New Tires

One week before our big trip to Yellowstone, we tried to go camping in what turned out to be a huge rain storm. We ended up traveling down a muddy road that was was built out of some hard pack rocky roadbase. As the water eroded the road, it left a lot of exposed rocks which did a real number on these crappy tires you get form the factory. It still amazes me that you can spend 50k on a trailer that ships with $300 worth of tires. It's one thing for a regular trailer to come with crappy tires, but a toy hauler should be expected to spend a great deal of time off road and in more nasty conditions.

The tire luckly didn't blow on the freeway so I didn't have any damage. I swapped the spare, (which didn't match by the way) and limped home. Just my luck too as the spare ended up with a huge nail in the sidewall somehome on my way home too. Luckily it didn't blow also!

Anyway, I knew before I even ordered the trailer that it was going to come with cheap and crappy tires. I had really hoped to be able to make it through one summer before buying new tires. Oh well, at least they didn't fail in the middle of our big Yellowstone trip.

The next day I went to my local Sams club which had the best price on BF Goodrich Commercial TA tires. I got them in the 235/85-16E and ended up at $1005.00 out the door for six of them. These are slightly larger than the 235/80-16E tires that they came with, but ended up fitting really well. Also notice from the photos below the original Triangle branded tires had bulges on each tire in a few places which never gave me great confidence in their quality at all. These new tires are also LT tires instead of ST which means that they are not only rated for the deisred load capacity, they are also designed for the heat generated by the higher speeds. ST tires are rated at 65mph max! In my trip up to Yellowstone, I was comfortably doing 77 mph across those longer flat stretches when possible. I never dared get much over 65 with the old China bombs.

Old Tire and spare

New tire

New tires up close - no bulging!

Sitting a little more level also with the added 3/4" inch.

Yellowstone!!!

Our big trip finally arrived! We spent 9 days across Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. We've been planning this trip for about two years and this was one of the main reasons we upgraded our trailer. The trip went great and the kids had a ton of fun. Major highlights were the Grand Canyon, watching a Grizzly much on a dead elk, two separate wolf sightings, watching the kids catch a 22" rainbow and an 18" cutthroat trout and then canoeing in Jackson lake.

Now, on to the trailer :) I was able to squeeze in a few mods before I left, nameley some pole holders and new tires, but I'll post more about about them later. We drove over 1100 miles over the course of the trip, with probably 700 miles with the trailer attached. Yellowstone has some pretty windy roads, but the trailer tracked and towed great. The funniest part of the trailer trip was stopping at a truck stop in northern Idaho and having a bunch of Chinese and German tourists pull up and start taking pictures of the trailer. I guess they don't make them that big overseas.

Pulling out...

Madison Campground - Yellowstone

Colter Bay RV Park - Grand Teton

Grand Teton Overlook

First Trip Report

We got to take our Endurmax out for our first trip over Memorial Weekend. We spend 5 days in the new rig and it was great. The trailer is a beast to pull with all that weight, but it tracked and towed awesome. I'll put up a towing review shortly with more details in that regards.

The trip we took was down to Dubinky Utah and we stayed right next to White Wash sand dunes. The first two days were incredibly windy, with 40 mph winds constant. We ended up with sand EVERYWHERE. The seals did a good job thank goodness and keeping most of it out of the trailer though.

We found several little things that needed to be corrected during our trip, but the quality seems to be really good so far. The AC and generator got a good workout as well. I also wrote down several new mods that I want to get done, so I'm anxious to get home and get those going this summer before our big trip to Yellowstone this fall.

Finally home - Photos!

It's awesome to finally have the new trailer home. This thing looks HUGE on the side of my house. Once I sqeeze it back there I have about 4 inches between the extended slide and the roof of my house. I can still open the doors on the other size, but they just barely rub up against the fence when they open all the way. It's a very, tight, fit.

I had to have my electrician come back over and install a full 50 amp plug so I could plug the beast in. We ran 50 amps of service but for some reason only put on a 30 amp plug.

Despite being a tight fit, the location is going to work out great. I'm able to come out of the back of my garage or my house and walk right to the trailer to load and unload things. Especially when I'm using the ramp door.

