I wondered what happened to you, welcome home. What RV(s) have you got these days?
Still got the 07 190P, and we got back a week ago from a bit under 3 week trip to Custer State Park in the black hills. Good to get out again and van performed very well, as expected, and the new Agilis tires were as good or better than the MS2s. Only issues were the Isotherm frig started to fail on the third day out, but with a lot of fiddling around got it to barely survive and keep cool enough to not spoil anything. I am putting in a new one now and nearing being done. Also lost a wheelcover, but that kind of stuff is sort of expected with the way the roads are many places.
Hey, I'm technically still a class/type C owner now, but I get the NHTSA weekly recalls, and figured if any B type stuff happens to get recalled, I'll post it up on here.
We decided to get ourselves a separate shower and toilet/sink combo after years of making do with paid showers. It was our main gripe about the Roadtrek, we just weren't ever going to use the aisle shower, so after 8 years of settling, it was finally the impetus to move on. Sold the Roadtrek for just over half what we paid for it 8 years and 250,000kms earlier, so that was an unexpected windfall.
We had always planned on switching from touring to destination style travel, as we got older, and started looking.
So, after much homework and looking around, we tried a brand new 2016 Sunstar 26HE on the F53 chassis, V10 gas, 3 valve, 6 speed transmission, as it seemed to check all the boxes. It was the shortest one they offered at the time, and we thought it was the answer. Lots of room, separate sleeping, bath, galley, and living areas, handling was OK, and manageable, and we could tow our Wrangler with it. It wasn't terribly techie, no solar, no fancy batteries, and no inverter, but those were on the to do list. It did however, have some flaws that we discovered very quickly. To take advantage of the V10 power, you have to really press that gas pedal to get the RPMS up over 4000, to hit peak HP/Torque. Not only does that cripple any fuel economy we might have expected (we didn't expect much and that's what we got), but it makes it impossible to hear yourself think in the cockpit area, let alone talk to each other. And the doghouse was an unexpected heat source and PITA. To be fair, we took it on one trip, about 4500 miles round trip, and decided it wasn't the one. When we got home, we started looking for something else. We happened to be at the dealership where we bought the Sunstar, and DW sees a Navion, low profile (the cab over had been deleted), loaded, and we asked about it. It was sold, but they said we could have a look inside, so we did, and immediately ordered ours. Got a great number on our low mileage Sunstar, traded it in, and we picked up our 2018 Navion 24V a few months later in March 2018.
It has been the best of the three motorhomes we've tried. At first the diesel intimidated, but that vanished quickly when we realized the power at low RPMs and the much better fuel economy, in a motorhome that could do everything the other 2 had done, only better overall. Not as nimble as the Roadtrek, not as roomy as the Sunstar, but the blend was a better match for us.
Wish they'd reopen the border so we could get back out there.
