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Lessons Learned
We are new to Rv’ing and new to Escape and thought we would post as newbies in case our experiences might be helpful to anyone else.
We will forever be grateful for all the invaluable advice and hints we have gotten on this forum.
First off and most importantly we love our Kleines Nido as we have named our new 5.0.
We first started looking into RV’s last summer and after much reading especially on this forum plus visiting a RV dealer we decided on Escape.We paid our deposit late August, had an initial delivery date of April, then were offered a February completion date which we went for.
We ordered many of the options including a compressor refrigerator, 3 lithium batteries (which we understand are not an option anymore), the u-shaped dinette with deeper back portion with split cushions, 2 solar panels, 3 burner stove with oven, lagun table mount, the keypad door lock, body lift kit, tank level monitor, stereo, frameless windows, power awning, inverter, the bigger air conditioner, got a custom sink, several of the Umbra hooks, reinforced walls and counter extensions.
We bought a 2020 Ram Laramie 2500 6.4L Hemi and the Andersen ultimate hitch.
Our first planned trip was to be to see our older daughter for which we wanted the weather to be a little nicer so we asked for an end of March delivery date after all. We were to leave on April 16th and wanted to use the first couple of weeks of having the trailer to study and learn about it. The delivery was delayed because of a truck break down so we ended up taking delivery on April 3rd.
We also knew that Pennsylvania takes its sweet time to get send the tags to owners of imported vehicles and the tag places are not allowed to issue new tags at the time of the application.
Still in the parking lot in Baltimore, as they were unloading the trailer, we noticed that there was a mistake on the certificate of origin. QUITE FRUSTRATING. The first of two corrected versions that were “overnighted” via FedEx took 7 days to get to our house.The second attempt arrived on the same day as the first. FedEx customer service claimed the delay was due to a snow storm in Tennessee, which of course had happened in February. Despite Escape asking us to confirm and reconfirm our correct names early in the ordering process, the fact that they could not it right is disappointing and were we to do it over again we would ask for an email with PDF’s of what they are sending along with the trailer to make sure that everything is correct. Lesson learned.
We finally got the tags yesterday, 25 days after applying for them.
After.talking to a local police officer about worse case scenarios and after reading that many people tow their trailers home without a tag and without this causing problems we mounted tags we had from a utility trailer we have and used them to take our first trip....from outside of Philadelphia to outside of Los Angeles. Quite the maiden voyage. Almost 5800 miles in total. Yes, we both thought that we were pretty crazy to make that our first trip but we had not seen our older daugher for nearly 1 1/2 years because of covid.
The only mod we did before leaving was to open the top step to the bed in order to store some chairs in that space.
The only system we did not test before leaving was the furnace and we had major issues with the exceedingly tight thermostat switch and spent some really cold nights under our comforter. We did have a small electric space heater along which helped some. Finally while in California we got the furnace going after we discovered a faulty contact in the thermostat.
Having little else to compare to we feel our towing experience has been awesome.
We found that Escape installed a window in our kitchen that was poorly made and does not allow the screen to seal completely. We are working with Lippert on that now. They have agreed to replace the window but we are not sure if it is worth all the hassle of going through a local dealer.
Our tank level monitoring system has given us false readings from the beginning for the grey tank and is now giving us none at all (other than Opn) for that tank. Dustin is asking us to trace the wires to see where the issue might be.
There is a strange looking hole in the bottom of the trailer near where the steps are mounted that we have been told are for drainage but which looks very unfinished.... Does everyone have this?
We just wonder if some of those issues might have been discovered still at the factory with fine attention to detail before sending the trailer out. We are pretty convinced that some of the systems were not fully tested.
We find that the booklet owners manual is not very helpful and the orientation videos lack detail.
We figured out that the bathroom light switch is not broken and actually has three settings. Nice surprise.
We stayed at truck stops (where we were always welcome), a couple of KOA’s (no problem with reservations the day before), 2 state parks and a couple of harvest hosts sites.
Overall we absolutely LOVE our trailer and had a great time with it on its first outing.
Absolutely the thing that helped us make the best of our experience has been this forum.
Thanks again
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Alf
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