OrangeKid

We recently sold our 2004 2619 TrailManor and I wanted to summarize our observations after camping in it 300 nights over the last three years at many State and National Parks and Monuments. We have towed the TM around 14,200 miles. Almost all our camping has been dry. We have never had full hookups and rarely had electricity and water hookups. We have many wonderful memories and photos from our travels. It was a great way to start retirement.

Advantages of TrailManor:
-folds and fits in a normal garage
-tows easily with an Explorer sized SUV
-does not sway (we never had any issues with sway even during strong
crosswinds)
-layout was perfect for us (a retired couple)
-scissor jacks makes leveling easy
-lots of interior space
-lots of windows. End louver windows can be kept open in rain.
-all the comforts (shower, hot water, heater, other than packing the
Trailmanor in Vegas, we never used the A/C)
-folding tongue allowed us to walk around our TrailManor in the garage.
-large freshwater capacity (40 gallon with optional tank)
-solar panel
-overhangs for bike storage and hanging out towels to dry

Disadvantages of TrailManor:

-marginal capacity of tires and axle (although we never had a tire failure
the marginal capacity was always on our minds). We were fanatical about
keeping cold tire pressure at 50 PSI. (This was our biggest concern)
-need to carry many things in our tow vehicle because of TrailManor’s
marginal carrying capacity. Every time we broke and made camp we had
to move things from and to the TrailManor to keep the load in the TM
within limits.
-need to unfold and fold
-need to take down and set up bedding, bathroom, overhead cabinets and
wardrobe before folding and setting up
-need to keep fan on when running refrigerator when Trailmanor was
folded. If for some reason one wanted to stay at a motel for the night or
park the TM overnight in a closed position one would have to find a way to
plug the trailer in.
-need to unfold trailer to fill fresh water (I read the thread of owners
modifying TM to fill from drain, but we just want to use the trailer not
spend time working on modifications).
-friction latch on upper door when folded. It would seem very easy for the
factory to install some sort of positive latch. Our door opened several
times while we were traveling and a passing motorists called our attention
to it.
-spring clips that do not positively latch when setting up the door. We
understand some other (newer) models now have a positive latch instead
of a spring clip.
-no screen door.

Many of the disadvantages I have listed are really design “issues” that could easily be addressed by TrailManor. I think I remember someone ordering a TM with a larger axle and tires than are standard. Higher capacity axle/tires should be standard. Things like inadequate or non positive latching latches should easily be remedied by the factory.

One comment about quality. I have noticed a lot of discussions about it. I personally think quality could be greatly improved. Although we never suffered any serious breakdowns in the 300 nights of camping we have had a lot of niggling problems. For example the bathroom mirror fell off while driving through Big Sur. It was only held on the wall by rubber cement and trim with tiny staples (luckily the mirror did not break). While breaking camp on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon our tongue jack broke at its highest setting. Luckily we had already hitched the TM to the TV and were installing the weight distributing bars. We unbolted the tongue jack and threw it away. When we returned home we replaced it with a Bulldog jack with 3000 lbs capacity. The original tongue jack had 1000 lbs capacity, which is totally inadequate when one considers that installing the weight distributing bars requires one to jack up the tongue (ours weighed 720 lbs) and rear of the tow vehicle.

If one needs a camping trailer that fits in a standard garage there is really nothing on the market that compares to a TrailManor. However, requiring that the camping trailer fit in the garage leads to a lot of other design compromises, some of which I have enumerated above.

In summary we really enjoyed out TM in the last three years. We have camped at some very spectacular places in the west. We will miss our TM, but look forward (with some trepidation) to our new Airstream, and plan to take longer and more distant trips in the future.