- This week on the RV podcast, - Are you having trouble seeing the road while you're driving at night? Well, it could be that your headlights need aligning. We'll learn about this in the interview of the week. - There's a lot of controversy about excessive frame flex and fifth wheels these days. We'll answer those concerns and our questions of the week segment, - How to save money with all those road toll free fees across the country that you have to pay.
Our RV Lifestyle community shares some tips. - All this and much more coming up in episode 4 92 of the RV Podcast. - Hello everybody, I'm Mike Winland, and this is my lifelong traveling companion. And my bride Jennifer, who's under the weather, and she's got me semi under the weather . We've been passing a cough and a runny nose and a virus back and forth for how long now? Oh, - Over a couple weeks. Yeah, - . So we're both on the same medicine. And, uh, we'll see if that, uh, clears us up.
Wanna remind you that you can watch the video version of this podcast, of course, on our RV lifestyle YouTube channel. And, uh, the audio version is available through all of the favorite podcast apps out there. Or you can listen, uh, on the RV lifestyle.com web blog as well. Uh, we hope that you are enjoying the RV podcast and that you find value in the content that we're producing every week.
Uh, we strive to create episodes that inform and entertain and inspire our community of RV enthusiasts like yourself. If you've been enjoying our podcast and if you find it helpful, would you do us a favor and take a moment and leave us a review. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to Jen and me and it helps others discover our show. And if you feel we deserve a five star rating, we'd be grateful for your support.
Your positive review not only motivates us to keep improving, but it also assists fellow RV enthusiasts for finding quality content. Thank you guys so much for being a part of our podcast community and we appreciate your support. - Well, what did you think of the eclipse? A lot of our views sure. Watched it. - Well, we did. Uh, and, um, blah , we are in, uh, Southwest Michigan.
And, uh, I thought I read that we were supposed to have a 90%, uh, blockage of the sun, but all it did is get a little bit dimmer. - It felt like you had sunglasses on. - Yeah, it felt, yeah, when you put sunglasses on in a bright day, that's kind of what it felt like. We have, uh, some Canada geese and a couple different species of ducks that are nesting in, uh, uh, our backyard, uh, and a lake we have back there. And, um, we, uh, have had some fun watching them, but didn't do anything.
We heard wildlife was going to be disrupted and that just didn't happen. So, uh, whatever, uh, we had fun, uh, with the eclipse, but it, uh, didn't seem much here in Michigan there. I know a lot of you all over the country watched it. Uh, we drove through that zone of totality along I 65 in India, Indiana, uh, over the weekend. And we saw a lot of RVs. - Oh man, campgrounds, harvest hosts and state parks were filled. Farmers were running out their fields for parking.
And all along in I 65 in Indiana, roadside signs warning of big traffic jams after the event, urging people to stay put, it's, uh, been estimated that, uh, one quarter of all eclipse tourists are our vs. And that excitement, you can just kind of feel it in the air. - Yeah, everybody, um, not so much here in this part of southwest Michigan. Um, campgrounds within the path of totality in the north, uh, opened early. They normally don't open till about mid-April or the end of April.
And they were all open. Uh, we tried to get some reservations in Indiana for Saturday night, two days before the, the eclipse, and they were all filled. Um, same with harvest hosts in the area, uh, and across the country. Campgrounds, uh, were fully booked - Clubs in various groups held rallies.
Airstream Club International members, for example, held nine rallies along the path that then others were dry camping in places like Harvest host Boondockers, welcome farmers fields, and church parking lots. All along the path, New York, Texas and other state parks were sold out for weeks. And it was the talk in both our RV lifestyle community and our RV lifestyle Facebook group.
- Now, Jennifer and I just got home from three months of traveling, so, uh, we decided to stick this one out on our 10 acre Michigan property. Uh, we watched it from the back deck with Bo, um, but we were, I guess, too far off the path. Uh, uh, it was kind of fun, but it was just partial dimming of the sun. And, uh, we brought our fifth wheel back to Michigan after keeping it on our Tennessee property for the past three months.
- And we have a busy camping season throughout the Great Lakes Region Plan for the next couple of months. If you're curious about our day-to-Day activities, we share regular updates and photos on our rapidly growing RV lifestyle community. And - You can find that@community.rvlifestyle.com. Um, and this community is completely separate from Facebook. It now has over 10,000 members, and if you haven't become a part of it, uh, just again, go over to community dot rv lifestyle.com.
It's warm, it's welcoming, very friendly. 20 different special interest spaces devoted to various aspects of the RV - Lifestyle. - Uh, programming note will be on Amazon Live this - Week, and that'll be Thursday night at 7:00 PM And we're kind of excited about this. Uh, we hope to get back to a regular schedule on Amazon Live. Um, the Thursday night, uh, 7:00 PM Eastern Time will, I'll be showing demoing 25 must have camping products for the new season. Those are a lot of fun.
