Hi everyone,
I hope everybody is making the best out of the current situation; also hope that this thread finds everyone and their families healthy.
Just got back on Friday from our trip which began in first week of February, we crossed back into Canada on March 23rd and then we self quarantined in Hamilton Ontario and then drove back home to Sudbury this past Friday evening. Just some very brief points to summarize our 7 weeks in the trailer (a 2019 Escape 5.0 TA).
1. All in all we had an uneventful trip (which is great) with one issue which happened when we arrived at our first campground in San Saba Texas in mid February - we had no AC power upon connecting up at the hookup. It took Dustin from Escape and myself about 1/2 hour to diagnose the problem, I won't get into all the things we checked but issue ended up being the main breaker under the dinette bench (drivers side), somehow it had been flipped into the off position, always check this first, I guess.
2. I have a 2015 Ford F150 Supercrew Cab with 6.5 foot box, 6 speed tranny and V8 engine - over approximately 5500 mile trip and averaging approximately 70 mph (stayed mostly on INterstates) calculated about 13.9 mpg fuel consumption.
3. The trailer tows like a dream often forgetting I have it back there especially on flatter roads. Both on the way to Texas and on the way back home we hit a couple of days with very strong gusty crosswinds and or headwinds, the rig was dead stable and my steering felt solid and well behaved.
4. Both down and back I always had the transmission set to normal including going over the Adirondacks; I find that when I use Ford's Tow/Haul mode setting the truck does sudden and sometimes rather violent tranny downshifts when going sown long hills, it is much gentler when I keep the tranny set to regular mode. I kept a very close eye on the tranny temperature on both modes in various settings, there may have been a slight 1 degree Celcius increase in temperature of tranny in regular as opposed to Tow/Haul mode but nothing significant - on warm days 92-94 degrees versus 89-91 degrees on cooler days up north.
5. Because of the rather cool weather we encountered in February we spent quite a bit of time in trailer in the evenings and mornings, reading, surfing our tablets and watching TV; turned out that Lucie preferred lying on the bed upstairs while I liked laying down on the dinette downstairs; luxury!!!
Lastly, we did quite a bit of boon docking while moving from place to place staying in Rest Areas, Walmarts, Cabelas and Cracker Barrels. I found that as long as my 2 6v batteries were at or near 100% charge when we stopped we had no issues with power. We would keep most of the lights on through the evening, charge our phones and tablets, watch 3-4 hours TV and get up the next morning and make our full carafe of coffee and 4 toast for breakfast. Usually our batteries were pretty close to 55% by morning; if it was sunny the next day the level would be back up to 90% by noonish and 100% by end of day. WOW
All in all, our first long trip was great, we have fallen in love with our little fiberglass home!!
Cheers,
Mars
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