RV Camping Trailers

[Jamee]

Anyone remember the RideForum.NET weekend down at Disney, OK (Grand Lake)?

WOOHOO!
http://www.rideforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1556

Good times!

Is the pop-up yours? If so, how do you like it? Would you buy another?

[kendall_smith]

Is the pop-up yours?

It was- it is gone now, but not forgotten. It was a 2007 Jayco Baja 10Y.

If so, how do you like it?

My wife and I loved it! In fact, the only reason we sold it was to go full-time RVing and we needed an RV that was big enough to live in, otherwise we would have kept it.

Would you buy another?

Funny you should ask! We quit full-time RVing last summer (didn't make it a whole year even- whole other story ) and when we sold our 5th wheel we were in the market for another small weekender RV. I really wanted to buy another Baja, but they are somewhat hard to find and the floor plan of the newer ones is different (in a bad way) from our 2007. Not to mention, Jayco wants almost $20k for a new one, which is a little steep for a pop-up in my opinion. We ended up getting a Forest River Wolf Pup 17RP instead, but we still miss the Baja from time to time. Kind of like motorcycles, RVs are always a compromise one way or the other, but we're pretty happy so far with the Wolf Pup.

[troy]

I've never owned an RV or camping trailer of any kind, and I really don't even camp all that much, BUT..based on the experiences I've had, I think for my little family and my motorcycle adventures, that Jayco Baja 10Y would be what I'd want...if I were to get anything.

Between that and my truck bed, I could haul 3 motorcycles and an ATV for example...or 2 ATVs or 5 motorcycles, you get the idea.

I imagine that little camping trailer pulled really easy, too.

[kendall_smith]

They're great little trailers, for sure! The only downside is that they can be hard to find and that can contribute to prices being a little high. The good news for us was that I bought the trailer and sold it almost 2 years later for the same price. I lucked out and found the Baja on the Manhattan CL, but the guy I sold it to came from New Mexico since mine was the closest to him!

There are several manufacturers besides Jayco that make pop-ups with the toy decks. I thought about going with a competitor to the Baja when I couldn't find any used ones available and didn't want a new one, but ultimately decided to go a different direction with the Wolf Pup. That being said, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. We definitely miss the "open air" feel of the Baja when the weather is really nice. Also, the Baja felt pretty roomy inside when it was all set up. The Wolf Pup is nice because it is enclosed and more "secure" and the bikes ride inside which is probably safer from a theft or prying eyes standpoint. It all depends on what you want and it might take owning a couple of RVs for you to figure out what setup you really want. The pop-up is a great place to start your search though- it worked for us!

The trailer pulled really good once I got a weight distribution hitch (I run one on my truck now to pull the Wolf Pup as well). With a lot of the weight of the trailer being in front of the axle when loaded, it will make even a 1/2 ton truck squat pretty good. The WD hitch fixes that problem and makes the trailer pull a lot better.

[Jamee]

They're great little trailers, for sure! ...

Thanks for all the great info! I've been informed in the recent weeks we have our second child on the way, so my great plans of a 1-ton w/nice toy hauler are getting shelved for another year or two or five. I've always looked close at the pop-ups like you had when I see them on the road, and have wondered about them. My wife did a lot of camping when she was a kid with her family in a pop-up, and really like it/them.

Questions though - I see yours had an AC unit on the top? I can't help but think one would freeze or sweat to death in one. How well do they actually trap the inside temp? Did you run the AC off of a Generator, or did you have shore power during the times you used it? How cold of weather did you use it in/same for heat?

How about "leaks" and staying "dry" in them. A few years ago I did a brief bit of research and read all sorts of nasty things about the "Top Cover" leaking and the company (can't remember the manufacture) that made them going out of business. So really hard and expensive to fix/get replacement parts.

How important was the deck for you. Seems that the ones that are just straight campers are much more common and that also opens up a lot more variety/options in the used market. Is there any storage space inside them when they are closed up? Cooking items/Clothes/Gear/etc fit inside while its closed?

