Just got home from PDI

[sennister]

Well we just got home from the PDI as the title says and already done with my first modifications.

1. mud dauber screen on the furnace exhaust
2. Screen Door Cross Bar

I have lots more to do yet.

They didn't charge anything for the PDI or setting up my new Blue OX WD hitch. I only mention this because I have read of some places charging for this. They were really pleasant through the PDI and it went pretty quick as we skipped over a lot of the operation stuff because a lot of components were basically the same as our old camper in terms of operation and such. Spent a little time on winterization procedures as that is a bit different.

No issues pulling it home even though rush hour was starting and it was pretty windy.

We found a couple issues that were all really minor and they corrected them on the spot.

1. The locking tab on the outdoor kitchen was too short. When I went around testing all the locks I locked it and the very slightest pressure would pop it open. They replaced the locking tab with one that was longer. I mentioned it to the sales lady and she said that there was another couple that picked up a 25BH a week or so before us and they reported the same issue. The other outside hatches all locked fine. It was just the outdoor kitchen.

2. The rubber molding that covers the screws on trim work outside the camper looked like one spot along the top of the slide was too short by about 3". This is just decorative to cover the screws so not a big deal and a quick fix.

wrapping up PDI

Unhooking at home

 

[RAurand]

That is GREAT. Glad all went well for you.
Enjoy your new trailer. When is the first campout?
Nice photos by the way.

 

[Mbranscum-JAY]

Congratulations.


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[bansai]

Congrats!

Is that first pic where you did the PDI or is that your garage?? Sorry, just drooling a bit over here. I would do a lot of things I cannot disclose here to have a garage like that one.

 

[sennister]

That is GREAT. Glad all went well for you.
Enjoy your new trailer. When is the first campout?
Nice photos by the way.

Thanks. It is still pretty cold out and no campgrounds are open yet. Might do some yard camping. There is a campground that opens on April 15 near us or the county parks on May 1.

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[sennister]

Congrats!

Is that first pic where you did the PDI or is that your garage?? Sorry, just drooling a bit over here. I would do a lot of things I cannot disclose here to have a garage like that one.

The first pic was at the dealer. They were working on setting up my hitch.

I do have a shop around back of the house. It is a little over 1500 sqft pole barn. While I could get the camper in the back part technically (door is big enough and it is deep enough), I can't because I have a 4 post hoist back there and it isn't wide enough to fit the camper on it. That building is my shop/brewery. I park out there and store the motorcycles and John Deeres.

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[Mike and Rose]

Happy camping. Enjoy!

 

[Bondo303]

Congrats. Looks just like mine. How do you like the blue ox? I am in the market for a new hitch and it is between the blue ox and the equalizer.

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[bsponsler]

Thanks for the info. We take delivery of our 25BH on Tuesday. Hoping for a smooth process.

 

[Bondo303]

Also did you get 1k/10k wdh?

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[sennister]

Congrats. Looks just like mine. How do you like the blue ox? I am in the market for a new hitch and it is between the blue ox and the equalizer.

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The dealer said they normally sell Equal-i-zer but wanted $799 for it installed after tax. They are a dealer for Blue Ox and they wanted $850. I went to E-trailer and ordered it for $599 free shipping and no tax. They didn't even charge me to set up the hitch during the PDI. They torqued down the ball and set up everything, I just pulled out.

As far as performance. Our old camper was a 23' overall Dutchmen light. I think it weighed 2500#. We used a Draw-Tight WD hitch with no sway control. It pulled fine but I always had a lot of chucking (forward back motion). We live 25 miles from the dealer. Pretty much all interstate but on the loop around the Twin Cities so pretty heavy traffic as we were on the road just as rush hour was starting. Winds for almost the entire trip were cross winds steady at 15 gusting to 25. As for speed there was a couple sections that slowed to stop and go for 1-2 miles in total. The rest at 60-65 and about a mile where I was going 70-75 to get over in the left lane so I could make a left off the highway.

I felt absolutely no chucking. Not once and some of the roads were pretty rough. I felt the stronger gusts but nothing that made me uncomfortable. Even around semis and in a construction zone. I was happy with the way everything pulled but I also know this is as light as the trailer will ever be. It was almost completely empty.

As far as Equal-i-zer vs Blue Ox. Can't really go wrong with either one in the price point. There are some positives and negatives with both and it will come down to personal decision.

Equal-i-zer
Pro
The hitch head is fully adjustable. So if you get a new trailer the angle can be changed to accommodate an underslung or standard coupler.

Con (for me anyhow)
Once set up it is difficult to change tension. For instance sometimes we camp at a place with full hookups. We will be traveling light. More often we will boondock and we have full fresh water tank and I want to add a shelf above the propane tanks for my generator. When running heavy like this I will likely need a bit more lift. With a chain system I can add or drop a link to tune it for the trip.

Blue OX
Pro
As mentioned it is chain based and easier for me to fine tune based on load for a given trip.

Easy to set up as there is no hitch head angle shims and such. If they were going to charge me for set up I would have done it myself.

Con

Because there is no hitch head adjustment you have to buy the underslung one. If the next camper is standard coupler you are probably better off buying a new hitch. The underslung design doesn't seem that common so it may be hard to sell. At least when I was walking around the RV Show that is what I noticed.

Also did you get 1k/10k wdh?

