I have a fusion 342 without the patio option. I go back and forth, but after a full summer, and 6500 miles of camping, I honestly don't think I'd use the patio that much. The primary reason is that we camp primarily in summer, and opening that back door and using the patio means the air conditioner is useless back there. I supposed on more tolerable days we coud just quickly cool it off in the evening when the kids were heading to bed. We use the garage for a bedroom for the kids, and so we don't always put the beds up each day (they block the air conditioner when up), so the open door is useless in some ways as well. We also don't usually get the luxury of super large campsites in the northeast, and so booking a site that is more remote and with trees sometimes means that we go in right at 38 feet, and the back door wouldn't have room to open, or if it did, we'd be right up against trees.
Now, that all said, the 3-5 trips that encompass spring and fall perfect temperature camping would be pretty neat to have the patio. And my dog would LOVE it. But all in all, I don't think we'd use it. If it had been on it (we bought used), great, but I am glad it wasn't an option we paid for. I think it really depends on where you're camping and what style of camping you do. If we didn't use it as living space, and it was just a garage most of the time, we might have used it more. It wouldn't matter if it was hotter back there, and the beds would likely be in couch mode most of the time.
Speaking of beds and putting them up each day...the primary reason we never use ours in couch mode is because it's really not as simple as it seems to put the pins in for the top bed to stay up. You have to be tall (
), and getting the pins in the back slots isn't easy if you have the door up and anything stored back there. I did it once and haven't done it since. When we use that space for sitting and hanging (in the rain for instance), we just drag our folding chairs in there and sit around them.
(THE RICH RAGE WAR,BUT ITS THE POOR THAT DIE)
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