RV Doctor – My Tow Car Lights Don’t Work with my Motorhome

Dear Gary, I have a 1999, 37-foot motorhome. It has a six pin connector for the tow vehicle. My tow car is a 1995 Geo Tracker. The Tracker has different bulbs for brake and turn signal. The car was towed by the previous owner with all the lights working. I cannot get my lights on the car to work with my motorhome. The wire colors on the car are brown, yellow, green and white. I ran a diode between the brake light and the green and yellow wires on towed car. Still no lights, I can however, get the lights to work by running another ground wire from my RV hitch receiver to the tow plate on the car. What concerns me with this is that with the coach lights on I get a spark on the extra ground wire when I hook it up or move it. What am I doing wrong? - Joe DeRado, (Port Charlotte, FL) Answer: Joe, because you have independent stop and turn signal bulbs you definitely need that diode kit. And I suspect that you have already found the problem. It is likely that a ground wire is broken somewhere and therefore the circuit cannot find a decent path to ground. Read more  Read More →

Cell Phones, Rallies, and Internet Connections

We spent the past week with a few thousand of our closest friends at the FMCA Convention (Family Motor Coach Ass’n) in Albuquerque, NM.  We did a lot of talking about digital photos and about blogs, but the hottest topic was all about cell phones and Internet Access. In several of our seminars, we used our Droid phone tethered to the computer for our Internet connection. If you’re one of the many folks who have iPhones, you’ll think we’re SO behind the times!  But, being Verizon customers, we couldn’t get one of those fancy computer/phones because the iPhone is only available on the AT&T network. Now, both Jim and I have the Motorola Droid – very similar to the iPhone, but on the Verizon network. Read more  Read More →

RV tip: How to start a conversation

It’s simple. Carry a butterfly net! We were hiking Pima Canyon in the Catalina Mountains in Tucson, Arizona. We had gone on a weekday as reviews had advised. Trail head parking was minimal with no street parking allowed and the parking lot at 10 a.m. was close to full. We started up the trail- like a cattle chute- a narrow strip fenced on either side to take you through private property that borders the beginning of the trail. Shortly, though, we got into the Pusch Ridge Wilderness in the Coronado Forest. If you don’t look behind you, civilization drops away. Read more  Read More →

Trailer Life Directory Offering an Extra 10% Off for a Limited Time – Offer Expires March 29, 2010

Pssst… A little bird just told me that from now through to March 29th, Trailer Life Directory is offering an additional 10% off to their fans! This offer, in combination with other on-site specials, could save you up to 50% off retail pricing! All you have to do to take advantage of the offer is enter promocode ImaFan at checkout.  Read More →

Do seniors deserve public lands campground discounts?

By Bob Difley I can remember when I reached age 62 and bought my Golden Age Passport, what the Senior Pass was called back in the dinosaur era. For $10 I had lowered my campground fees for life by half. At least at the forest service, BLM, Corps of Engineers (COE),  and National Park Service (NPS) campgrounds, which accounted for more than 90% of the fees I paid for camping. Whoopee! Then these government agencies discovered that they could avoid doing the work of collecting fees, cleaning bathrooms, picking up trash, and answering questions from the hoi polloi. Hire outside contractors to manage the campgrounds. But, of course, private contractors had to make a profit, so they raised the campground fees. Who knows what the contractors promised the FS and the other government agencies, but it certainly didn’t turn out to be better services–or any benefit–for campers. So as prices went up, so did demands from the concessionaires, including many concessionaires refusing (agreed to by the various agencies, such as the NPS and COE) to accept the Senior (Golden Age) passes, culminating in the lost fight with the FS to have the 50% fee discount removed. But it won’t end there. In last week’s blog, Forest Service leaves 50% camping discount structure intact, many of you weighed in with your opinions, some commenting that maybe seniors shouldn’t even be getting a discount. But maybe there is another solution, so I throw this out for discussion. First,... Read more