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Here is a link to the one I bought. It is the 1k/10k wdh for underslung coupler trailers. I emailed Blue Ox before ordering it and sent them the specs on the trailer and my TV and the customer service rep sent the data over to the engineer and verified it was what I needed.

Link

With a GVWR of 6750 and factoring a worst case of 15% TW I will be at 1012.5lbs so 12.5 lbs over. The hitch on my truck maxes out at 1K as well so I will watch TW when loaded and stay just shy of that mark.

Hope this helps. I went back and forth on what hitch to get as well. So far I am happy with the Blue Ox. It came highly recommended from other forums as well.

 

[sennister]

Thanks for the info. We take delivery of our 25BH on Tuesday. Hoping for a smooth process.

Good luck on your PDI and congratulations.

Be sure to check that lock on the outdoor kitchen or if you didn't option for that the rear storage you get in its place. The locking tab they used was too short on mine and as I mentioned they said I wasn't pushing on the door hard enough when latching. The guy doing the PDI was a younger guy and he tried it and saw what I was talking about. He went and got the Service Manager who figured we were not pushing hard enough. Then he was scratching his head so I pointed the issue out to him. I mentioned that my real job is an IT Security Analyst and part of my job is physical security assessments so I know a lot about locks and have been trained in picking them. Not that these locks are worth a darn but it is more another point of securing the door in transit to me.

He came back a few minutes later with a new lock kit and measured the arm on the new one compared to the old one and it was 1/4" or so longer. This one secured the door as I would expect. They didn't swap out the lock just that tab arm so it is still all keyed the same. They took a photo of it and sent it off to Jayco. The saleslady mentioned that she sold a couple 25BH camper and one a week ago or so had the same issue but it wasn't resolved. Not sure if they called up and mentioned it and it was missed at their PDI or what but it is a case of where they are installing the lock cylinders, the lock they are using won't work. They can't really move the lock any lower because of the trim work around the door. I had no issues with the locks in the front pass through storage though.

Other than this I had the molding issue which was a quick fix. Not sure if part of it got ripped off or they just installed a piece too short. This that plastic or rubber molding that just covers the screws that hold the trim around the top of the slide. As I said this isn't for waterproofing just decorative to hide the screws.

 

[jloco]

It looks great! Congrats!

 

[bsponsler]

I'll look for those tabs on the outdoor panels. Did you use the PDI from this forum? That's what I plan on using. I ended up going with a Husky TS centerline WDH. Now if the weather will be reasonable so I can crawl around without getting too dirty.

 

[gnevel]

Congratulations. Great looking setup!

 

[sennister]

I'll look for those tabs on the outdoor panels. Did you use the PDI from this forum? That's what I plan on using. I ended up going with a Husky TS centerline WDH. Now if the weather will be reasonable so I can crawl around without getting too dirty.

I printed off a PDI checklist that I got from somewhere. I don't remember if it was here or from a google search. I think it was about 15 pages. Honestly I didn't use it though. The PDI tech had a process to work around the outside explaining all the systems as we went then through the inside. We then had a checklist that they provided from Jayco. He said that they have us mark off OK or NA on each item and it gets sent to Jayco as an acknowledgment that they went through it with us. We also had another sheet to note any issues. Since this wasn't our first camper we really didn't need much explanation with most of your common stuff. So we could focus on things that were new like emergency retraction process for the slide and awning. How to winterize and a few other things specific to this camper.

They also gave us a gift card to the dealer's store which was nice and we were not expecting. So we bought quite a few things that we had on our list of things we wanted to add.

So since he had a checklist we just ended up going off of his. While only a single page it was multiple columns in pretty small font.

 

[rkresge]

Congratulations, nice unit! Hope you get lots of good times with it!

Roger

 

[bsponsler]

Thanks for the info. I'll take the one I have just in case.

 

[ExxWhy]

As far as Equal-i-zer vs Blue Ox. Can't really go wrong with either one in the price point. There are some positives and negatives with both and it will come down to personal decision.

Equal-i-zer
Pro
The hitch head is fully adjustable. So if you get a new trailer the angle can be changed to accommodate an underslung or standard coupler.

Con (for me anyhow)
Once set up it is difficult to change tension. For instance sometimes we camp at a place with full hookups. We will be traveling light. More often we will boondock and we have full fresh water tank and I want to add a shelf above the propane tanks for my generator. When running heavy like this I will likely need a bit more lift. With a chain system I can add or drop a link to tune it for the trip.

Congrats on the new trailer, always a happy day!

I had an Equalizer on my last trailer. Liked everything but the extra creaking.

A tip regarding the quick tension adjustment on an Equalizer. (For anyone else who may be considering one) You can move the brackets up or down a hole and it's the same as adding or removing a washer in the head which also equates to up or down a link on a chain based hitch. Need a wrench, but it's a quick adjustment if you need more tension for a heavily loaded trip.

 

[sennister]

Congrats on the new trailer, always a happy day!

I had an Equalizer on my last trailer. Liked everything but the extra creaking.

A tip regarding the quick tension adjustment on an Equalizer. (For anyone else who may be considering one) You can move the brackets up or down a hole and it's the same as adding or removing a washer in the head which also equates to up or down a link on a chain based hitch. Need a wrench, but it's a quick adjustment if you need more tension for a heavily loaded trip.

Yeah, I agree it isn't hard to do. Just something that doesn't take a wrench on a chain based system. It is also completely silent. No creaking or popping noise.