Escape 23

[YakRV]

Originally Posted by Mike G

Of course, I know how much more the BF costs (new). I posed the question as a hypothetical "if they were the same price," curious to know if some who say they love their Escape would actually jump at the chance to have a BF "even-up" (in other words, the BF under normal circumstances is just too costly, so someone may have "settled" for, what to them, was the "next best thing," Escape).

To be fair, we haven’t been inside a Bigfoot to compare interiors, but the exterior width of the Bigfoot is what took it off our list and still does. I never towed anything before picking up our 21C in June of last year. The 21C turned out to be an easy tow for me, but I don’t know how comfortable I would be pulling something a foot wider. There are some narrow roads out there.

Maybe if we were serious four season campers I would try to get used to it. We are not, though, so I don’t need to. I hope this doesn’t come across as a snarky response, but we don’t feel like we had to settle on our Escape 21C at all.

[NEWYORKHILLBILLY]

Hard to compare to big foot pricing. we still don't know the price of the 23. all we know is it will be the most expensive yet. with escapes 80-85% price increases over the last 3 years. who know what the 23 will cost. with current models running 55-65 thousand I am thinking 70-80 thousand. Olivers are running 90-100 thousand. It will be interesting to see . I think the wet bath will hurt the sales. I like a wet bath, but i can't see everyone selling there.21C to go to a 23 with same bath. A lot of 21c owners had 19 before the 21C

[Iowa Dave]

I’ve made hundreds if not thousands of posts on the positive experiences we’ve had with our Escape trailers. At my age, I want nothing more than family, friends, good food and drink, a dry place to get out of an occasional rain and to sleep in comfort. Escape allows us to check all the boxes regardless of price, weight, appearance and all the other often discussed topics.
The 21C is better for us than the 19 Classic primarily because of slightly wider aisle. The 19 was an excellent design for us also. I like ‘em both.
Iowa Dave

[cpaharley2008]

This is why I have owned a 19, then a 21, back to a 19, back to a 21 and now with a 19! I can not make up my mind......?

[NEWYORKHILLBILLY]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

This is why I have owned a 19, then a 21, back to a 19, back to a 21 and now with a 19! I can not make up my mind......?

witch ones the best layout hmm
3-19's
2-21's

[Iowa Dave]

Hey Jim,
When a hoarder (like me) cannot make up their mind, they usually just own them both. The scary thing is when that defect slides into “owning a set” like say Camp Dutch Ovens. That’s called castironitis. Did you know that it’s really hard to carry 6,8,10,12,14 and 16 inch Dutch ovens along with a couple 5 quart “bean pots” and some 12 inch skillets?
Christmas half ham in a fourteen deep in the picture.

Hope you’re having a good recovery from all the Puxatawny Phil hoopla and have a great weekend.
Iowa Dave

[WillyB]

We are very happy with our 21C. There are many reasons why we bought an Escape but the big driver for us was the narrow width on the unit.

But I have to say it appears Iowa Dave has a major case of decisionless castironitis.

[Iowa Dave]

It started innocently enough. My son was a Cub Scout, my wife was a den mother. When it was time to join Boy Scouts he joined a troop that did some Dutch oven cooking. Then I went on a couple campouts and ate Dutch oven cooked food. Next thing I knew I was infected with castironitis and Scoutmaster. I bought the 16 which was out of production in Panquitch, Utah in a hardware store while on vacation one year. It’s heavy. I use it at home. The Highlander will only do so much.
Iowa Dave

[SageRpod]

Originally Posted by YakRV

... I hope this doesn’t come across as a snarky response, but we don’t feel like we had to settle on our Escape 21C at all.

Same here. We traded up to an Escape 5.0. I guess it depends on where you are at and where you want to go. Coming from an Rpod to the 5.0 was like going from Motel 6 to the Ritz for us. It's all the trailer we could ever want and more.

[Ron in BC]

Originally Posted by YakRV

I hope this doesn’t come across as a snarky response, but we don’t feel like we had to settle on our Escape 21C at all.

Originally Posted by WillyB

We are very happy with our 21C. There are many reasons why we bought an Escape but the big driver for us was the narrow width on the unit.

I absolutely agree. Sort of a silly example but I wouldn't do an even trade. I've towed a lot of stuff and the 21C is still in the proverbial "don't even know it's there" category. I don't want heavier.