So lastly - the truck - a good 1/2 ton (Ford 4 Door), with 2 full sized bikes and a small bike for my boy, in the bed, pulling a pop-up (maybe minus the deck).. is this doable? or am I just asking for trouble with too much weight/not enough truck? I guess I need to really look at what the weight on them is. The "frontal" area often discussed when pulling a bigger trailer doesn't seem to apply with one of these.

Ok - sorry about the 10k questions. Am sure Savage isn't going to be impressed and I can just see Troy rolling his eyes.. Inquiring minds just wanna know.


(Reason for Edit - Reduced from 100k questions to 10k)

[carlrf]

I am thinking of a pop up or some kind of camper as well. Definitely if one of the Miatas sell but maybe if they don't!

[Savage]

My bud has one similar to the last one Kendall posted. I like it. It's like an enclosed trailer with "minimalist" RV camping. He's talked about selling it d/t lack of use.

I've thought about getting an enclosed trailer like the one Phil used at birdman's. People do some cool mods to them to make them into campers. It would be nice to not have to load/unload and move bikes around. The problem is I would need one big enough to hold a few bikes, then it would be bigger than I'd want to store when not using, and I tend to clean and lube up the bikes after riding, so it wouldn't matter anyway. Doesn't keep me from looking for a good deal on a used one though.

[kendall_smith]

Thanks for all the great info! I've been informed in the recent weeks we have our second child on the way, so my great plans of a 1-ton w/nice toy hauler are getting shelved for another year or two or five. I've always looked close at the pop-ups like you had when I see them on the road, and have wondered about them. My wife did a lot of camping when she was a kid with her family in a pop-up, and really like it/them.

The 1-ton with the big 5th wheel toy hauler was nice for living in, but I still to this day can't figure out why so many people buy them to take out for a weekend. They're kind of a pain in the butt and the problems associated with it was one of the reasons we bailed on full-time RVing. Going into it, we had grand plans of seeing the country and staying in cool campgrounds, but the reality of living with a massive RV is that you are limited on where you can park the thing. See that cool little campground with the secluded wooded campspots? Keep moving- you can't park that monstrosity here, the spots aren't big enough. You end up staying in RV parks where your neighbor is 5 feet away and you can hear their dog barking outside their trailer when you walk by. I could go on, but you get the point.

Questions though - I see yours had an AC unit on the top? I can't help but think one would freeze or sweat to death in one. How well do they actually trap the inside temp? Did you run the AC off of a Generator, or did you have shore power during the times you used it? How cold of weather did you use it in/same for heat?

The AC did a surprisingly good job of cooling what is essentially a total-loss tent. Too good at times to be honest. You could probably run the rig off of a generator, but we always have and still do try to be hooked up to shore power if we know we are going to need a lot of electricity. The heat kept it comfortable down into the 40s, although you could probably supplement the propane heat with some electric space heaters. Our Baja had the heated mattress option, which worked really well. It had settings of 1-5 and if I went any higher than 3 I would wake up sweating.

How about "leaks" and staying "dry" in them. A few years ago I did a brief bit of research and read all sorts of nasty things about the "Top Cover" leaking and the company (can't remember the manufacture) that made them going out of business. So really hard and expensive to fix/get replacement parts.

We never had any problems with the canvas, but we did have to take it in to have the roof "tweaked" while we had it. It had somehow become misaligned and we had to get it straightened. That being said, it was one of the reasons we went with the enclosed Wolf Pup this time around- less moving parts to have problems with. I was shopping and researching pop-up toy haulers and kept finding really nice Fleetwood Evolutions, just to find out that there was a huge manufacturer's defect that was causing the roofs to have to be replaced. It would be a pain for an original owner with a warranty, but it would be impossible to have it fixed as a 2nd or 3rd owner. That turned me off of those pretty quickly.

How important was the deck for you. Seems that the ones that are just straight campers are much more common and that also opens up a lot more variety/options in the used market. Is there any storage space inside them when they are closed up? Cooking items/Clothes/Gear/etc fit inside while its closed?

