Considering a Class C...

[psadave46]

Where is the Dynamax Forum?

[n-e-d]

probably refering to Forest River owners forum http://www.forestriverforums.com/forums/f240/ Brian the GM moved from FR sunseeker to Dynamax. Was one of the reasons I have a Sunseeker now

[sthorinek]

December we purchased a Forest River Class C Sunseeker. It is well made. I had one glitch with the screen door when the handle broke. I wanted something the kids & Grandkids could travel in with us. We bought a 33 foot. I love it, it handles well. I never was as comfortable with our travel trailer. This is Shari writing. I have already taken it to Oregon and back home to Kansas. We are getting set up to pull a toad. I nicknamed my Trailblazer Toad. Mari'oh will pull Toad.

[shabti]

Check out Nexus RV. They are factory direct and there are many options to customize your coach. We purchased the Phantom 31P last Sept. and have been very happy with it. Good luck!

[TJFogelberg]

Try to attend the Hershey RV show in the fall if at all possible. There are many manufacturers with units on display. We did an exhaustive search before buying a Minnie Winnie 31D (2017). The 31D features a N-S 80" queen bed with nice storage in the bedroom. The dinnette is large and has big flat screen tv mounted above it at a nice viewing angle. Across from the dinette is a full length sofa in a slideout. The 3 slides are smaller (no full wall). Kitchen is upgraded with orian counters, convection microwave and 3 burner stove with folding glass cover and oven. The pantry and drawer space is unmatched in a C. Exterior storage includes rear pass through and more than adequate additional storage compartments. Bath is well appointed with stainless sink, large medicine chest, glass shower doors, and formica counters. Lots of drawer and counter space. The bedding and furniture is very comfortable.

Here is a link to a dealer video on the 31D

https://youtu.be/vXy0y842mDs

The fit and finish are very good on this unit, lots of attention to detail. Other features include ducted air, power awning with LED light strip, jacks, swivel front chairs, ext entertainment center. This RV was a tremendous value for the price paid! We can't wait to take her cross country to put the Ford V10 to the full test. We love the side mirrors and cameras!

[milkman55]

We just bought the Dynamax Isata 3 which is part of the Forest River group, but has its own facilities and paint shop. Their full body paint job is a work of art. The forum and the GM's involvement are all good resources. We looked for a couple of years before finally pulling the trigger last month.

The MB chassis and full wall slide give us plenty of room. Lots of standard features you don't see in competitive products.

[Ritchieg]

Originally Posted by hilgert

Here's our story...

We had a Forest River Rockwood Signature Ultralite trailer for several years...our first foray into RVing. While we liked it, we never wanted to pull it very far...just was a hassle, always dealing with sway, and the hookup/unhookup was a pain. With a motorhome (A or C), hooking/unhooking a towed vehicle takes about 2 minutes max (at least for us...we use the motorhome so often it's just part of the routine).

We traded it in and upgraded to a Class C...2017 Forest River Sunseeker...last year. We spent over a year looking at lots of Class A and Class C units. We almost pulled the trigger on diesel A's a couple of times, but we are not [yet] full timers...we like to camp every 2-3 weekends with a couple of week-long trips each year. We finally settled on a Class C since it seemed easier to get in/out of some of the smaller parks, etc. We decided on the Forest River Sunseeker since it was one of the higher end C's...I'm an engineer and fairly picky about design and construction, and this one hit all the marks.

I'm 6'2" tall, so we had to have a full queen (not a "camping queen") bed, a decent shower that I did not have to hunch over in, and we wanted a decent living area for TV, eating, etc., AND had to be high quality. All that combined removed about 90% of the C's we looked at. In the end we found a unit that hit all marks AND was what I considered to be a quality unit.

Another issue is that I did not to be limited to towing 5000 lbs...this unit can tow 7500 lbs because the frame is built for it (many C's don't have the beefy frame to support that much). Glad we did, as we just upgraded our tow to a 2017 F150 FX4...which is 5200 lbs curb weight. In total, with both coach and towed loaded to where we want, we are still about 2000 lbs under the GCWR (just for giggles I do a weight whenever we fuel at a station with CAT scales).