They're like our ask us anything except I get to show and tell cool camping gear. And, uh, that is pretty, uh, pretty much fun. Uh, that's one programming note. - And, uh, we start our six part series on class bvs - Saturday. This Saturday it starts. And we just drove and camped and tested out the leading camper vans out there. - And, uh, it was great, great fun. We, uh, tested class bvs on three different chassis in two wheel all wheel and four by four chassis.
And the video reviews will start on Saturday, April 13th and be released each day for five days next week. And then, - Then on Saturday we're gonna do a part six and we'll kind of go over what we liked best and our overall impressions and, uh, is a Class B in our life again. Are we gonna have one of those coming up? Uh, you can find out all of that stuff. Um, best way to not miss any of our videos is to just subscribe to our YouTube channel.
It's youtube.com/rv lifestyle youtube.com.com/rv lifestyle. Alright, when we come back, we've got the social media buzz with, uh, Wendy Boyer and lots, lots more. So stay with us. - The one thing that can ruin a perfect RV trip is a bad mattress. And believe us, we know over the years we've tried many and we have found them all wanting until now. - Now we sleep on the RV mattress by Brooklyn Bedding. Quite simply, it's the best we've ever slept on.
- We chose a queen size aurora luxe medium firm mattress that arrived tightly rolled in a box. All we did was put it on the bed, unroll it, and wait for it to recover from the compression. Then we put on the sheets and the bed covers and found we slept so well that we ordered another one for our home. - That's how comfortable it is. Our sleep is now so luxurious and deep that we can't imagine using a different - Mattress.
Shipping is free. If you're disappointed with the current mattress in your rv, you owe it to yourselves to try the RV mattress by Brooklyn Bedding. - Brooklyn Bedding sends out all of their RV mattresses from their own factory in Arizona. This means they're able to use premium materials at a reasonable price for you. With no middleman bringing up the - Cost. Don't miss out on the best sleep of your life. Visit rv mattress.com/rv lifestyle.
- Welcome back. And now it's time for the social media buzz with Wendy Boyer. Wendy reports on the hot issues most talked about this past week on social media and our RV Lifestyle Community Group. - Here's Wendy. - Hi, everybody. Over in our RV lifestyle community in the campground space. We recently had a question from Audra. She asked, who knows about toll roads? If I end up on a toll road, will they bill me later or do I need to get a pass ahead of time?
So it turns out Audra's from Arizona where there aren't any toll roads. And she's planning a trip in her RV where she's gonna encounter some. So she's trying to get prepared and she got some great information. Randall told her toll roads will bill her later. They read your license plate and send you a bill, but the smart thing to do is get a pass ahead of time. And he suggested open roads. He said, the pass can save you like 30% on toll roads costs.
And he gave an example from his state in North Carolina where to drive this one segment of the road without a pass. The cost was a dollar 13 per segment, but then it drops down to 45 cents per segment with this toll road pass. So, good, good tip there. And Bud and Sue, they're also from Arizona. And they said, you know, we weren't prepared for these toll roads on a recent trip we took. So we just drove through and they got a bill six months after they drove the road.
So nobody wants a bill that late after a trip. So again, good information on that thread. Also, in our RV lifestyle community, in the mods and DYI tweak space, Randy wrote today's project was to make a laminated cutting board insert for our new, our new sink in our Outlook 31 C. And then Randy showed a picture of this cutting board he made, and it was so sharp, it had stripes in it, different color wood just fit snugly in that sink.
Gave he and his wife some more counter space, had a little hole to make it easy to lift it. Um, lots of people admired his work and thought he did a great job. So thanks for sharing that, Randy. And then I have to tell you a story about something that was shared in our RV lifestyle Facebook group. This post was from Becky that I'm gonna tell you about. And it was last I checked, viewed 5,060,675 times by different people and we're talking thousands of comments and tens of thousands of likes.
So what did Becky write about? Well, she started out saying that she had been reading some posts on the Facebook group about people kind of complaining about people's kids cutting through their, um, spot or a dog that won't stop barking or maybe a person's heaters going off. And she just felt led to write a different type of post that was about giving people grace.
Um, the first story she told about was when she was camping near a hospital and somebody pulled in, it's pouring around, just miserable. And he parked in her spot, maybe six feet over the line, really close to her picnic table. And it, he hooked up and then she was talking to him and she took her dog out and he's apologizing, says, I'll move it as soon as the rain stops. And she told him, you know, don't worry about it. 'cause he was only there two nights to visit a sick aunt in a hospital.