I'll start to go through some of my favorite features in some later posts as well as some of the customizations I'm lining up, but check out some of the photos in the sidebar in the meantime.

Trailer Arrival and PDI

The new trailer has finally arrived. I had an appointment Friday afternoon at 1pm for the inspection, walk-through and closing.. All total it took me about 5 and a half hours to get it all done, and that was with the help of 2 other guys assisting during the inspection process. They guys at Quality RV had washed it up really nice and the trailer looked great. They had already pressure tested all the lines and filled and dumped all the tanks and it was pretty much ready for me to get started on my PDI. Overall things went pretty well for a trailer of this size with this many features. There were several things that really, really should have been caught in a quality inspection by either the manufacturer or the dealer, but it wasn't many more items that I've seen in previous PDI's. In the end there were a dozen or so little fixes that needed to be made such as missing screws, poor caulk job, window seals that had slipped off, hinges that were out of alignment, etc. The dealer was able to take care of most of those items right on the fly. Fortunately there weren't any major structural or appliance issues that kept the trailer from functioning.

Here is a list of the larger issues:

1. Broken bracket on the power awning: Luckily the awning still functions with this piece broken, but some strength is gone. A new awning is supposed to be orderd and fully replaced.
2. Pin holes in the awning cover: For some reason there were several tiny little holes in the awning, almost like it had been showered with sparks that burned through or something. Another reason just to replace the entire thing.
3. Toilet out of alignment: The toilet was installed an inch too close to the wall so causing the lid to not stay open. They will have to move the toiled out and hope that the flange of the toilet will cover the gap, otherwise it's going to require a new bathroom floor which would really stink.
4. Bent garage lower convertible bed bracket: The right side of the latch that locks and unlocks the bed/couch hinge looks like it got hit with a forklift. You have to really bend on it to get it to operate properly. This entire bracket assembly needs to be replaced.
5. Graphics: One of the top graphics on the passenger side of the trailer was peeling up and wrinkled in a few places. This will need to be pulled up and replaced.
6. Generator Hourmeter: The hour meter is not working at all for the generater. It was plugged in okay, but not functional.

This is a list of the items missing from the factory:

1. Central Vac was on the custom build sheet, but was never installed.
2. The adjustable track system was missing from the garage, but the dealer pulled one from another trailer so I could still load machines next weekend. (Good save there!)
3. The 12 volt plug from the master bedroom didn't get installed. This plug allows you to charge your phone or run a 12volt clock so you don't have to have a generator running all night or an inverter.
4. Crown molding missing over slides: This was a major dissapointment that was really obvious the second I walked into the trailer. For some reason they decided to not install the crown molding along with the corner blocks over the top of the slides and instead slapped a board up there wrapped in fabric. It looks really, really cheap, especially for something that is such a centerpiece for the woodworking quality of these trailers. They will need to ship out some replacement pieces to fix this issue.

The dealer now needs to put in an order for parts so that I can bring the trailer back in for service to get all of the work done. Fortunately I've got a couple of weeks of unplanned use right after Memorial day when I hope I can get the work done.

Garage Layout

Here is my current plan for laying out the garage. I'm hoping this plan will be the most flexible in allowing me to take an combination of ATVs and dirt bikes. This plan uses the e-track product which ships with the trailer and then some tie downs and a bunch of e-track wheel chocks.

Here is a link to the e-Track Wheel Chocks

1. 2 x ATVs and 2 x Dirt Bikes

 2. 1 x ATV and 4 x Dirt Bikes

3. 6 x Dirt Bikes

On it's way!

After another very, very frustrating week of trying to get any information and trying to get this trailer shipped, I called the Gulf Stream customer service line directly. I spoke to a nice lady named Donna who gave me the information I've been looking for. The trailer was picked up on Friday and must have left this morning as it is scheduled for the dealer to take delivery Thursday morning. Finally!

I'll be putting the pressure on to make sure that the dealer gets their dealer prep done on Thursday so I can do my PDI on Friday and take delivery. That will be 80 days after the order went in and 38 days overdue. Frustrating!