We took our 2015 Precept 31UL out for it's maiden voyage last week. We drove over 800 miles down into the Florida Keys and back to the Tampa Bay area.
The headline is that EVERYTHING exceeded our expectations!
The rig performed as advertised. We were very pleased and appreciative of the advice we received on this forum prior to buying and then traveling. We also are very pleased with the thought Jayco put into designing this motorhome and generally the overall workmanship. Yes, there a few items that need some adjustment, but on a macro level, we are happy campers.
As newbies, here's some things we learned and some questions we have for the forum:
-The refrigerator is awesome
-The hot water heater, set to mfg spec, works well. We did have to reset the ECO button once, but that's because we initially had the temperature setting in the bathroom all the way to the right, which is too high, especially for Florida. A call to the manufacturer helped me find the ECO button and they were very accommodating and helpful.
-The ride is great. Very few rattles. The view out the front window is amazing.
-The sofa and dinette bed set up are easy and comfortable.
-The slides, levelers, generator, etc all performed as they are supposed to.
-The outside plumbing set up is well planned.
-For those who may be concerned about the electronics and the fact that the Clarion set up is 3 years old, I must say that the features and capabilities are as good as you will find in 2015 cars. The bluetooth worked well (although had to pair my phone again several times during the trip). The GPS, is great and can be customized. I did set it to track our trips, but found that feature used too much of the radio's memory and had to reboot the unit to clear the memory and turn that feature off. While the GPS database is a few years old, it does the job. I used it in combination with either Google Maps or my favorite GPS travel app, "
Waze".
-Our two golden retrievers have adapted well and while the rig has a very narrow pass through between the two slideouts when moving that they are figuring out, the payoff is really in the space you have when both slides are out.
Now, here are my questions:
1. How do you set the Auto Gen parameters for temperature or battery displacement to have the generator kick on. The quiet time settings were accessible but following the instructions in the manual never lead me to be able to say, for example, if we are away from the rig and the thermostat sees the room temperature get to 80 degrees and there is no shore power, the generator should kick on?
2. I'm going to get tire valve extenders for the outside BACK tires, but for the life of me, I can't find a tire gauge that will angle in to the original valve stems, even with the tire cover off. I bought a 90 degree professional gauge, but it won't work either. Anyone know the trick?
3. Is it okay to leave the water pump on when driving so we can access the water in the fresh water tank? Or should we just turn it on and off when needed?
4. There are 3 white drain tubes, bundled together, hanging BELOW the rig near the utility center and separate from the 4 water drains in that compartment. They are just hanging loose. Does anyone know what they are for?
5. I bought a propane powered grill. Any concerns traveling with those 16.4oz propane canisters in the basement, that may be partially used from cooking while parked?
So far so good. We are very pleased and heading out on another 6 day trip in a couple of weeks. Thanks again for everyone's input for us Newbies!
McGarrett