And so she just said, don't worry about it, you're only here two nights. She was there 30 nights to visit her dad and who was getting nursing care. And they became great friends sharing over this combined difficult time. And then the other story she told about Hap was this something that happened to her, um, at another campground just a few months ago. She said, she's there and this couple pull in and the man gets out his motorcycle and revs it up.
He is making all this noise, revving it up for probably an hour. And then finally he stops and later they start, they meet and they start talking. And it turns out this is their last camping trip. This couples, the man has stage four cancer. They're there to say, literally say goodbye to his kids and grandkids. Um, who knows if that was his last motorcycle ride? You know, she said she was tearing up just typing this. And, um, so she just kind of gave the point.
She said she was so happy she didn't go out there and start yelling at 'em. I, you know, it sounds like they were really nice people just maybe shouldn't have been so loud with their motorcycle. And her point was, you know, let's just kind of give each other some grace. You never know what the next guy's going through. And she's like, we got our health. We have enough money to camp. And that was her post.
And again, thousands, millions of people shared it and read it and saw it, and thousands upon thousands of responses. And, um, lots of people really appreciated it. And my favorite comments were several that said, the world needs more Becky's. And I think I have to agree with that. Um, so that's it for me this week. I'm Wendy Bower and I'll see you over in our RV lifestyle community or Facebook group.
- Don't you love it when people are handy and they can are handy with tools and they can make that cutting board to fit over the sink and a couple little holes to pick it up and move it around. I know I appreciate it when an RV comes already with that board, but if you don't have one, I bet you can get one made. Yeah. - Well it's interesting to watch everybody share all the tweaks they do.
And of course, uh, the RV lifestyle community and our RV lifestyle Facebook group as Wendy reports every weekend, a podcast, uh, that's the place to go for that kind of help and information. Alright, have you noticed it's a little more challenging to drive at night? It's a little blurrier. Things aren't as clear as they used to be. Some of that has to do with age, but a lot of it has to do with, uh, poorly aligned headlights on your tow vehicle or your motor home.
When we come back, we're gonna talk about what you need to know about headlights for your RV or tow vehicle. Jennifer and I bought - Some land near Nashville, Tennessee a while back. We got tired of crowded expensive campgrounds and worrying about reservations. Tennessee is a gorgeous state with friendly people, and it has been such a pleasure coming up on April 13th, the same developer has some new property near us, close to the Natchez Trace and Buffalo River called the Reserve.
At High Forest, big properties, five to 41 acres. You can build a house, a cabin or rv. Year round prices start at only $89,900. Your property, your way 100% ownership. The scenery in this part of Tennessee is breathtaking and the property is gorgeous. Garden landscape, bring your pets, build what you want. There's high speed fiber optic internet, and it is so private and great place to make your home base ready whenever you want it. They're selling these on April 13th by appointment.
Five to 41 acre properties from $89,900. There's even great financing. Check out the site and a video tour@rvlands.net. That's rv lands.net. - Alright, welcome back time now for the RV interview of the week. Well, - All of us are getting older and as we age, one thing that often becomes more difficult is seeing the road at night. That is why making sure your motor home or your truck's headlights are properly aligned is so important. Just ask us how we know and making sure you are doing that.
All you can do to see that road is key. And our guest is here to help us figure it out. - He is Mike Sokol, and Mike has been on the program before. He knows everything there is to know about RV electricity. And, um, Mike has been challenged by, uh, trying to figure out how you align, uh, the headlights on an rv, uh, motor home or a, uh, tow vehicle. And he's, uh, an expert on all this stuff along with, uh, LED lights.
And he's gonna give us kind of a 10,000 foot overview of what you need to do to see better at night. Well, joining us right now is Mike Sole and welcome back to the podcast. Mike, how have you been? - Uh, doing great. Spring has sprung. This is good stuff. - Yes. Uh, it is. Best time of year. Well, anything other than snow right now. Uh, hey, I have a question for you.
And it, it, it current sort of, uh, similar questions that we've had over the past few months from people, and that is that they're, um, headlights on their vehicles don't seem to be aligned. Right? Or they're not bright enough and they're not sure what they can do about it. Most of these are, are people who are in motor homes, class C, class B motor homes, and I think one even was a, was a Class A. So we've never done any, uh, program on headlights before.
And I know in the Funks Worth, uh, studio there where you, uh, do all your testing you have. So let's talk about headlights for motor homes and I guess tow vehicles too. - Yes. So what, go ahead. Anything you wanna know - Where it gets kind of out of sync or out of alignment? You know, it seems like one headlight's going in one way or it's shining up or down. What's that problem? What - Causes that? Okay, so, so first off, the, you know, you have two issues.