I considered going with a regular pop-up since you can find them all day long, not to mention for half the price of one with a toy deck, but in the end I realized we had been spoiled with our original Baja. The deck is awesome to have, especially when hauling motorcycles. When the trailer was all set up the front bed was over the deck, so I would set all my wet, dirty gear on the expanded metal deck where it was covered by the bed to let it dry for the next day. Even if you were using the trailer to camp without the bikes, I always found a way to use the deck for firewood, camp chairs, coolers, etc. so it was nice to have. You can store things inside when they are closed up. You basically have the entirety of the floor plan and up to the bottom of the slid-in beds for storage, so we bought a cooler that fit in the space and filled the rest of it with rubbermaid containers that fit with all of our supplies inside them. Then when you get to camp you set up and pull the totes out and all of your stuff is nice and organized.

So lastly - the truck - a good 1/2 ton (Ford 4 Door), with 2 full sized bikes and a small bike for my boy, in the bed, pulling a pop-up (maybe minus the deck).. is this doable? or am I just asking for trouble with too much weight/not enough truck? I guess I need to really look at what the weight on them is. The "frontal" area often discussed when pulling a bigger trailer doesn't seem to apply with one of these.

Your truck would be fine pulling a pop-up with the bikes in the bed. At worst, I would look into having some adjustable air bags installed on the rear to level the whole thing out if it is squatting too much with the combined bikes/trailer tongue weight. One of the good things about a pop-up is that there is very little frontal drag like you mentioned and they are usually pretty light. My Baja unloaded was 2600 lbs. or so, which isn't anything for a modern full-size 1/2 ton. I'm guessing that at the heaviest I've ever had it loaded it was still under 4000 lbs. My 2010 F-150 that is in the picture with the Baja had no problems at all with the weight.

Ok - sorry about the 10k questions. Am sure Savage isn't going to be impressed and I can just see Troy rolling his eyes.. Inquiring minds just wanna know.


(Reason for Edit - Reduced from 100k questions to 10k)

No problem! The best way to learn is to ask questions to people who have been there before. I'm glad to help. It appears that we even got our own thread out of the deal!

[kendall_smith]

I am thinking of a pop up or some kind of camper as well. Definitely if one of the Miatas sell but maybe if they don't!

I wish I had a pop-up to trade you! I've alway wanted a Miata- one of those would be a blast on the curvy roads around here!

[kendall_smith]

My bud has one similar to the last one Kendall posted. I like it. It's like an enclosed trailer with "minimalist" RV camping. He's talked about selling it d/t lack of use.

I've thought about getting an enclosed trailer like the one Phil used at birdman's. People do some cool mods to them to make them into campers. It would be nice to not have to load/unload and move bikes around. The problem is I would need one big enough to hold a few bikes, then it would be bigger than I'd want to store when not using, and I tend to clean and lube up the bikes after riding, so it wouldn't matter anyway. Doesn't keep me from looking for a good deal on a used one though.

I had grand plans of building my own minimalist toy hauler out of an enclosed trailer before I bought the Wolf Pup. If you already had all the tools and materials to do it, it would make sense. For my purposes I was going to have to buy the trailer, then all the tools and materials to build it, and supply all the sweat equity to get it done. In the end it just seemed easier (and possibly cheaper in the long run) to just buy one that was already set up for it.

I will say that the build quality on the Wolf Pup leaves a bit to be desired. We came out of our nice 5th wheel that had been totally sorted by the previous owner, not to mention the Keystone brand is known for being one of the better RV manufacturers and into the Wolf Pup, which is one of the cheapest trailers that Forest River builds. Everywhere you look at the trailer you can see where they took shortcuts and cheaped out on materials, but it is what it is- a cheap, light RV that I can put my bikes in and go camping. So far we love it, and I will fix things as they pop up so its no big deal really.

[carlrf]

I am thinking of a pop up or some kind of camper as well. Definitely if one of the Miatas sell but maybe if they don't!

I wish I had a pop-up to trade you! I've alway wanted a Miata- one of those would be a blast on the curvy roads around here!