The never ending search for the perfect DP

In this installment of our discussion we are going to talk a bit about basements, basement storage features, and other things that might be in your basement.  A large and well featured basement is one of the primary reasons folks choose a diesel pusher.   Basement storage: It seems to me that for the most part, typical diesel pushers have a lot of storage and this is not normally a great concern.  I have seen some models that had insufficient storage capacity and it is something that everyone should check before purchasing a new coach.  The chassis a manufacturer chooses to put under the house determines that gross vehicle weight and there are things a manufacturer can do to save money when specifying a chassis from the chassis maker.  Sometimes these things affect the GVW adversely and the loser is the ultimate owner who cannot carry enough “stuff” in the basement.  One recent example concerns a very high line Class A manufacturer who chose to save money and reduced the front axle weight rating.  The result was a very expensive diesel motorhome that was overloaded with just the passengers on board.  This flap has still not been settled to many owners satisfaction.   There are several aspects to the basement arrangement that we should talk about.  I much prefer the basement storage arrangement with “pass through” type compartments.  I have looked at several pushers with storage compartments attached to the bottom of the slides and I really don’t like that... Read more

Are The Most Expensive Motor Homes The Best?

When the most expensive and luxurious coaches are thought of, Prevost is the first one that will come up.  Prevost chassis and shell that is.  The actual final product is made by a number of conversion builders, Marathon, Millennium, Featherlite, Liberty, just to mention a few.  Typical list prices for these can range from one and a half million dollars or more.      Why are they so expensive?  Well, there are very few produced each year.  They are on arguably the best bus chassis in the world, Prevost Coach.  Each design is somewhat unique with interior touches tailored to the owner.  All of this makes it a very impressive motor coach without question. But, are they really the best choice for the motor home application, even if money was no barrier?  Maybe yes or perhaps no.  Prevost is without question the finest commercial bus builder.  But it is a commercial vehicle maker not a personal coach builder.  So let’s look at why the commercial design may not be as fitting in a modern motor home.   Well, first, the dash boards on most have the unchanged look of a bus from decades before.  While it is extremely functional, it lacks the modern feel and digital touches demanded by many high end buyers.  The driver seat is designed commercially with an air ride suspended frame.  This is great for a driver that is on the road day in day out, but unless you are going to run on logging roads it is not necessary for a motor home application.  The big drawback to the... Read more

The Lug_Nut RV Whacky Glossary. The Real Meanings

Ever wondered the real meaning of some of the common RV phrases and lingo? If so, you need to read the Lug_Nut Whacky Glossary for Recreational Vehicles.  It isn’t quite the “RV Language for Dummies”, but should help you in understanding the real meanings of some of the more common words and phases associated with RVing. Read more  Read More →

My Spare Tire Nightmare (continued)

A few weeks ago I wrote about the need to have a spare tire in your RV when you travel. Our motorhome came without a spare tire and wheel even though there was a compartment designed to house it. We are planning a long RV trip this summer and I don’t want to go that distance without a spare. The first problem was the size and lug pattern of the wheel itself. It is a 22.5 inch wheel with 8 lug holes. Most rims that size are designed for 10 lugs. I was surprised how difficult it was to find this particular wheel. After numerous phone calls and searching the internet I finally found a Ford dealer who said they could order the wheel for me. The cost was over $400.00. This was for a steel wheel. The Alcoa aluminum rims that are on the front and outer duals of the motorhome cost about $1,300.00 apiece. By the time I add the tire to the cost of the steel wheel I would have nearly $700.00 invested in a spare tire and wheel. This seemed like a significant dollar amount for something you hope you will never need to use, similar to other insurance policies you invest in. Then I had a great idea, I’ll just buy a spare tire without a rim. If we have a flat tire our Roadside Service Plan (RSP) can take the flat tire off the rim and replace it with the new spare tire. This will kill two birds with one stone, it is less expensive and it will be less weight to carry in the RV. Problem number two was the RSP does not cover or pay for mounting the tire on the rim. They only change the flat tire... Read more

Travel Blogs and Travel Maps

A travel blog without a map is like cake without icing!  It’s good, but not as good as it should be.  And, sometimes don’t you just want the icing?  A travel map can give your readers everything they want to know.  Then, if they want more, they can click on a marker and follow the links to your blog posts! My friend George, of the famous Tioga and George – Vagabonders-Supreme.net travel blog recently sent me an email saying that he watched some of our videos on how to make Google My Maps, and he wanted me to look at the results. Read more  Read More →

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