First, it, it, sometimes it seems like it's dim to you, and then it can be overly bright and blinding other drivers, you know, so both situations are bad because you can't see, they can't see, right? Um, and so I guess the, the, the, the real issue becomes, uh, you really should be aiming your headlights if anything has been done in terms of replacing bulbs, replacing headlight assemblies. Some people just pop in a bulb and hope that it's good enough.
And most of the time it, it is not good enough with this. Um, back when I was a young pup, you know, back in the seventies working at a gas station, I used to do headlight alignments in the seventies. I don't know of any gas stations to do. Well, gas stations, all they do is they sell food. They don't actually work on anything anymore. Um, so yeah, it really is a matter of alignment.
One of the issues with a large motor home is the fact that I don't think there's a lot of shops that are really equipped. So you can do this yourself if you've got a place to do it. It's not that terribly hard as long as you follow the steps. - Well, let's, let's talk about two different types of, you say bulbs. Uh, right? So the, the, the hottest, newest stuff is are still LED bulbs, right? That's we're seeing in the new thing.
When did they start showing up and what motor, people probably don't even know whether they have LED lights or not. - They may not know they're, they're optional. I, I'm mostly familiar with tow vehicles, but, um, they're, they, and, but if you have like a class B, if you have a sprinter, uh, chassis, uh, in the last three or four years, they've been optional in terms of this since this is what we call the projector headlights.
So if you look at it and it looks like you've got like little round guys like that, um, it's most likely LED. You can look it up, look up your VIN on this thing and find out if you have them. Um, LEDs are bluer, like more bright colored. They're not yellowish, they're more blue colored kind of a thing. Um, and they tend to give you, if they're done in the right housing, they give you like a real defined cutoff line, uh, on the top, like a real dark shadow as opposed to kind of a, a blurry light.
LEDs are very popular. You can go anywhere and find them. However, get this, if you just go stick them in your rv, uh, no matter what it is, it is no longer DOT compliant compliant. That is, department of Transportation says it's not legal to put an LED light into a standard reflector headlight assembly in the United States. Your vehicle won't pass inspection if you do this. - So , okay, so when it, when should somebody get an LED light?
- Okay, so here's, - I'm just driving down and I'm if if my, if it's a little fuzzy, I'm not seeing as far as I'm looking, it's not lined up right. What, when do I know? Is that the sign? - Yeah. Well, the sign, the sign is this, oh. So for instance, all of us, as we get older, um, we start to lose our night vision. And so this is a normal progression. There's also a physical thing.
If you go look at the front of your headlights and you see that they're kind of filmed over, if you've driven 50,000 miles in your vehicle, those plastic covers over your headlights will maybe look scratched up. That's one thing that creates a lot of this fuzziness and dimness. You can get pretty inexpensive kits, 20, 30 bucks that'll allow you to refinish that and smooth that out. So that's one thing that will help. Um, and - Where, where do you get these kits
at? Auto supply stores, - You can get 'em, but almost any auto zone, whatever. I I, I sent you a link there to look at one of these. They're, they're, um, - We'll put links by the way, for everybody's just listening and trying to take notes. We'll put links in our description below, - We'll put links in there, right? Yeah. And, and I'm sorry, I'm a technical guy.
I do this all the time, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to get this, my basic thing, my, the reason why I got interested in this, um, I have what's called normal tension glaucoma. And so, you know, I've had my eyeballs cut apart and re-plumb while I was awake, which I don't recommend for anybody to do. Ooh. But I have a dimness at night. And so what I'm trying to do is prolong the, my ability to drive into the dus or even summit at night. I don't like doing it much anymore.
And that was my hint to go do this. Everything started looking dimmer. Okay? And so, and then I started noticing these b bluer headlights coming at me, right? And you can see there's yellowish ones. Yeah. Which are the tongues stint, right? And then these, these bluish ones, which are the LED. Now, some people just pop 'em in and they think it's funny when they're blinding you. I don't think it's funny at all.
But if you're having trouble noticing the edge of the road looking like you've got no contrast, it could be your eyes and it could be that you need a little bit more headlight punch. And that is you get something that's a little wider in color, something that we call higher color temperature. Plus you now can adjust them so they throw better on the road. Your headlights could just be completely out of alignment. Now - Let's, let's talk about the alignment thing.
Can, can people fix that themselves? You said that you don't have to go to a dealer. How, how big of a job is that? Well, how do you know how to do it? - How do you know how to do it? Well, first off, I'm, I'm, I'm creating a series an, an article series and a video myself. I've seen a, uh, a number of websites that have got some pretty good videos, but they're not really oriented towards people that are doing towing. These are guys that are, you jack up their trucks and do crazy stuff, right?
