First time Keystone Buyer

[Fishsizzle]

Hey from Oregon,

We are picking up a new 2017 Alpine 3661FL in a week or so.

Trading out our 2015 Wildcat 28rls bumper pull.

Excited as this will be the nicest RV we have owned. We used to have a 5th wheel back in 2002 or so. McKenzie (Monaco) Lakota

Have had 2 Forest River products also, and a huge Tahoe bumper pull and a camper which started it all 25 yrs ago after our marriage.

Bought a 2017 F250 6.7 after totaling my 2010 F350 6.4

Looking forward to many happy, satisfying trips in years to come

[DocWMB]

:wlcm: to the Forum! Lots of new Oregonians recently. You'll find lots of expensive ideas and helpful advice here.

[Fishsizzle]

Thanks!

I will be doing lots of research as this has a res fridge. Need to add some batteries now and maybe solar next year. We spend a lot of time in parks, but 2 weeks or so dry. Hate to run the Yamaha gen.

[Alpine]

Welcome indeed from another Alpine/Oregonian! Spend our winters in So. Cal. and summers in Oregon!

[Fishsizzle]

Welcome indeed from another Alpine/Oregonian! Spend our winters in So. Cal. and summers in Oregon!


Thanks, nowhere near retirement, but would love to get out of the snow in Dec - Feb.

We love Lake Havasu! Our park problem is 5 pups. Trying to get parks to treat them as 2 dogs and 3 kids,

Sweet on Alpine friends. We were set on an Avalanche with same floor plan 380FL, but found this 2017 marked way down. Can’t hardly sleep waiting to get it.

[MarcS]

Welcome to the forum from Fowlerville Michigan!

[Fishsizzle]

Welcome to the forum from Fowlerville Michigan!

Thanks very much! Breaking out the map to check MI out. I haven’t been there yet.

[DOWva]

Welcome to being a Keystone owner. We too have a Keystone 37' Cougar and we love it. Congrats

[Gegrad]

Welcome from North Carolina!

[Triple GGG]

Welcome from Knoxville TN! I'm new here as well but the knowledge is outstanding in this forum.

[DOWva]

Yeah I really enjoy all the info I get from this forum thanks to all of you.

[Fishsizzle]

Now I’ve no where near TN or NC but have heard nothing but awesome things about Both. I have always wanted to visit Nashville and have friends that goto the beach in NC.

Thanks to you both.

[Ken / Claudia]

Unknown what genny you have but the 2000 yama is nice to move and use compared to the other 3 I have had. Just part of dry camping, run the genny.

[Fishsizzle]

Unknown what genny you have but the 2000 yama is nice to move and use compared to the other 3 I have had. Just part of dry camping, run the genny.


Yes 2000 Yamaha.

Last year a guy had a brand new solitude and had 2 Honda’s running the entire 10 days we were there. I ran the yam a few hrs to charge the troll batteries on the boat and top off the house batteries. Just don’t want to be that guy that grates on everyone. The Res fridge is a new beast to me, what I’ve read I need to conserve and think about the amount of reserve my batteries have and get a decent inverter.

Thanks!

[Ken / Claudia]

Yeah a few hours a day usually is good, make coffee, watch news, top off batteries. With that genny the kids running around or any vehicle driving through makes more noise.

[jlb27537]

Hey from Oregon,

We are picking up a new 2017 Alpine 3661FL in a week or so.

Trading out our 2015 Wildcat 28rls bumper pull.

Excited as this will be the nicest RV we have owned. We used to have a 5th wheel back in 2002 or so. McKenzie (Monaco) Lakota

Have had 2 Forest River products also, and a huge Tahoe bumper pull and a camper which started it all 25 yrs ago after our marriage.

Bought a 2017 F250 6.7 after totaling my 2010 F350 6.4

Looking forward to many happy, satisfying trips in years to come

First. Congrats on the new trailer. You might want to do a bit of math on your GVWR AND CGVWR. The trailer you are buying is probably way past the pin weight carrying ability of a F250. And air bags just make a overloaded truck level, it does not increase it's capacity.

