75°. The cause of the erroneous temperature reading was the wall mounted thermostat's temperature sensor was not insulated from the heat generated by the refrigerator unit's plumbing and was sensing the heat from inside the wall. A bit of insulation behind the thermostat isolated the sensor and I've not had any more issues.

Karyl McC · 02-15-2016, 05:11 PM

We have had this same problem and my husband Jim had this plan as well. How did you insulate? There re wires coming out from back behind the thermostat. Thanks!
Karyl McC

Quote:

Originally Posted by leber8tr

The A/C unit has worked well for us most of the time. The A/C unit keeps the interior at the selected temperature with shore power or Generator power. Blocking light from entering the cabin is necessary. With all the glass, insolation causes rapid heat build up. Keep the glass covered.
We had a strange problem. The thermostat constantly read a high interior cabin temperature. I believe it showed 85° and my sense was the interior temperature was much lower. A portable thermometer indicated an interior temperature of 75°. The cause of the erroneous temperature reading was the wall mounted thermostat's temperature sensor was not insulated from the heat generated by the refrigerator unit's plumbing and was sensing the heat from inside the wall. A bit of insulation behind the thermostat isolated the sensor and I've not had any more issues.

Karyl McC · 02-15-2016, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glenbaker

What?? Wine? Don't you know we're the beer capital of the United States? Every time I leave Portland I feel like I need to bring my own supply just to survive what the rest of the country calls "beer" (hint: if it has the word "Lite" in it it's not beer!)

We agree with you and microbrews have definitely found their way back home to NC. We are lucky here in that Asheville NC has become a big microbrew center and they are very very good! If you ever find yourself in NC, worth the trip there plus a great city (almost Oregonian!) however we have more and more microbreweries here all the time and so not transporting much anymore.

leber8tr · 02-15-2016, 07:24 PM

We used a small ball of yellow fiberglass insulation in the hole behind the thermostat. It did not require much.

Karyl McC · 02-16-2016, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leber8tr

We used a small ball of yellow fiberglass insulation in the hole behind the thermostat. It did not require much.

Thanks! Should be a quick fix.

glenbaker · 02-16-2016, 09:00 AM

We're continuing the shake down of the new rig. Everything looks pretty good except for the following hopefully minor issues:

Chassis battery is bad and won't hold charge. It doesn't seem to charge off of the generator (checked with a voltmeter) but it does seem as if there is a trickle charger at work if it's plugged into shore power (battery voltage veeeery slowly rises).
Every 10 minutes the main LCD display in the dash beeps and displays "25d" with a wrench (actually 25d, then 26d, then 27d incrementing every day). I'm assuming that this means the rig thinks it's 25/26/27 days overdue for service.
No way to connect house battery to chassis battery to handle the dead chassis batter Since the rig is brand new we didn't have jumper cables with us. Hello triple A (and thanks!) (and now we have jumper cables)
No way to turn off the installed A/V center without disconnecting house battery (tried the hold-the-volume switch thing, only thing that happened was the volume changed ). Our old rig used to have a switch that allowed us to run the radio off of either the chassis or house, doesn't seem to be the case here. Acts like they have it connected to both (which would be kind of bad because that would tie the battery rails together through a rather small gauge wire unless they've got proper diode isolation in the circuitry).
One screen was the wrong size and was just kind of jammed in place. Kind of funny actually, it clearly doesn't fit yet somebody obviously left it there and hoped it wouldn't be noticed?

All pretty minor stuff on something this complicated, and all easily addressed except for the 1 hour drive from my house to the dealer! And all of that aside, the rig drives excellently and we're looking forward to our first real outing.