Quote:
Originally Posted by Beach Boy
First a little background of myself, I live and work in Birmingham, AL (would like to hear from posters in Alabama) and have a Park Model in Gulf Shores, AL. I bought a 1990 37' Tiffin Allegro motorhome in 2005 and camped in it until 2009 when I sold it. Loved to camp in it, but hated to drive it (dangerous) and the 6 MPG.
I want to travel with my wife throughout South Florida investigating sites for a future Park Model or maybe do some snowbirding when I retire in about six years. I am considering a TM due to that it can be pulled by a SUV and hopefully have better MPG.
Here are my questions:
1. If we snowbird, is a TM suitable for long-term stays (3 months)?
2. Are TM's safer to tow than other towables? Trucks pushed our 18k motorhome all over this place. So how is the sway? I would like to hear from everybody but those who have towed over types of towables would be great.
3. Is the TM air conditioner up to the task of South Florida heat and humidity? If not, any creative solutions?
4. I see posts from people are selling in order to move to a 5th wheel or motorhome. Why?
Love this forum. Can't wait for the replies.
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We used to have a 37' Winnebago Adventurer, and it was wonderful, except for the 6mpg, a size that fits almost nowhere, the costs of maintaining all that hardware, and a 10 cylinder power train out there quietly depreciating. We were thinking about a full-timing sabbatical when we bought it, but we decided that despite great adventures, even a 37 foot motorhome wasn't going to really ever be "home."
The TrailManor is a great compromise: we can pull it with a fuel efficient, wife-driveable vehicle, yet it has tons of interior space. It is not as cushy as the motorhome in many ways, but with gas on its way back to $3, there's no way we'd see ourselves covering a lot of miles in the motorhome anymore (we get 16-17 mpg towing). Our TV/TM combo has substantially better road stability than the motorhome (it wasn't bad, as motorhomes go, and I would not describe the Winnebago as "dangerous", but it filled the road and took concentration to keep it where it belonged). The TM does not get shifted or noticeably moved about by the pressure wave around the front of passing vehicles.
I've never heard of "sway" as a problem in the folded TrailManors, and I have no experience in the newer full height models.
The TM AC has twice as much capacity as is needed here in Virginia. I think of our hot days as just like Florida, with the difference being that they just have 5 times as many of them as we do.