Yes, we just took my girlfriends 95 with 170K miles on a Colorado sight seeing trip a week after I met you. It was a lot of fun and the top was down the whole time save one mountain storm. We thought we would be ready to choke each other after 6 days in it including driving across Kansas twice but not an issue. I would do it again in heartbeat. Very fun (girls ) cars.
I wouldn't even think about selling one of them (and may still not) but my finances don't allow multiple toys as such, so when I change interests as I sometimes do, I have to clear out the previous and start anew.

[Jamee]

My bud has one similar to the last one Kendall posted. I like it. It's like an enclosed trailer with "minimalist" RV camping. He's talked about selling it d/t lack of use.

I've thought about getting an enclosed trailer like the one Phil used at birdman's. People do some cool mods to them to make them into campers. It would be nice to not have to load/unload and move bikes around. The problem is I would need one big enough to hold a few bikes, then it would be bigger than I'd want to store when not using, and I tend to clean and lube up the bikes after riding, so it wouldn't matter anyway. Doesn't keep me from looking for a good deal on a used one though.

I had grand plans of building my own minimalist toy hauler out of an enclosed trailer before I bought the Wolf Pup. If you already had all the tools and materials to do it, it would make sense. For my purposes I was going to have to buy the trailer, then all the tools and materials to build it, and supply all the sweat equity to get it done. In the end it just seemed easier (and possibly cheaper in the long run) to just buy one that was already set up for it.

I will say that the build quality on the Wolf Pup leaves a bit to be desired. We came out of our nice 5th wheel that had been totally sorted by the previous owner, not to mention the Keystone brand is known for being one of the better RV manufacturers and into the Wolf Pup, which is one of the cheapest trailers that Forest River builds. Everywhere you look at the trailer you can see where they took shortcuts and cheaped out on materials, but it is what it is- a cheap, light RV that I can put my bikes in and go camping. So far we love it, and I will fix things as they pop up so its no big deal really.

Am curious about the fuel smell in the trailer - If you put a few bikes in, drive for a good chunk of the day - say 90 plus weather. When you get to the destination, do you have the Gas smell? Does it vent out easy? I always thought if one was going to have a toy hauler type trailer, having a divider between the garage and living area would have to be a must.

Nothing worse then having a headache in the morning because of a fuel smell vapor lingering about.

[troy]

I spent some time with motomann's huge toy hauler on my Crested Butte ride last month. It has an air intake on the top- left side of the trailer located in the front of the "garage". It has another vent at the bottom-right side at the back of the garage. In this way as you drive, air is pulled through and vented out the back.

With most of these toy haulers, the garage space is also part of your living space--perhaps the "master bedroom" is there with a murphy bed or bunks that mechanically come down from ceiling (like kc had a few years ago). Therefore, when camping, you usually have all the toys out of the garage. You store your gas can, etc. outside or in your truck bed while camping.

[allkidd]

[/quote]

Am curious about the fuel smell in the trailer - If you put a few bikes in, drive for a good chunk of the day - say 90 plus weather. When you get to the destination, do you have the Gas smell? Does it vent out easy? I always thought if one was going to have a toy hauler type trailer, having a divider between the garage and living area would have to be a must.

Nothing worse then having a headache in the morning because of a fuel smell vapor lingering about.[/quote]

When we put a motorcycle in our camper, we take the gas tank off and put it in the bed of our truck. At least with a KTM, it doesn't take more than minute to take the tank off. Of course, we don't have a fancy vented toy hauler.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1060683704 ... 9326100242

[Jamee]

Am curious about the fuel smell in the trailer - If you put a few bikes in, drive for a good chunk of the day - say 90 plus weather. When you get to the destination, do you have the Gas smell? Does it vent out easy? I always thought if one was going to have a toy hauler type trailer, having a divider between the garage and living area would have to be a must.

Nothing worse then having a headache in the morning because of a fuel smell vapor lingering about.

When we put a motorcycle in our camper, we take the gas tank off and put it in the bed of our truck. At least with a KTM, it doesn't take more than minute to take the tank off. Of course, we don't have a fancy vented toy hauler.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1060683704 ... 9326100242

Now that is flat out Awesome!! How in the hell do you even get it up in there.. /chuckle
I've often wondered if I could get a full size dirt bike or two in a travel trailer or not.. Then thought about what it would look like if I could. My parents had a 5th wheel for a few years, and there just was no way I would be able to get a bike up in there and secured in any fashion, specially with all of the slides and such.

