Community Forums

mamaloya · 04-08-2006, 09:35 AM

David,

All very good points. I did look at the Chateau. I like it. We saw a couple of those when we were looking for our current van and liked them. I did not know they had a special name. You are right about most conversions being the 150s or 1500s. I was on ebay and someone had taken a picture of the sticker of the 150. It said GVWR 7,000lbs. The hybrids I am looking at are are 4,600 and 5,500 GVWR. The gross dry wt of the 4,600lb one is 3,400. That leaves the ccc as 1,200. That is the fleetwood with the Q and D bunk ends and sofa bed and dinette sleepers. The othe ris the Jayco with one set of bunk beds and the dinette and sofa sleepers. I don't know the dry wt on that one off hand. The GVWR is a 900lb diff though. That is a lot.

The water tank on the fleetwood is 30 gal. That would be an added wt of 250lbs if full. We don't use the water tank on our popup currently. Not sure if we would use one on the TT either. Lots to think about. Thanks for the info.

Ivory Snatcher · 04-08-2006, 02:18 PM

I used to carry water in our holding tank, keeping it 1/2 or so full. The Hot water heater also carries 6 gallons. Now, if we are going on an extended trip, I carry one or two 2.5 gal. containers in the van with us. If we need water on the road, we have it. Sometimes we go with water in the fresh tank.

As I said last week, our Chateau has been very good. I have 3 seats in it now so we can carry a couch and some other big items to our son, who lives about 575 miles from us. This van is very flexible in use. But the maximum seating is 7.

A diesel would have cost about $5200 more and weighed about 550# more. You can get more HP and torque in the pick up trucks. The vans have an engine overheating/cooling problem with the higher output engines. Thus the new ones weren't rated as high for hp, torque, or carrying capacity.

Good luck.

Frank

RKamperRV · 04-09-2006, 01:45 AM

Trust me - once you have the TT amenities you will want to use them. We traveled all over this wonderful land towing our trailer with an E150 Chateau. It's a super experience. But, we had to replace the rear-end bearings 3 times. Ford checked the weight of our trailer against the capacity of the van on several occasions and always affirmed that we were not overloaded.

Plan ahead and get the heavier duty vehicle. The drive train on the 3/4 ton and 1 ton vans is beefier and should hold up better.

Once you have your tow-along facilities you will not want to be without them. We haven't used a rest stop bathroom since we bought our first TT. Carrying the extra water is worth it. We always travelled with ours full. Also, while travel camping, we only dumped our black water tank every 2 days.

mamaloya · 04-09-2006, 04:31 AM

That is one reason we want a TT. It seems our kids always have to go potty when we are miles and miles from any restroom. And then when you find one they are not always clean. We can pullover just about anywhere and let them go.

Another reason we are now considering a TT is that dh wants to go the the grand canyon and mt rushmore. We are in the east. That is a LONG trip. A conversion van and TT would make it MUCH easier. We are still hoping dh will get stationed at Ft. Carson near Denver though, but that could be a while. I told him I would make a cross country trip when our youngest was 4yo. Our youngest will be 3 next month. Until then, we will explore the east coast.

I am going to the dealer tomorrow to see what they have in hybrids. We may stop at a couple of places if we finish our lessons early enough.

I found a fleetwood hybrid with the 4 bunks in the back at a GVWR of 5,800. I like that the hybrid has the Q bed that folds/slides out. I like the feeling of being in a tent.

Does anyone here have a hybrid? I would like to talk with someone who has actually had one and see if they are the best of both worlds, or the worst of both worlds.