Howard,
In an effort to revive this, I have enjoyed your post (below) and a great many other posts of yours expounding on your EC and the process you followed to make your decision. My wife and I are embarking on a similar task of deciding and planning our next (and likely last) vehicle.
I have learned a lot from your other posts around electrical and some of the other key considerations and usage models you guys are experiencing.
Obviously, you have confirmed that you picked the right vehicle -which must feel great given the financial leap of faith it implies. I'm wondering if, when looking back, there is anything that you would have done differently? For example:
Is there anything you placed a high premium on but in retrospect wasn't THAT important?
Is there something that you didn't consider and later realize "Man, we should have considered that more"?
Maybe you picked a certain feature/function and wish you hadn't?
Maybe you got lucky with something or some feature and realize you chose wisely by pure luck!
I went through a similar process several years ago when making choices with our Sportsmobile, and there were at least a handful of things that I can look back and say I nailed it, missed it or got lucky.
Obviously, I'm not looking for this to be a platform to air any dirty laundry with EC or other Manufacturers (not that you would do that) but rather so much of this personal choice and its very useful to get a "look back" from someone that has covered the same ground we are starting on.
Thanks in advance for any/all commentary.
Hello Waveslider:
It's good to hear from you. We've had our EarthCruiser, Prima Terra, for just over a year and she's now been to two Overland Expo's (that must be some sign of maturity). We're happy with her and would make the same purchase again. Here are some thoughts related to your queries:
1. Anything we thought was really important, but in retrospect hasn't been as big an issue as we thought?
A couple of things - We wanted Thule rails on the top so that we could mount carriers for various toys (specifically kayaks, etc.). The EC team did a great job of placing rails right where we wanted them and we haven't used them once and I doubt that we will. We find ourselves drawn to remote areas wandering down two-tracks to isolated camping situations and the clearance under trees just wouldn't work with kayaks up there. We switched to an inflatable kayak (Advanced Elements Air Fusion) and a packraft (Alpacka Rafts Denali Llama). Those two boats are taking us more remote places than our fiberglass Wilderness Systems ever did.
When we were looking at back country trucks, we kept thinking that we wanted a truck that would be a good base for all of the tools that we were used to using to enjoy wild areas. Since owning Prima Terra we've realized that the platform is so novel that we're taking advantage of different tools. The packraft is a good example. Using Prima Terra as a base for 5 days cross country / canyoneering in the western Grand Canyon I realized I wanted to incorporate the Colorado in that sort of a trip so I needed a boat that I could backpack and would fit in the EC - that lead to the Denali Llama which has lead to a planned self supported trip this coming December where we'll run 145 miles of the river from Lee's Ferry to Kanab Creek and then backpack 40 miles up Kanab Creek and Hack Canyon with the boats to exit the trip. Figuring out truly portable boat that would fit in the EC opened up a type of trip I hadn't thought of before.
Another thing we thought was really important was fuel efficiency. I was convinced I wanted something that would regularly get 16 to 18 mpg. I think in the back of my mind I realized that what I really wanted was range, but I kept thinking of it as mpg. Since owning Prima Terra we've seen 18 mpg and we've seen 9 mpg. I would guess our overall average is somewhere between 14 and 15 mpg, but actually it hasn't mattered to us at all. We have never cut a trip short or failed to reach a series of sites due to lack of fuel. I think our longest stretch between fills has probably been somewhere between 800 and 900 miles (I have the data somewhere!), but that was mostly motivated by not wanting to fill in Bridgeport or Lee Vining, CA. If you've purchase fuel in either of those towns you know what I mean! Our 33 gallon main tank and 40+ gallon auxiliary tank provide about 68 - 70 gallons of useful fuel (we never want to run them completely dry and you lose some capacity in any tank because you need to leave some room for thermal expansion). For me it is possibly an error to figure on getting range primarily via increased efficiency rather than increased capacity. Efficiency changes with altitude, fuel quality, load, how much climbing is in your route, etc. For us, we're really happy that we gained as much fuel capacity as we could get.