A trip to the scales should be in your future plans also. Might also look at the trailer dry weight of 13,620 and a GVWR of 15,500. That ONLY gives you a carrying capacity of 1,880 lbs. Figure fulltiming about 1,500lbs per person. Unless you only use it for trips to the lake on week ends, again, need to do some math.

Good luck.

[takpak]

Hi Fishsizzle, from a fellow Oregonian (Ory-gunian), from the North Plains area. Congrats on your new rig. You will enjoy it, I'm sure. We're on our 4th Montana, a 3810 with the "new" front window. Love that front window. Regarding the residential "refer" they work good, if you have shore power. Otherwise, you are going to find that it "eats through the batteries" real quick, no matter what. Our dealership won't even handle rigs with res refers in them, due to the battery problems. Keep the generator handy. We have the Yamaha 2400. It is quiet, and has the "clean power" technology. It WILL run ONE of the AC units, if everything else is off. Regarding your truck, well.......you've heard from others. In our case, we had a 2008 GMC 3500 (one ton) rig. When we got our third 5'er, the pin weight was much heavier, as was the trailer. Truck pulled it just fine. However, we were "over" by about 500 pounds. My concern is this......if it comes to an "incident" with the rig while towing, and it is shown that we were overweight, the lawyers would be all over us, no matter who's fault it was. So, the 2008 had a GVWR of 9900 pounds. The new 2015 GMC one ton now has a rating of 11,600 pounds. With the new 3018, we are under by 500 pounds. Still have to be careful, though. Maybe you can go back to the dealership and tell them they misled you, and you want a 350, or perhaps even a 450 model!

On a side note, I'm hearing good things about that new 6.7 engine. Of course, I'm "old school" and think Ford should have stuck with the 7.3 "cornbinder" (International) diesel. I had one and loved it.

Good luck, and perhaps we'll see you one of these days. We stay mostly in the Oregon State Parks, as they are some of the best. Our goal is to hit every one that we can "fit" in (trailer is just over 40 feet long) but that's most of them, fortunately. Soon to be off to Detroit Lake for the first outing of the season.

TK

[TX-John]

I’ve been doing a lot of research before I upgraded to a 5er. I’ve had several Forest River toy haulers and like them.

I decided on the Alpine 3901RE and picked it up last week. I’ve been a bit disappointed up until today when “a bit” changed to “very disappointed”... Don’t get me wrong, I love to room, it tows great, BUT, my disappointment it with the Keystone Quality Control.

I’ve been having an issue getting the RV cooled below 83 degrees inside. I contacted the dealer and they agreed to have someone look at it. Last Friday they pulled the AC unit off the top and inspected the return and supply vents. He couldn’t find any issues. He said to see how it goes over the weekend. Well no change...

So here comes where I became very disappointed in QC.. I thought I’d just check the return vents and verify all is good. Low and behold 1 was packed with sawdust from the factory cutting the return holes for the AC! So tomorrow I’ll be contacting the service guy to let him know what I found. My guess is that got sucked into the AC and has things clogged up. I checked the front returns and found some but not as bad as the rear return.

Really I wouldn’t have figured they would be packed with sawdust. The dealer had the AC going in the lot and it was cold. What’s very disappointing is that the factory, the Dealer, and the service tech all missed that.

Anyhow, I guess the argument begins tomorrow because I’m wanting them to replace both units just in case the front has an issue also. I think I’ll start at the factory to see what they say.

Hopefully they can change my mind about them...

John

[ctbruce]

I’ve been doing a lot of research before I upgraded to a 5er. I’ve had several Forest River toy haulers and like them.

I decided on the Alpine 3901RE and picked it up last week. I’ve been a bit disappointed up until today when “a bit” changed to “very disappointed”... Don’t get me wrong, I love to room, it tows great, BUT, my disappointment it with the Keystone Quality Control.

I’ve been having an issue getting the RV cooled below 83 degrees inside. I contacted the dealer and they agreed to have someone look at it. Last Friday they pulled the AC unit off the top and inspected the return and supply vents. He couldn’t find any issues. He said to see how it goes over the weekend. Well no change...

