Well, we got to look at our friends repaired TM and it looks like they did a good job. They replaced the entire upper rear panel (the old one had crumpled), straightened out the frame, did some repair work on the lower, left rear end and replaced some of the cabinets (total about $9,000 in damage). Couldn't see any remaining signs of the original damage, it opened and closed smoothly, the tires showed no unusual wear patterns and it seemed to track straight out on the open freeway.
It's been kept outside with a cover on it. The inside looked very clean and didn't smell bad. THe outside had some mold on the window trim and looked a little "rough". We don't think he has had it opened for at least a year. He says all the appliances work. What kind of life does the TM 2619 have? Since it's a 2001, how many more years do you think we could use it without a lot of costly repairs? (I know that's hard to say, especially without pictures but any guesses???)
However, we noticed a couple other things while looking at it and were wondering how you folks address.
1. The door to the TM doesn't seemt to be very substantial. This is a concern for us because we were hoping to use it in remoted areas of the Northern Rockies and Cascades where there are bears. Any words on wisdom on the TM degree of bear proofness? These are the places that require tent campers and folks in soft sided trailers to put all food in locked metal (or extremely strong plastic) bearproof containers. We were hoping that we could keep our food, etc in the trailer without fear of the bears or the hassle and expense of additional bear proofing measures.
2. Also, there is a gap between the upper, front panel and the body of the trailer. We didn't measure it, but it looks like it is about 2-3" wide.
Our concern here is varmints (raccoons, chipmunks, mice, etc).
We have a friend who was camping out of his car in West Virginia and was storing his food in the back seat to protect it from the critters. He left one of the windows open about 2-3" to allow for ventilation. The next morning when he awoke he found the bags and boxes which had held his food, shredded and the remains of his food scattered all over the interrior of his car. At first we suspected vandalism (some of our other friends have a rather childish sence of humor), but we found raccoon prints (where the raccoon must have held the glazed donuts) on the inside of his car windows. Lesson learned by the rest of the group! Never leave your windows open in the forest (not even a little) with food in the car.
Do the gaps allow pests to get in?
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