Uh, you need to have at least 25 feet from the nose of your vehicle to like a wall, a white wall, or a light colored wall in front of you in order to do the alignment.
Um, then it's a matter of putting on some painter's tape in the right, you know, you, you pull up to this thing and, and I'm working on a, a series that shows, you know, you basically do a, um, a couple of horizontal lines, a couple vertical lines, and then you back up so many feet, you're, there's a couple of screws that you can get to with any of these to align 'em up and down and sideways. And then you back up, and then you're starting to look at the pattern.
I sent you a couple pictures that show you the basic pattern that you're trying to get. It's, it's not terribly complicated once you see, once you see it done, but you gotta have the room to do this. So if you got a 40 foot RV , you, you gotta make sure you can back that thing up so that your nose is 25 feet away from a wall. - Now we're gonna send them to your site and we'll put that link below, but, uh, save somebody looking it up, tell us where they go.
Give us your address, your, your website, right? - Okay. Go to, to go to my rv electricity.substack.com. Okay. So, and one word, RV electricity.substack.com. And I have a, a daily, um, newsletter that I do out of that. Um, I've written a couple articles about, I'm studying all of this, how to do it sort of thing, but, uh, as it's getting nice out, guess what?
I'm gonna actually do it. Take pictures, show people the, the how it works, and I'm gonna see if I can find a few brave people around here in my area that let me do this on their motor homes. Won't that be fun? Good. - That'll be alright. So they, that's why they can find them now. Yeah. Um, so the average person can do this, and I would assume, talk to me a little bit about LED lights.
Something you said, uh, concerned me when you said you just can't pop out your existing bulb and put in an LED bulb, right? Uh, who can do that? Or do you have to upgrade the, the assembly that it fits into? - Okay, the gold standard is to upgrade the assembly, and that's what I'm, I'm gonna do, I have a 2020 F-150 that I use as my tow vehicle. Um, it has what we call the reflector headlights of the, you kind of kind of see like the big openings on them.
Um, what I'm doing is I'm looking at LED projector bulbs. Now that's not cheap. That's about a thousand bucks for the pair of those headlights. And I'm not sure, even if they're available for most motor homes. The real thing is if you just go to LED bulbs, there's cheap ones and then there's expensive ones. The cheap ones are almost impossible to align. So if you get these for 30 bucks a piece, guess what? You're never gonna be able to get these properly aligned.
A quality one is more on the order of 75 to a hundred dollars a piece. You might pay $200 for a pair of proper LED bulbs that can be aligned, that will pass inspection. But if you, if you just go get the, you don't go price shopping on this stuff. Um, I, I found a a, there's an awful lot of sites out there.
They're junk. The other thing that you've gotta worry with some of them, the, the ones my kids put in my truck for me, my, my little Nissan, um, they generate a lot of high frequency RF noise. So basically when you turn your lights on, your radio doesn't work anymore. - Really? , - Who knew? Who knew? Um, of course I'm an RF guy as opposed and, and, and also an audio guy. So I'm looking at this, I'm going, oh, I see.
So you need something that a actually is rated that it has low art radio interference and you won't have something if you have a modern vehicle, it has to provide the proper loads because your computer in your vehicle is saying, I think my headlights out because it's not drawing enough current. Right? Guess what? It's LED lights. So sometimes by putting them in, it will go ahead and tell your computer that your headlights are out or your taille lights are out or whatever.
So again, you just don't go, just pop these in arbitrarily. You have to do a little research first. - Now, if you're buying a new vehicle, a tow vehicle or a motor home, um, you should be able to get this. And it's an option you say, to get the LED, - Many of them. So for instance, in the 2020 F1 fifties, um, it could either, um, it could either have the older tungsten type or it could have an LED.
Sadly, mine had the, um, the tungsten type my wife's card, and she's got a, uh, this little Kia Sorrento, guess what? She's got the ILED bulbs. Her headlights are great. I've got a great comparison. Get in her car, I can see everything. Get in my truck. It's like, Ooh, that's not so good.
- It, it sounds to me, Mike, that if I had a, a, a motor home, uh, and I had the tungsten bulbs, I'm better off replacing those in terms of, uh, and aligning those than getting LED at that ex, because they're so expensive. - Yeah, you are. And Venia and a few of these others companies make these high output tungsten bulbs that should be very easy to align.
Um, one of the disadvantages when you have a brighter light like we do in projectors, um, like remember, remember the old overhead projectors and all that kind of stuff back in, back in the day, um, those don't have as long a lifespan as an LED. So you might end up replacing that bulb in a couple of years, depending on how much you drive at night. But - At a thousand bucks a pop for a set, um, I can afford to do that with a T, - But probably so, probably so.