I also like the fact that in a mall parking lot situation, if there's no room along the outer edges to park across several spots, I can pull into normal parking spots. I could never do that with a wider trailer, I'd need 4 spots instead of 2.

Ron

[brroberts]

We only have a 10” Dutch oven. Got it on our honeymoon. With just two of us and an E19 it’s enough. The E19 is the biggest RV we’ve ever owned. It’s palatial.

[MrLynn]

I should add that last year at this time, we still had our 2013 Casita. But we wanted a fiberglass trailer with a bed at one end and a second bed at the other end (i.e. a convertible dinette). I would have 'settled' for an Escape 19, an Escape 21NE, an Escape 21C, or a BigFoot 21RB. I ruled out the Bigfoot 25 as too heavy and too expensive. Just last year lead times for new Escapes and Bigfoots were 1-2 years, so I was pursuing used ones, which were scarce.

I thought I had a deal on an E19 in North Carolina in January, but that fell through when the owner decided not to sell. Then there was the E19 in Georgia, but that went too quickly for us to put a trip together. There was a possibility of a BF21 in Colorado, but it wasn't for sale yet. Then Forum member buelfire found the BF25 he was looking for, and agreed to sell us his 2019 E21C. He went to Georgia, and we went to Kentucky. Crazy world, but we both ended up with what we wanted.

I have to say that I've been very pleased with the E21C. It's a fine piece of equipment, nicely finished inside with no squeaks, rattles, or leaks; no harder to tow than the Casita, with less sway and bounce; and even fits (just barely) under our 10x20' canopy. Price-wise, a comparable BF would have been several years older. I was interested in the 'forthcoming' E23 for its larger (dry) bath and larger dinette. But I very much doubt we'll be 'trading up' any time soon. We put maybe 5,000 miles on the E21C last year, and like it so much we signed up as 'Ambassadors'.

[Mike G]

Liniment might help that castironitis. Rub some bacon grease into the dutch oven, see if you feel better.

[Jim Bennett]

Since the 23 was first conceived, I have not been a fan of the dry bath. Personally, as long as a bath provides the needed necessities, which for us is the toilet and the odd time the shower, that is just fine. I would much rather have the space for opening up the trailer and possibly some storage. I am glad of this decision and if in the market for a trailer that size would now consider it. I sat and talked to Karl a couple years ago at Escape and he showed me all their concepts so far but it was still very early on. At that time I expressed my preference to the wet bath, but they were going to try to need the wishes of a few wanting the dry bath. Reace at least listens to the changes I wished for in the 19 and in the end adopted them after putting it out as plan B and everyone wanting it.

As far as beds go, I very much would prefer the twins. Much better for overall layout and storage capacity. At 6' I really do not like the length of the RV queen, it just isn't comfortable for me and I imagine taller people would like it even less.

I believe the building of the real trailer in the actual mould is a good practice. They get to see for real how things work out and build it as good as possible.

Originally Posted by rbryan4

Reace and Tammy were unique. In many respects they treated owners like family. Those of us who've been here awhile could share dozens of stories about it. Of course when new owners come along they can run the business as they see fit. But it strains credulity to imply there's very little difference in CS between then and now. I've read this forum.

There are definitely differences in the ownership, but having known Reace and Tammy very well, and spending time with Karl and team on a few occasions, I believe both show good levels of customer service. There are differences, sure, but they both had good intentions with differing goals. Heck, I had R & T's cell phone numbers and could call Reace for things easily. This is not a real good practice for a medium to large business so would not expect it from the ne Escape people. I could talk about this a lot but this is not the place. Karl came and had whiskies at our trailer and played guitar and sang some songs....Reace only did the whiskey part.

[Perry Butler]

Originally Posted by Jim Bennett

Since the 23 was first conceived, I have not been a fan of the dry bath. Personally, as long as a bath provides the needed necessities, which for us is the toilet and the odd time the shower, that is just fine. I would much rather have the space for opening up the trailer and possibly some storage. . . . . . .

I believe the building of the real trailer in the actual mould is a good practice. They get to see for real how things work out and build it as good as possible.

In total agreement with the wet bath!

In the real world, the practice of building a mockup is used to avoid the pitfall Escape chose by locking in a very expensive mold. However with today's practices, if they would have used someone with knowledge of ergonomics designing the interior, using CAD, this problem would not have happened, avoiding the need for a mockup.

