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!

Update... finally!

Got a call from AJ Jones who is the National Sales Manager for Gulf Stream's Enduramax Toy Hauler division. I had talked with AJ several times during the sales process with my thousands of questions. Turns out there was yet another delay in the manufacturing which put it another week behind schedule, but it was finished at last!

Now comes the wait for a driver to bring it to Utah. Hopefully that'll happen tonight or tomorrow.

Delays..... patiently waiting

Well,we're coming up on almost a month past the original expectations set by our dealer and the Gulf Stream on the delivery of our new trailer. Fortunately the dealer has been good at taking my calls and getting updates, but each time it's another 2 weeks. I've been assured that the trailer will finish manufacturing on Wednesday and that a driver is waiting to bring it to the dealership immediately after. That should put the trailer at the dealership by next Monday so they can do the prep and turn it over to me.

It's been pretty frustrating having to wait, especially since we're in the camping season, but we're doing our best to pass the time.

I've been doing lots of work on the truck getting it tow ready and I'll start putting up some posts on how that work has come along. We also just blew $500 bucks at Walmart getting new supplies for the trailer's kitchen, bathroom and bedding. That was lots of fun for the kids to pick-out some new stuff for their own beds.

I continue to crawl over the Internet looking for any new information on the product line or experience for new Owners. There sure isn't much out there, so hopefully this blog will be a good place for people to find out more about the Enduramax product line.