Yeah. And, and again, you know, what happens is a lot of these more Moto and these other companies that make these LED headlight assemblies, they're doing 'em for fashion because, you know, they're jet black and they've got all these things that blink and they've got, this is kids that wanna make their truck look distinctive. I don't care if people are impressed when I'm coming, I just wanna see where I'm going. - That's the way we all are.
Well, Mike, you've really helped us on a problem that I think a lot of us, uh, yeah, there's not a lot of information about this stuff out there. So we're gonna send everybody to RV electricity. Do sub sub stack.com and, and again, that link will be in the descriptions below. Um, you are, as always a very well guest here in the podcast as we understand things about RV electricity, you are Mr. rv, electricity, , anything else you're up to these days.
Everybody ought to know about, - Oh, I'm doing a bunch of, uh, information on upgrading to lithium batteries and solar panels. I'm doing deep, deep dives in that, which I think is just so fascinating because again, you can go anywhere and just buy a lithium battery and pop it in. But guess what? You really have to consider a lot of different things before you just drop in a lithium battery. - Yeah, we've been saying that for years.
You got the inverter, the charger, the wiring, the harness, uh, just on, I don't wanna go off on a tangent on that or maybe we'll get you back. Are, is lithium ever gonna come down in price? There's still a thousand bucks a battery. - Well, they're coming. No, no, no. They're coming down a, they're coming down a good bit. They are, they are steadily falling, but what's happening is they're getting bigger and bigger. So it used to be, you know, a hundred amp hour as big as you can get.
I have 200 amp hour batteries. Two hundreds. Yeah. I've got a 400 amp hour battery in, in my little Geo pro. Uh, so people are cramming more and more of them in there. Uh, they are coming down in price. Although I will warn you though, that if you go just by the cheapest one that you could find, it may not have the correct battery management system, the correct BMS. And that's when these things catch on fire.
- Yeah. And, and that's, those are really, those are the cheapies and there's a lot of them out there. So stay, they're everywhere. A good brand. Alright, well, we'll get back to that one on a separate interview, but, uh, always interesting and, uh, I appreciate so much you're spending some time with this Mike. So-called RV electricity.substack.com. Mike, thanks for being on the podcast. - Okay, thanks Mike, very much.
- And if that's a little more than your skill level, uh, I'm sure you can find somebody that can do it for you, an RV repair person, because that's something that we just don't think of, but man, when those lights are right, - I remember our very first motor home, which was a class B road track, we bought a used one and it was kind of cockey. Do you remember that headline? Oh, those - Lights. You couldn't see a - Thing. And every time I drove down the road, somebody was flashing their lights.
They were mad at me and mine were on dim, but it was, the headlight was aligned and I took it to, uh, I don't even remember where I took it. I think I just took it to a regular RV service, uh, bay. And they had it all fixed up for me. And what a difference it made. So - That's something not everybody thinks about their headlights. Yeah. - Glad Mike. So-called did. And thanks Mike for sharing your expertise with us on the podcast. RV News of the week is coming up right after this.
- We just heard about a land offering out west for RVs in Arizona. They're selling five acre RV ranches, starting at only $49,900. The company offering it is affiliated with the people Jennifer and I bought our Tennessee property from. They do a great job. It looks amazing. It is at high elevation, so you get cooler temperatures, big mountain views, juniper trees, and green grasses. And it is near everything. The Grand Canyon Lake Havasu, Kingman, Flagstaff, and Sedona.
It's a perfect place to have a home base to explore the west, and it is right off Famous Route 66. It's called Greenwood Ranches. And this is the second and final section of the community. We met the sales manager, really nice guy. He bought a property for his rv and he's building a container home on it. Check out their website for a video tour and showing availability. It's pretty incredible. Visit the website to get details and set up a showing Arizona RV land.net. That's Arizona RV land.net.
- Welcome back time now for the RV News of the week. And what do we got this week? Okay, - This week numar is the latest RV manufacturer to lay off employees, citing decreased customer demand, dealers, inventory levels, and other business considerations. We were not able to find the exact number of employees laid off at, uh, Nu Mar's, Indiana site that, but as, uh, interest rates stay high and the economy remains uncertain. Many people are postponing expensive RV purchases
and the industry it's failing. It. - It's not just Numar. There have been, uh, production adjustments. That's the way the industry likes to talk about it when it goes down or they have to cancel shifts or layoff people. Uh, it's being felt all across the, uh, the industry. - And, uh, Numar is a luxury motor home maker that was purchased by Winnebago Industries in 2019. And Winnebago has been in the news recently for falling profits and, uh, sales - And many others.