We paid about $20-25K more than units of the same size with less of what we want (either in features/layout, quality or towing capacity)...but if we'd purchased a unit that did not work for us then we would have regretted it every time we pulled it out (and likely would have used it less). As it turns out, we've put almost 8000 miles on it, and it's still less than a year old...both the wife and myself love driving it (and I *hate* driving generally).

So, in the end we paid more to get the C that we wanted, but paid way less than an A that we did not need. I smile every time I talk to folks with the big A's that rarely use them...what a waste of money.

Hope this helps...everyone has a different set of reasons.

Your story helps me out. I'm considering the Sunseeker myself and was wondering what size did you end up with. I think we are looking at 29 to 30 feet. I'm also considering the Winnebago Cambria because I really like the floor plan. It looks like most of them come with storage over the cab instead of a bunk and they come with a convection oven and use the space as storage instead of giving you a gas burning oven. It sounds like you did your research and being an engineer you probably know your stuff so how do you think quality of the Winnebago with me versus The Forest River Sunseeker
thanks
Ritchie

[hilgert]

Originally Posted by Ritchieg

Your story helps me out. I'm considering the Sunseeker myself and was wondering what size did you end up with. I think we are looking at 29 to 30 feet. I'm also considering the Winnebago Cambria because I really like the floor plan. It looks like most of them come with storage over the cab instead of a bunk and they come with a convection oven and use the space as storage instead of giving you a gas burning oven. It sounds like you did your research and being an engineer you probably know your stuff so how do you think quality of the Winnebago with me versus The Forest River Sunseeker
thanks
Ritchie

I can't speak to the quality of the Winnebago...we looked at a LOT of units, and I kind of lumped everything into "not my Sunseeker" after we bought it.

I can say that the Sunseeker seems to have a higher quality build than the other C's we looked at...the fit and finish just seem to be better. There are some nice touches that most other C's did not have. For example, my towing limit is 7500 lbs, not 5000 lbs (which seems more typical of C's that we looked at). The reason for this is that Forest River (on the Sunseekers at least) uses a heavy rear frame extension instead of the minimum needed. While this adds weight, it also gives the extra frame capacity to allow for towing heavier vehicles (like my F-150, which is 5500-6000 lbs depending on how I load it).

I did replace the factory-installed gas oven with a drawer (dealer ordered drawer to match from Forest River). Other units of the same model that came into the dealer after mine don't have the gas oven. We just use the factory-installed convection oven, and if we need to cook more than one oven can handle we can pull the countertop convection out (which we keep have in the storage bays).

The only notable defect I found was that they installed the TV antenna about 1 inch too close to the AC unit, such that the antenna touches the AC shroud when pointing it. As I am replacing it anyway with a better antenna at some point, and since I also added a Winegard Trav'ler DIRECTV dish, this was of no concern to me (I knew it from the pre-purchase inspection)...and we watch more satellite TV than local anyway.

I also did a Dometic Fridge Replacement with Residential Whirlpool...this was a major improvement. At some point I think you'll see this more often...residential units are much less expensive than RV units anyway, and they "hold the cold" much better.

The Sunseeker is very quiet...seems to be insulated very well, including the water tanks. I did use a bit of Dow Great Stuff to better plug a few holes here and there...nothing major. Also, the generator is located behind the driver seat, so when boondocking in a Walmart parking lot or rest stop overnight the noise is not bothersome for us.

[momdoc]

Milkman we have the same rig and love it. One of the reasons we purchased it over others was the quality of the finish work and the full wall slide. We have now taken it on a 8 week and a 13 week trip and are about to embark on a 4month one next month.


Our only problem is getting warrantee work done at a different dealer other than the one you purchased it at. We have been in contact with Dynamax directly and they have helped solve that situation.


momdoc