I’m just throwing these thoughts out to those of you who have the smaller RV’s who mostly just read our posts for the knowledge/opinions and leave it at that. I imagine there are (and know of) several of you out there that really don’t own a Montana, but have joined under innovative creativity so you could read the posts while applying some of the responses to your particular unit. You need to realize that many who regularly post here are full-timers or long timers with the longer rigs. They have a lot tied up in their units, use them as their sole place of residence, and need to be more cautious as to the limits of their equipment. They evaluate things differently than those who use their RV’s only on the major holidays and think a long trip is 100 miles to a lake.
That being said, I fear we on the MOC with recent lively discussions on tires, load ratings, pull vehicle capacities, and so on may have scared the crap out of many newbies and want to be RV owners over these issues to the point of losing interest in sampling the RV experience. I don’t deny there are responsibilities in owning and operating an RV, but you need to evaluate what degree you use your unit or the unit you’re thinking of buying. If you just travel to a favorite lake or destination 4-5 times a year and only use a half of tank of fuel to get there I personally don’t think it is an issue if your truck is just a bit overmatched by your RV … or if you want to pull a small boat or ATV behind your unit. It really isn’t an issue if you are 80%, 90%, of 100% of your axle capacity, it really isn’t an issue if you have ST or LT tires on your unit (as long as they’re not Marathons) … it doesn’t really matter if your spare isn’t exactly the same as your other 4 on the ground … it doesn’t matter if you pull with a full fresh water tank or an empty water tank. As you can witness by our posts, thrashing these issues around can create great anxiety that perhaps in your case settles out to be irrelevant. There are many bells and whistles on some of our RV’s … level-up, disc brakes, on board generators, roof full of solar panels, independent suspensions, air ride suspensions, air hitches, remote pendants to operate about anything, and so on. These come in handy, but in many cases are not mandatory options if you fall into the light RV use category.
I’ll wrap this up in saying owning an RV or participating in RVing is a very rewarding activity … we’ve all experienced this otherwise I doubt if we would be on this website. Don’t let recent thrashings of certain issues dissected down to the last atom scare you away from a great experience.
I just realized this sounds a lot like an old Mutual of Omaha intro to one of their old specials, but I believe it needed to be said.
That being said, I fear we on the MOC with recent lively discussions on tires, load ratings, pull vehicle capacities, and so on may have scared the crap out of many newbies and want to be RV owners over these issues to the point of losing interest in sampling the RV experience. I don’t deny there are responsibilities in owning and operating an RV, but you need to evaluate what degree you use your unit or the unit you’re thinking of buying. If you just travel to a favorite lake or destination 4-5 times a year and only use a half of tank of fuel to get there I personally don’t think it is an issue if your truck is just a bit overmatched by your RV … or if you want to pull a small boat or ATV behind your unit. It really isn’t an issue if you are 80%, 90%, of 100% of your axle capacity, it really isn’t an issue if you have ST or LT tires on your unit (as long as they’re not Marathons) … it doesn’t really matter if your spare isn’t exactly the same as your other 4 on the ground … it doesn’t matter if you pull with a full fresh water tank or an empty water tank. As you can witness by our posts, thrashing these issues around can create great anxiety that perhaps in your case settles out to be irrelevant. There are many bells and whistles on some of our RV’s … level-up, disc brakes, on board generators, roof full of solar panels, independent suspensions, air ride suspensions, air hitches, remote pendants to operate about anything, and so on. These come in handy, but in many cases are not mandatory options if you fall into the light RV use category.
I’ll wrap this up in saying owning an RV or participating in RVing is a very rewarding activity … we’ve all experienced this otherwise I doubt if we would be on this website. Don’t let recent thrashings of certain issues dissected down to the last atom scare you away from a great experience.
I just realized this sounds a lot like an old Mutual of Omaha intro to one of their old specials, but I believe it needed to be said.