Another thing we thought we would want, but didn't get was air-conditioning (house AC - we have cab AC and definitely need that). Our primary reason for foregoing AC was space and form. We didn't want a unit on the roof or the rear (clearance and dust) and we didn't want to give up interior space for a split unit (EC has a really slick unit available that takes up little interior space for the heat exchanger while the compressor goes under the truck between the frame rails). So far we've only had one night when we would have slept a lot better with AC (out of 110 nights so far) and that was in Nevada's Valley of Fire State Park in August (what were we thinking...). We're happy that we didn't get AC, but we can always add it if we decide to.
We were also moderately concerned about the possibility that keeping the house warm with the upper fabric panels would be difficult. We asked EC about an additional layer for greater insulation and they told us they'd retrofit one if we actually needed it, but encouraged us to try the truck with the normal configuration first. Great advice! The diesel-fired Webasto heating system heats the house wonderfully and uses so little fuel that while the fabric doesn't hold heat as well as the foam cored floor, walls and top, it simply doesn't matter to us. We may use more diesel for heating than a fully insulated box house, but we're still using only a few liters on the coldest nights (17 F so far).
We were nervous that the small engine in the current generation of Fuso FG's wouldn't let us fly down the interstate at 75+, but we decided that the other advantages were more important. While we were correct that 75+ isn't a comfortable speed for long distances, it hasn't mattered at all. We find we avoid interstates for two lane state or county highways if can't find an off-pavement route. Thus our customary 55 - 65 is just fine. We can do 70, but rarely find it desirable.
I think that's everything that we thought was more important than it turned out to be, but I'm probably overlooking something.
2. What did we decide wasn't important and now regret? It's probably due to our excessive hand-wringing and worrying about every detail, but there isn't anything that we wished we had done that we left out. I'll admit that if there was an easy way to carry a third passenger (aside from our 80 pound dog), there are a couple of times we could have made a trip without an extra vehicle, but we'd still get the two-person platform if we were buying again. That's the only thing I can think of.
3. How about the stuff we thought was important that has turned out to be more essential than we anticipated? Lots of stuff here!
Solar - we can't have too much solar! House battery capacity - we can't have too big a house bank! We have 420 watts of solar and 540 amp hours house bank and 200 ah truck bank. So far we've never plugged Prima Terra into shore power and we've never used the main engine to charge to house bank. Solar has accounted for all refrigeration, all lights, all water pumping, all electronics, all rechargeable batteries, etc. However, we haven't spent more than a week in overcast or rainy conditions and that might be where a larger solar bank could be handy. If you cut 420 watts down to 42 watts when clouds & rain only allow 10% of normal, or you have really short daylight periods, then our 420 might not be enough. Personally I wouldn't spec a system with less that 400 watts solar for our type of use.
Windows! One of the things that drew us to the Earth Cruiser platform was the windows available in the fabric section and the two long windows at the head and foot of the bed. One of the first things we do when we get to a remote site is open all the windows (I mean open the zippered covers so the clear vinyl makes a window you can look out of). It's like being outside and since that's were we'd rather be, it's perfect. The long windows at the foot and head of the bed are probably our favorite feature of the EC. Hot night? Open those two windows and you immediately have a breeze wafting across your bed that cools well. Wonder what the sunrise looks like? Turn your head on the pillow and look out at the Grand Canyon, The Wind Rivers, the Chama, saguaros, browsing deer, etc.
Driving comfort. We find that we spend a lot of time meandering around. The cabover configuration provides unsurpassed views as you drive and comfortable upright seating helps us enjoy that.
I just asked Heidi if she could think of anything else. She mentioned that it's very important to her how comfortable she feels in Prima Terra when I'm not with her. On several occasions I've taken off for a week of backpacking or mountaineering while she decided meander about photographing wild horses or hunting down petroglyph sites. She's perfectly happy to drive the truck on her own, finds it easy to operate in 4x4, easy to fuel, she can change one of the tires by herself (although she might not get the lug nuts torqued up completely - she'd just re-tighten them until she found somebody with a longer bar or bigger biceps), and she likes the warm cabin when it's could outside!
Sorry this got a bit long. Let me know if there is anything else we can help with. I guess the final advice is figure out what is most important to you and then work to get the best platform you can for that, but don't let your life get away before you get out there (I suspect you already know that since you've been in a Sportsmobile already).
Howard