Have you done it without removing the tank off the KTM? How bad was it?

Can you get the BMW in there too?

[kendall_smith]

Am curious about the fuel smell in the trailer - If you put a few bikes in, drive for a good chunk of the day - say 90 plus weather. When you get to the destination, do you have the Gas smell? Does it vent out easy? I always thought if one was going to have a toy hauler type trailer, having a divider between the garage and living area would have to be a must.

Nothing worse then having a headache in the morning because of a fuel smell vapor lingering about.

So far, we haven't had any problem with fuel smell in the trailer. We haven't hauled the bikes more than a couple of hours away, but on several occasions I have loaded the bikes the night before we leave to save time and haven't had a problem. There are vents on both sides of the back of the trailer you can roll down the road with open, but I've never done that either. I usually haul 2 bikes at a time- either the DR and DR-Z or the KTM and the DR-Z, so no shortage of fuel vapors.

Another good thing about the toy hauler is that when you are unloading bikes the whole back end of the trailer is open and there are two roof vents that you can open as well, one of them has a powered fan.

Having a dedicated, separate "garage" was definitely a requirement with our full-time living 5th wheel. It had a 10 ft. garage in the back that was separated from the living space by a sliding glass door. There were times that I would leave 3 motorcycles loaded in that garage for days (even weeks leading up to hitting the road initially) and there was never a fuel smell problem with that trailer either. The downside to a separate garage space is that even the smallest trailers with that setup were going to be too big for what we wanted to do with our latest trailer. Like I said, coming out of the 35 ft. 5th wheel made us want something small that we could take into the campgrounds that we couldn't use when we had the big trailer. Size of trailer is always going to be a compromise that only the owner can decide what is too big or small, etc.

[Jamee]

Am curious about the fuel smell in the trailer - If you put a few bikes in, drive for a good chunk of the day - say 90 plus weather. When you get to the destination, do you have the Gas smell? Does it vent out easy? I always thought if one was going to have a toy hauler type trailer, having a divider between the garage and living area would have to be a must.

Nothing worse then having a headache in the morning because of a fuel smell vapor lingering about.

So far, we haven't had any problem with fuel smell in the trailer. We haven't hauled the bikes more than a couple of hours away, but on several occasions I have loaded the bikes the night before we leave to save time and haven't had a problem. There are vents on both sides of the back of the trailer you can roll down the road with open, but I've never done that either. I usually haul 2 bikes at a time- either the DR and DR-Z or the KTM and the DR-Z, so no shortage of fuel vapors.

Another good thing about the toy hauler is that when you are unloading bikes the whole back end of the trailer is open and there are two roof vents that you can open as well, one of them has a powered fan.

Having a dedicated, separate "garage" was definitely a requirement with our full-time living 5th wheel. It had a 10 ft. garage in the back that was separated from the living space by a sliding glass door. There were times that I would leave 3 motorcycles loaded in that garage for days (even weeks leading up to hitting the road initially) and there was never a fuel smell problem with that trailer either. The downside to a separate garage space is that even the smallest trailers with that setup were going to be too big for what we wanted to do with our latest trailer. Like I said, coming out of the 35 ft. 5th wheel made us want something small that we could take into the campgrounds that we couldn't use when we had the big trailer. Size of trailer is always going to be a compromise that only the owner can decide what is too big or small, etc.

You definitely have me thinking.. Wife and I stopped the other night and looked at some of the pop ups. Thinking as we go into fall here might be able to score a good deal on one. I like the investment side of it, don't have to tie up a lot of money and if we buy right, find its just not the right setup, should be able to get out of it without too much concern on the potential loss.

How hard are they to sell/what's the demand? I know yours had the deck, from the sound of that created a lot of demand. Should I be looking at those for the resale potential vs the regular ones?

I just like the thought of a half ton and pop up vs buying a one ton, the maintenance for it and then the very expensive trailer. Am kind of a cash guy, and one setup sure is a lot easier on the savings account..