Forest River announced, uh, it was laying off 83 employees in February. Uh, Keystone RV has, uh, cut back on some of its production. Um, the industry's hoping for an upturn with, uh, the suspected interest rate cuts. But you know, we, I read a story the other day, uh, in a reliable publication. I don't remember where now, but, uh, it said that food inflation is up 40%. Wow. - I - Believe it. Yeah, I mean, you just notice at the grocery store.
So, uh, people are skittish no matter what the government says about how great the economy people are, definitely skiddish. Just ask any RV salesman. So, um, that's what, uh, what you'll find out. Uh, if you're shopping for a new rv, we got news for you. - It's a buyer's market. - Yeah. Hey, uh, if you are in Arizona, anywhere near Saguaro National Park, the giant Saguaro Cactus, um, keep an eye, uh, out for any fox that you may encounter and then keep a lot of distance.
National Park Service reporting three separate fox attacks on people who've been hiking along the Hugh Norris Trail. Uh, in that park, uh, the hikers in each case were able to fight off the fox, uh, two of them with trekking poles. And then Friday, that same fox approached a park service officer, and, uh, they euthanized it . That's the way they, they shot it . And, uh, his body was sent for rabies testing.
All three victims of the Fox attack are being treated for rabies, but it's always good to remind folks of bats and raccoons and fox and skunks, or all animals that can be infected with rabies. Um, so if in your travels you encounter an animal that's unusually aggressive or seems to have no fear of humans, or just acts unusual, keep your distance. - And, uh, this is a sad story. A woman who was riding in a moving airstream was killed after winds opened the trailer door and she fell out.
The woman, the woman you, are you okay? - I'm sorry. Yeah. Uh, you gotta pick it up. This is a tragic story. A woman died over the weekend. - This is a tragic story. A woman died over the weekend after she fell out of her moving Airstream travel trailer. After the camper door swung open, the trailer was being pulled by a ram pickup truck. And strong winds were blamed for causing the Airstream door to swing open.
The woman, a well-known physician from Long Island was traveling with her husband and family in Brownsville, New York. And they were only about 20 minutes away from their home when this tragic a accident happened, and our hearts go out to this family - In some places. It is, um, uh, against the law to ride in, uh, a trailer, um, that's being towed. Um, it is not safe. This was a freak accident. Uh, it was tragic. Uh, they, they, I read the accounts of it.
They said that the wind opened it and she was hanging onto the trailer door and it opened and people on the highway saw it and she lost her, her grip and just, uh, our hearts go out to the family. But, uh, just be careful out there. Uh, things can happen and they can happen. Very quick. We got two RV questions of the week coming up, and one was gonna dig into probably one of the more controversial topics out there in the RV world. And that has to do with something called Excessive Frame Flex.
What's that about? Is that something you have to be worried about? If you have a fifth wheel, we'll talk about that and more when the questions of the week return after this, - When we're asked, what's the most important modification we made to our rv, it's an easy answer. Battle borne batteries. Battle borne batteries are quality, safe, reliable lithium batteries that allow us to stay out there off the grid longer. Lithium batteries charge faster.
They charge fuller, they're longer lasting, they're maintenance free. And battle borne batteries are protected by a 10 year guarantee. Now in our case, they just dropped into the existing a GM batteries that we have, and they'll probably be the same on your rig too. Battleborn battery experts can get those in your rig just like they did with ours. They can also match you up with the right cabling, the inverter, the charger, the solar controller, everything.
Jennifer and I swear by our battle born batteries, they allow us to boondock off the grid. Check 'em out. Go to rv lifestyle.com/lithium rv lifestyle.com/lithium - Time now for the RV questions of the week. And we wanna remind you that we'd love getting your questions and we love getting your comments. Our personal email address is Mike and jen@rvlifestyle.com. You got our first - Question.
I certainly do. We just bought a 12-year-old meticulously kept class CRVI have been told online that many, uh, parks won't let us camp there because our rig is over 10 years old. Is this true? We are, we're very worried. We made a mistake. That's Darrell and Tracy. - Um, don't believe everything you see online. Darrell and Tracy . Uh, and don't stress about this.
If, if your rig, it was meticulously maintained as you said, uh, and if it looks good and it's clean, you should have no issues at all. Now, some RV parks mostly, uh, commercial parks, uh, do indeed have that 10 year rule, but it is applied very discretionally, uh, with a lot of discretion. RV parks, they don't want this decrepit looking, poorly maintained RVs. Um, so if your Class C looks and runs good, uh, we can't imagine you having any problem at all.
And, uh, we've not heard of this at any state parks or government parks. Uh, only some of the, uh, uh, the more high end, uh, commercial parks have that rule. Um, but I wouldn't worry in your case. Sounds like you've got a great looking Class C and hope you got a great price on it and hope you have a great summer, enjoying it. - Our second question, I keep hearing about frame flex issues affecting various fifth wheels. How concerned should I be about, uh, camping with this James?
