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axesbowledaslove
Starting Member
USA
2 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 02 2008 : 1:53:29 PM
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For a little background, we are an RVing family. Our family (wife, two daughters, myself) had multiple rvs when the girls were growing up. We started with an old used popup camper and then several motorhomes in succession. The girls always loved camping travel and we did several great trips when they were growing up. Now that both are out of college with children of their own they are getting back into rving with their own husbands and kids. Our youngest and her husband bought a travel trailer last summer and have been using it as a weekend getaway up in the Sierras. My wife and I have joined them several times for some weekend camping with our motorhome, but the older of the two girls and her husband did not have an rv of their own yet. This spring, with their second child on the way, they decided to go hunting for an rv of their own.
At first they went looking for a travel trailer but after a while began to gravitate towards fifth wheels. My son-in-law has a Nissan Titan half-ton crew cab 4X4 pickup to use as a towing vehicle and is not interested in trading for anything larger, so that put the focus on the ultralight fifth wheels around the 6500 lb mark. Of course, one of the first manufacturers one encounters when shopping for this type of rv is Forest River, particularly their Rockwood Signature Ultra-Lites and Flagstaff Classic Super-Lites. After looking at the literature and doing some shopping around it appeared that for the models the kids were interested in there was no significant difference between the two choices of lines. Rockwell vs. Flagstaff seemed to be pretty much a decision based upon the decals on the sides of the units.
They did not want a very big rv. I warned them that they should not buy something that was going to be straining the weight limits of the truck (9100 lbs max towing weight for the towing package they have). Also, it simply isn't necessary to have a huge rv when its intended use is weekend getaways with a gaggle of other rvs. The trick is to find a compact rv that makes the most efficient use of limited space.
After toying with the idea of one of the 24 foot fifth wheels, my daughter got to looking at some pictures of the dual opposing slide-out models from Rockwood/Flagstaff. Long story short, the kids settled on the Flagstaff Classic Super-Lite 8526RLS model. They ended up doing a long-distance purchase which I will talk about in another post, but the main item I want to cover in this post is that the 8526RLS pulled great with the Nissan. I went with my son-in-law to help him pull it back to California. 1900 miles later we can say with assurance that the 26 foot Flagstaff pulls great behind a Nissan Titan with plenty of power and suspension reserve left so long as your truck has the towing package.
As far as the rv goes, just about everything works great. We had a few issues on the way back. There is a trim piece coming loose on one of the slides that needs to be tacked back down as well as a weird water leak coming from the other slide when you try to use the black tank flush hookup. No big deal, we can fix that stuff without any problems.
Man, you cannot believe how much room there is inside the fifth wheel when you have both slides fully extended. You could have a small dance in there if you want!
All in all the kids couldn't be happier with their new trailer and I couldn't be happier for them. Even my wife, who was thinking that traveling so far to buy an rv was nuts now admits that it was worth it to go get the 8526RLS.
Best wishes,
Scott in California
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Kid's New Fifth Wheel--8526RLS
