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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jun 2013
Posts: 2,650
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back from Thanksgiving trip.
On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 16:34:40 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:
On 12/1/2015 1:29 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 11:29:41 -0500, Justan Olphart
wrote:
On 12/1/2015 10:05 AM, Tim wrote:
On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 7:31:05 AM UTC-6, Justan Olphart wrote:
On 12/1/2015 6:39 AM, Keyser Söze wrote:
On 11/30/15 5:34 PM, True North wrote:
Justan Olphart
- show quoted text -
"We be campers. 13 feet high and 57 feet long with toad. Any camping
spots nearby and accessible which could accommodate?"
"with toad"??
Who would the "toad" be.......you?
I think the word is "RV'ese" for the little cars the monster RVs tow
behind them, making them even more of an annoyance on the highways. RVs
are among the worst annoyances on the interstates...big, bulky,
sometimes really lousy drivers, and then two of them in front of you
pull into the passing lanes. Even worse on the two or three lane state
roads. There ought to be laws that require them to stay in the right
hand lane, period.
No more an annoyance than a little car towing a big boat. You can tow
it, but can you stop it?
I remember some time ago there was a guy who popped in here wanting to know if it was ok to pull a 20 ft boat with an old Pinto wagon.
That gave me the credeps
I see examples of that on the highway. If I think it's safe to pass
them, I will or I'll fall back and give them plenty of space. Some of
these SUVs on a car chassis with car brakes are the worst offenders.
===
We see people all the time pulling trailers that are right on the edge
of being out of control. They'll speed up a little, the trailer will
start to sway and fish tail. and then they'll slow back down enough to
maintain control. I call it an accident waiting for a place to
happen.
My other pet peeve is under powered RVs however, and there are quite a
few of them. Either the RV or the driver is unable to maintain a
reasonable speed and they create a rolling road block in the right
lane. Everyone else is forced out into the passing lane which creates
a massive bottleneck on a two lane interstate.
My relatively short experience with larger RV's is that just like a
boat, at a certain size a diesel is a must.
We had a 35 or 36 ft. Pace Arrow Class "A" motorhome that I drove to
Florida and back ... once. It was powered by a big GM "Vortex"
something gas engine with the Allison transmission. The transmission
was awesome but, as big as it was, the engine lacked the torque to haul
the RV up some of the long, steep hills on Rt. 81. It would downshift
to 3rd gear and we'd climb the grade with the engine racing at about 4K
RPM, doing about 45 mph. A diesel would have been much better.
The little Sprinter RV had a small, 5 cylinder Mercedes diesel engine.
Obviously, it was much smaller and lighter than the Pace Arrow but it
was still impressive for such a little engine. It climbed up and down
the same hills towing a trailer and never slowed down or even downshifted.
===
Europe has some great diesels. Five years ago we rented a Volkswagon
Van comparable in size to a Ford E250. It had a 5 cylinder diesel and
would run all day at 90 mph, up hill and down hill. My wife's M-B
Blutec has a 6 cylinder turbo diesel with more torque than the V8 in
my Tundra. It will really kick you back in the seat when the power
comes on.
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