'22 Montana 3231CK Notes

[OldJimi]

My wife and I purchased our '22 Montana 3231CK in August and started full timing. We had a previous 5er that we lived in for a few months during a move. We had talked about full timing several times through the years and finally decided we had to do it now or give up any hope of ever doing so. We at our 3rd park since our new beginning and are enjoying it so far,
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'22 M3231GK, '19 Ford F-350 6.7L DRW 4x4
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My wife and I also purchased a 2022CK though we've been full timing for a little over five years. We used to live in an Arctic Fox fiver. I'd like to share notes.

Ours came with a Norcold 2118 fridge which is a beautiful huge stainless thing. While it is a beautiful fridge, it just didn't work well if the outside temps were above 90. And it was a power/propane hog. We installed one of the JC Refrigeration cooling units that is a two compressor vapor compression (residential style) that runs on 12 volt. It works great. Freezer stays between -5 and 0 and fridge is 32-38 degrees. It draws about 11 amps. We use between 300-400 ah a day of power... which a LOT more than our Fox ever used.

We learned the hard way that we have to carefully sweep the floors before moving the slides. We have a damage spot due to a rock on our flooring that the dealer wants 1400 dollars to repair.

We have 1400 watts of solar and 600ah of lithium Lifeblue batteries (two 300ah batteries).

Our closet doors stick really really bad. If wife opens the doors she can't close them. I need to take some sandpaper to the lower door guides.

Every other time our living room TV is turned on it has no sound. We have to turn it off, rest it for a moment and then turn it on. It's a pita.

A couple blinds don't work right, and a bedroom blind doesn't roll up.

Otherwise we love our home. But getting service after the sale isn't easy. The dealer is really good at ignoring me and breaking promises. I would not recommend this trailer due to the pitiful service from the Keystone dealer in Lewiston Idaho. I love it otherwise.

I'd love to hear about your experiences with this beautiful fiver.

Cheers
Tom
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Tom and Claudia Blocker retired fulltimer nomads
2022 3231CK
2019 Ram Cummins 3500 SRW air bags
B&W puck system hitch

[OldJimi]

HI Tom,
A big difference between our units is the fridge - I've got the GE residential refrigerator and have no complaints about it at all. My solar package is the 200 with a single battery and that's enough to keep my fridge running when we are on the road for a day. I'm planning a long trip to Alaska next summer and my get to see how long the solar will keep it running.

Our closet doors slide easily, the right side hook is tricky to put in when we are locking down to roll and that's the only thing so far. I read recently that I can expect the clothes bar to come loose and fall at some future date but haven't looked at it yet.

We have indoor slippers and leave our outside shoes at the door when we come in - did that in all our houses as well- that cuts down on debris that gets tracked in. Our linoleum has turned yellow where it has been walked on, the worst spots were right at the front door. That section was replaced so instead of yellow, we have a section of mismatched gray with shiny glue spot edges and a little waviness at one end. Marolyn is livid. Sales people had put a rug over the really bad spot at the door when they showed us the unit and we didn't know about it until the day we went to pick it up.

I got mine from Camping World and they have been pretty good about addressing all the warranty issues I've discovered so far, not always with 'like new' result. With Camping World, you can get warranty work done at any one of them, but the one you identify the problem with is the one you have to get the repairs done. Floor at the entry was done at the dealer where I bought it, I have another maintenance sesssion scheduled at the end of the month to address a different section of floor, the screen door that fell off, broken gutter spout, and the awning end cap that refused to stay on.

Although my last 5er was a few feet shorter, this one doesn't seem that much bigger, and we may sell it so we can get a larger one.

How's your pin weight, Tom? I bought a dually because I was concerned about the payload with a SRW.

Jim

[Daryles]

Jiminy,
For the linoleum repair, if you can, go to the annual Rally in Goshen Indiana. Keystone technicians will fix two things for you. If not, take it to Affinity RV Group, Goshen. They fixed ours. Can't tell there was a problem.

In the files section you will find instructions for the blinds. Irving Shade and Door (ISD) company makes them.

We had the rear window blind unroll. We removed the Valance to get it down. The brackets holding it had bowed outwards (red line) which then allowed it to unroll.
I bent them back inboard and rolled it up, then put everything back together.
So far so good.

For the closet rod you can do a search to find different ideas for reinforcing it.

[OldJimi]

Thanks Daryles, I doubt I can make it to Indiana. I have the black out shades only, not my favorite but they are working okay; my old 5thW had the fan fold day/night shades that you just pushed up and down, never had a problem with them, my wife liked them better than the roller shades. Thanks for pointing out the files, I'll probably need to refer to them at some point.
I looked at my closet today and saw that they have two supports holding up the rod at the thirds spacing, only two screw in each, but the ones that got the complaints had a single center support, so I'm hoping that wont be a problem.

My original linoleum problem was sever discoloring -
https://www.montanaowners.com/forums...pictureid=3029

The repair patch would have been better if they had patched a couple more planks -
https://www.montanaowners.com/forums...pictureid=3030

There is also a spot in the bedroom where there is debris under the linoleum, like a scrap of wood a half inch wide by 4" long and an eighth high at the big end, that's getting worked at the end of the month.