- Well, James, that issue is indeed getting a lot of attention these days. Um, really started earlier, uh, late last year, really with the some YouTube influencers, several of them, uh, documenting problems that they had with excessive frame flex. Now I wanna point out we have, Jennifer and I have owned two fifth wheels now and neither has had those issues. Um, in fact, despite a lot of recent controversy, uh, excessive frame flex is very rare.
And some estimates I've read said that it may be as as little as 1%, and that is only for very large and very heavy fifth wheels and toy haulers that weigh in excess of 17,000 pounds. Um, very small segment of fifth wheels on the road, uh, have this issue, but it is an issue, uh, and it happens when the frame of the RV flexes or bends excessively, and that can lead to structural integrity concerns. And then of course, potential safety hazards.
It's important to, to note that RVs are designed for that frame to flex. All of them are designed to have some frame flex. They're supposed to do that. But the problem is excessive frame flex that, uh, can come about, uh, due to a lot of reasons, uh, including overloading, you know, putting too much weight on the rv. That's why it's important you know, how much your, uh, maximum carrying capacity is. Too much weight can strain that frame. It can cause it to flex beyond its intended limits.
That's one cause. Another is, um, poor construction or poor design. In some cases, RV manufacturers may use inadequate materials or construction techniques, and that can cause frame flex issues. Uh, road issues, pay apart rough roads. Um, lots of frequent travel on uneven terrain can exasperate the, the frame flex by subjecting the RV to constant stress and, and vibration, uh, aging and wear.
As an RG RV ages, uh, the frame could weaken due to corrosion and fatigue and other forms of deterioration. It makes it more susceptible to flexing. But excessive frame flex is what we're talking about here, and it shows in various ways such as, uh, visible bending or twisting of the chassis. That's rare. Uh, uneven weight distribution, uh, difficulty in handling or maneuvering the rv, if you notice a big change in that recently.
Uh, increased wear and tear on components like your tires or your suspension and body panels. Most often, excessive frame flex shows itself in the front portion of the fifth wheel where the upper deck, the, the bottom of the front floor attaches to the frame, and it's usually towards the pin box in the front. And on the inside you might see it where, um, cabinetry becomes uneven or you see gaps in the inner wall.
Um, it just seems loose, uh, in, in the, where it attaches to the frame on the sides to fix it. Um, typically involves reinforcing, um, or upgrading the chassis, redistributing the weight more evenly. Uh, taking preventive measures such as avoiding overloading, that's really important. Uh, and then properly maintaining your RV in really bad cases. Professional repair, uh, retrofitting may be necessary.
Uh, but as to this recent controversy, uh, grand design has been the object of, uh, uh, complaints about this. And they conceded last month that, um, according to 'em a small number of its, uh, super big solitude and momentum. Fifth wheels had excessive frame flex. Uh, and they've promised to work with any customers to, to fix this issue. Uh, the largest frame manufacturer in the country is Lippert.
Uh, they're a huge RV parts supplier and they produce most of the fifth wheel and toy hauler frames. Uh, and they have said pretty much the same thing. So my take is if you think you have an issue, contact the manufacturer. And if you're not noticing any of the symptoms that we described, um, don't worry about it. Again, this has mostly affected only a small segment of very large plus 17,000 pounds and up RVs out there. Uh, by all means, regularly inspect your rv.
You should look it over carefully after every trip and before you start again. But to answer the question about being concerned, no need to be concerned if you're not seeing those problems. And those problems are extremely rare. We get a lot of questions on this and I'm sure that there will be more. Um, you may have a take on it.
There was a lot of controversy because when this was first published, uh, some manufacturers and industry people were, were, it sounded like they were blaming the RV owners who were reporting these things as if it was their fault. And as I said, overloading is a typical problem. But, uh, so there was a lot of bitterness and a lot of anger. And it sort of settled down. Lipper's been out front now, uh, explaining how the problem occurs and helping to show how rare it really is.
But we'll keep our eye on it. We'll let you know if you have questions about it. Um, any questions about the RV lifestyle in fact, or comments about anything you heard today? Send us an email. We'd love to hear your take on it all. Mike and jen@rvlifestyle.com. That's our personal email. Alright, we got the, uh, the eclipse under our belts. And now, uh, next big thing on the horizon is Memorial Day. We hope you guys have some great camping plans and we'll be back next week.
And next week we're gonna talk about a coming invasion. If you outside in certain parts of the country, the invasion of the cicadas, it'll be a fun interview that you'll hear next week when we come back. Thanks for watching. Happy - Trails.