Prospective buyer

[ksking444]

I have two concerns: How well does the velcro hold up? Is it easy to replace? and When towing does dirt or dust get into the the TM.?

 

[countrygirl32082]

I have two concerns: How well does the velcro hold up? Is it easy to replace? and When towing does dirt or dust get into the the TM.?

On regular roads little to no dirt entered our TM while towing it 2600 miles (round trip). However...on Missouri farm land gravel roads...dust did enter it.

The velcro so far has held up well. Some people with older units have replaced their velcro. I find...if you gently detach the velcro pieces for themselves...it helps.

 

[grill-n-go]

16,000 miles, 4 years later the velcro appears to be as good as ever. I haven't tracked miles on dirt roads.

We've averaged 9 camping trips annually, normally weekends, with a few of longer duration. Based on this usaged, I estimate about 4 miles per trip on dirt roads. Some places are paved all the way while others are not so this average is a swag. Figure maybe (9 trips x 4 miles x 4 years) 140+ total miles over dirt. We've never experienced any extraordinary dirst or dust except for a tire blowout a little over a year ago.

We drove about a 1/2 a mile to get off an overpass and changed the tire. There was a bunch of black rubber dust on the top shell area which would rest next to the tire when the TM is closed.

 

[larsdennert]

1. Super glue is your friend... The adhesive is poor but new models use the screw on disks.
2. Less dust gets in towing than gets tracked in by all the little feet.

 

[Freedom]

Our TM is a 2000 and the velcro is the original. Instead of pulling on the flaps, try putting your fingers in between and separating the velcro by sliding your fingers along between the two sides.

 

[PopBeavers]

We have finished our third season with the TM. We try to camp one weekend a month between February and October.

At the end of the season we remove all food that would normally just stay in the TM. We remove all dishes to be washed in the home dishwasher.

Then I wipe down he *ENTIRE* interior. Anywhere I can get my hand gets wiped. Though I could not see any dust in the cabinets, I was surprised at how dirty the wash water got.

We keep the main surfaces wiped down throughout the year.

I don't think you will find all that much dust getting inside unless you tow it down a long dirt road. My favorite campground when I was a kid i down 18 miles of dirt road. One of these days I will go back with the TM. But I don't want to take it until it is a little older. Not out of fear of dust, more fear of it getting ratted apart.

 

[Scott O]

Dust is an interesting question. I am not familiar with TMs before the '08 model, but I have a feeling from reading previous posts on this issue that TM continues to improve the sealing of their trailers. I think that if I was to do any dirt road travel I would look into stuffing swim noodles or some such into various nooks and crannies to lessen any potential problem. Ours does seem to be sealed very well, though. Having said that, I have resisted going to any of our favorite desert haunts, not because of potential dust, but I just don't want to take a chance of beating the thing to death on the heavily rutted and washboarded roads. I suppose I could just go very slowly and all would be well, but the design of the TM doesn't seem to be capable of taking much of a beating. But I really don't know of many RVs that can stand up to that sort of thrashing, so the TM might not be alone in this. I guess I just want our 'baby' to be new as long as possible! As far as the velcro goes, they made a minor design change for the tabs which stick on the walls and I do not expect to ever have any velco problems.

 

[Paul_Heuvelhorst]

I have two concerns: How well does the velcro hold up? Is it easy to replace? and When towing does dirt or dust get into the the TM.?

While we didn't travel a lot of miles on dirt/gravel roads, we did some of that type of travel. Dirt on the inside of the trailer was not a problem at all (1998 2619).

As for the velcro, we had our trailer for 3 years and it did not lose its "grip", so to speak.

 

[Pat Stafford]

Velcro and dirt

I can agree that on Missouri country roads some dust does settle in. The velrro holds up well ans good epoxy can fix anything for quite a few years.