To have a 23' camper with the bed at one end and the dinette at the other, including a dry bath, is unrealistic, and this has been shown here. The only 23' trailers with a queen I've seen have a rear bath. The dinette is too small and the dry bath was impossible, and not enough room for a full queen without cut corners unless more space is taken from the rest of the camper. It should have been a 25 foot.

Enjoy,

Perry

[GregColdewey]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

I’ve made hundreds if not thousands of posts on the positive experiences we’ve had with our Escape trailers. At my age, I want nothing more than family, friends, good food and drink, a dry place to get out of an occasional rain and to sleep in comfort. Escape allows us to check all the boxes regardless of price, weight, appearance and all the other often discussed topics.
The 21C is better for us than the 19 Classic primarily because of slightly wider aisle. The 19 was an excellent design for us also. I like ‘em both.
Iowa Dave

That is our sentiment as well. The phrase that we use is that our Escape has everything we need and nothing we don't.

[TahoeJoe]

All I gotta say is, I'm sure glad I didn't wait on the 23. I just checked and I joined this forum and made my first post in September 2020, and at that time the expectation was that the 23 would be finalized and in production fairly soon...here it is over 2 years later and they are still toying with the layout. Not laying blame or criticizing (pandemic and all), just saying...I'm so happy I found and bought a used 5.0! At that time I even kept my deposit on the 23 for a while because I was thinking the 5.0 would just tide me over temporarily while I continued to wait. But I fell completely in love with this baby, and now I have zero desire to change units. As Greg just said, it's got everything I need and nothing I don't...and that sentiment includes the bathroom.

[SageRpod]

Originally Posted by TahoeJoe

... I was thinking the 5.0 would just tide me over temporarily while I continued to wait. But I fell completely in love with this baby, and now I have zero desire to change units. As Greg just said, it's got everything I need and nothing I don't...and that sentiment includes the bathroom.

Ditto. The 5.0 rocks as far as I am concerned. They really got the interior design down on that unit. One thing I do like is the person who filled out the build sheet (this was a lottery unit) chose not to mount the sink in the wet bath. Turned out to be a good call. Lots of room in there.

[EscapingDan]

Originally Posted by Perry Butler

In the real world, the practice of building a mockup is used to avoid the pitfall Escape chose by locking in a very expensive mold. However with today's practices, if they would have used someone with knowledge of ergonomics designing the interior, using CAD, this problem would not have happened, avoiding the need for a mockup.

Worked in engineering for 30 years FWIW … but the standard practice everywhere, from instrumentation, to automotive, aerospace and RV’s is to CAD it out, then build out several prototypes - just as Escape is doing. Nobody has ‘ergonomic experts’, I’ve never seen such a job or person purporting skills, but what we all do is pass those protos around (or walk in/around them) until you get a feeling for where you want this to go, based on costing, build, end user experience and so on. But mockups are necessary, I have a full professional VR rig and can build you a trailer in 3D using Blender you can walk around virtually, and I guarantee you’d still find a million issues if you tried to slam that into production without protos (they’re not called mockups). Three is the typical amount.

To have a 23' camper with the bed at one end and the dinette at the other, including a dry bath, is unrealistic, and this has been shown here.

Those judgements are always easy in retrospect, which is why we build protos which are expensive R&D writeoffs. It was worth a shot, they could probably pull it off if they build a custom shower/toilet insert (say a 1.5 size unit with a tambour door or something), but for cost and manufacturing they use COTS inserts.

It should have been a 25 foot.

Clearly they’re working up to that. If they jumped to 25 now they’d have a 23’ hole in their portfolio, and it’s better to gain experience going up. All sorts of engineering issues to work through as you get longer, such as frame flexing. Didn’t they go Al on the frame? Probably did so for weight, but then you need to worry about electrolysis and other issues.

Anyhow I think the dry bath is what we call a stretch goal - great if they can pull it off but not required. The main thing with this is the on axis bed full sized beds. That’s huge right there. I think the only mistake - if it was one, was talking about the dry bath at all. For portfolio better to leave that for the future 25ft, which needs it’s own differentiator.

Sorry, been working on these kinds of problems for too long

[Chasing Trials]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

This is why I have owned a 19, then a 21, back to a 19, back to a 21 and now with a 19! I can not make up my mind......?

I was on the fence when deciding to order new. Decided to stick with E19. I'm single, I should keep it(STUFF) down. Like that it fits in the 2 parking places(with hitch rack). Want to keep my Tacoma, etc.