So here comes where I became very disappointed in QC.. I thought I’d just check the return vents and verify all is good. Low and behold 1 was packed with sawdust from the factory cutting the return holes for the AC! So tomorrow I’ll be contacting the service guy to let him know what I found. My guess is that got sucked into the AC and has things clogged up. I checked the front returns and found some but not as bad as the rear return.

Really I wouldn’t have figured they would be packed with sawdust. The dealer had the AC going in the lot and it was cold. What’s very disappointing is that the factory, the Dealer, and the service tech all missed that.

Anyhow, I guess the argument begins tomorrow because I’m wanting them to replace both units just in case the front has an issue also. I think I’ll start at the factory to see what they say.

Hopefully they can change my mind about them...

JohnJohn welcome. Start at your dealer to save some frustration. Keystone works through their dealers and not directly with buyers like FR does. Just a different business model. Good luck.

[TX-John]

Thanks Chip! I’ll do that.

[TX-John]

I’ve been doing a lot of research before I upgraded to a 5er. I’ve had several Forest River toy haulers and like them.

I decided on the Alpine 3901RE and picked it up last week. I’ve been a bit disappointed up until today when “a bit” changed to “very disappointed”... Don’t get me wrong, I love to room, it tows great, BUT, my disappointment it with the Keystone Quality Control.

I’ve been having an issue getting the RV cooled below 83 degrees inside. I contacted the dealer and they agreed to have someone look at it. Last Friday they pulled the AC unit off the top and inspected the return and supply vents. He couldn’t find any issues. He said to see how it goes over the weekend. Well no change...

So here comes where I became very disappointed in QC.. I thought I’d just check the return vents and verify all is good. Low and behold 1 was packed with sawdust from the factory cutting the return holes for the AC! So tomorrow I’ll be contacting the service guy to let him know what I found. My guess is that got sucked into the AC and has things clogged up. I checked the front returns and found some but not as bad as the rear return.

Really I wouldn’t have figured they would be packed with sawdust. The dealer had the AC going in the lot and it was cold. What’s very disappointing is that the factory, the Dealer, and the service tech all missed that.

Anyhow, I guess the argument begins tomorrow because I’m wanting them to replace both units just in case the front has an issue also. I think I’ll start at the factory to see what they say.

Hopefully they can change my mind about them...

John

Well I figured I’d give a quick update. I’ve had both AC units pulled and checked. They both check out fine but it still wouldn’t cool well.

With my infrared thermometer I was able to find the one ceiling panel was 10 degrees colder than another. Well I found on all supply vents little to no foil tape around the vents so most of the air was in the ceiling... After covering the holes I can get the living room down to 78 when it’s 90+ outside.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion this particular RV was built on a Friday...

John

[John&Genny]

John: It’s not just your RV built on a Friday. If anything, it’s a Keystone wide problem with poor A/C ducting and QC, and I’m sure the problems are not limited to just Keystone. That’s why there is a 10 page thread on this forum titled: Amazing A/C Airflow Improvements (http://www.keystoneforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25849) I had to replace the vents with some that offered better airflow and tape around the duct vent openings to make sure air wasn’t escaping into the ceiling. The test will be towards the end of July going into August to see if I was successful.

[TX-John]

John: It’s not just your RV built on a Friday. If anything, it’s a Keystone wide problem with poor A/C ducting and QC, and I’m sure the problems are not limited to just Keystone. That’s why there is a 10 page thread on this forum titled: Amazing A/C Airflow Improvements (http://www.keystoneforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25849) I had to replace the vents with some that offered better airflow and tape around the duct vent openings to make sure air wasn’t escaping into the ceiling. The test will be towards the end of July going into August to see if I was successful.

I had to tape around all my vents to keep me from cooling the ceiling. I had a 10 degree difference in two different panels and found big holes at the supply vents...

I will check out the tips in the link and see if that helps.

Thanks!!
John

[Chief Mole]

Welcome from the Midlands of South Carolina! :camping: