Hello!
This is my first post. I live in a house now but lived in a Winnebago Rialta for 3 years. I took it all over the United States boondocking and lived in urban Los Angeles with it for a year too. It even survived a trip from south Florida to Alaska and back. I had some great times in that thing before it burnt down in storage due to someone else’s carelessness.
My girlfriend and I are moving out west to Arizona and so a camper van is a possibility again (for weekend / occasional couple week long trips). I am in a good spot financially now and want something nice that I will hopefully never have to sell for an upgrade.
I have done some research but people on this forum seem more knowledgeable about how I would intend to use it versus a standard RV forum.
It seems like I must choose between the Dodge Promaster / Fiat Ducato, Mercedes Sprinter, and Ford E350 chassis. Of these my favorite is the Sprinter due to the looks (not the newest one that just came out though, which looks terrible) the space, and the powertrain. E350 would be next for the same reasons. Promaster would be last due to being pretty ugly and having a little gas v6 with FWD.
I used an RV Campground and hooked into shore power maybe once in the whole 3 years I owned my Rialta. I will likely do it more often with my girlfriend, but still the point of camping for us is getting away from large gatherings of people. A campground defeats that. This thing needs to be able to boondock.
I checked out a Winnebago Travato 59GL and they have a new Volta lithium battery system with automotive grade batteries that can basically run everything without the need for propane or a generator. By far the most annoying part of owning the Rialta was dealing with the 3 different power systems, all of which sucked. The batteries had low capacity, the LP gas tank was small and you had to worry about parking level etc, and the generator was obnoxiously loud and vibrated violently. I swear it was as loud as a jet engine. I never want to deal with that again and I want something that can just run exclusively on electricity.
I don’t know if this Volta system is available in anything other than the Winnebagos, or if they are just branding a pack of lithium batteries that I could just get in a custom build, or do as an upgrade to another model of rig. Anyone know?
My girlfriend has problems sleeping so I need to be able to run the AC all night if we are in a hot environment. I would then hopefully be able to run the engine for an hour or two the next day and fully charge the batteries again for another night. I have seen some companies doing a 48V second alternator on the Sprinter engine that will automatically kick the engine on when the batteries get low. That might work but my concern is that the engine is a diesel, which are typically loud. A diesel ticking away would disturb her sleep too. Maybe it’s quiet though, to be honest I have never started a Sprinter up. It’s on my agenda but with this whole virus thing, who knows when I’ll do it.
Other musts:
4WD or convertible to 4WD
At least mid-teens MPG
At least a foot of ground clearance, preferably more, or able to be lifted
Ability to take at least a 33 inch tire all around
Probably 2010+ model year chassis
Fridge
Cooktop and microwave or convection oven
I’m not going to kid myself and think that I can take a full camper rock crawling or doing serious offroading, but I would like to take it off road. By that I mean I want the ability to drive off into a field, down a rough dirt road, through mud, snow, or heavy rain, washboard roads like in Alaska,etc with confidence. I took my Rialta places it had no business going and it survived, but I don’t know how.
I’m not sure if I want a wet bath or not. I never used it on my Rialta because the water tank capacity was Not very high and there was usually a lake, campground, or truck stop available within a couple days. The girlfriend might appreciate it. Having a toilet is nice but the black tank, at least in the Rialta, was gross and didn’t seem to seal properly all the time. The ones you can flush out with fresh water are interesting. I see some of you have cassette toilets and those seem nice because they’re compact and don’t require a dump station but I am not very familiar with them or how they work.
I was looking at Exclusive Outfitters, seems like they make some cool vans, but can’t find much third party information on them.
A user here recently posted an Airstream sprinter with a bunch of modifications for over landing in the classifieds. Seems like it would be damn near perfect but I am not in the market right this second.
does anyone have any guidance on what to do? I feel like I’ll be needing to take a big manufacturer chassis like Airstream / Winnebago and modify it or go completely custom.
This is my first post. I live in a house now but lived in a Winnebago Rialta for 3 years. I took it all over the United States boondocking and lived in urban Los Angeles with it for a year too. It even survived a trip from south Florida to Alaska and back. I had some great times in that thing before it burnt down in storage due to someone else’s carelessness.
My girlfriend and I are moving out west to Arizona and so a camper van is a possibility again (for weekend / occasional couple week long trips). I am in a good spot financially now and want something nice that I will hopefully never have to sell for an upgrade.
I have done some research but people on this forum seem more knowledgeable about how I would intend to use it versus a standard RV forum.
It seems like I must choose between the Dodge Promaster / Fiat Ducato, Mercedes Sprinter, and Ford E350 chassis. Of these my favorite is the Sprinter due to the looks (not the newest one that just came out though, which looks terrible) the space, and the powertrain. E350 would be next for the same reasons. Promaster would be last due to being pretty ugly and having a little gas v6 with FWD.
I used an RV Campground and hooked into shore power maybe once in the whole 3 years I owned my Rialta. I will likely do it more often with my girlfriend, but still the point of camping for us is getting away from large gatherings of people. A campground defeats that. This thing needs to be able to boondock.
I checked out a Winnebago Travato 59GL and they have a new Volta lithium battery system with automotive grade batteries that can basically run everything without the need for propane or a generator. By far the most annoying part of owning the Rialta was dealing with the 3 different power systems, all of which sucked. The batteries had low capacity, the LP gas tank was small and you had to worry about parking level etc, and the generator was obnoxiously loud and vibrated violently. I swear it was as loud as a jet engine. I never want to deal with that again and I want something that can just run exclusively on electricity.
I don’t know if this Volta system is available in anything other than the Winnebagos, or if they are just branding a pack of lithium batteries that I could just get in a custom build, or do as an upgrade to another model of rig. Anyone know?
My girlfriend has problems sleeping so I need to be able to run the AC all night if we are in a hot environment. I would then hopefully be able to run the engine for an hour or two the next day and fully charge the batteries again for another night. I have seen some companies doing a 48V second alternator on the Sprinter engine that will automatically kick the engine on when the batteries get low. That might work but my concern is that the engine is a diesel, which are typically loud. A diesel ticking away would disturb her sleep too. Maybe it’s quiet though, to be honest I have never started a Sprinter up. It’s on my agenda but with this whole virus thing, who knows when I’ll do it.
Other musts:
4WD or convertible to 4WD
At least mid-teens MPG
At least a foot of ground clearance, preferably more, or able to be lifted
Ability to take at least a 33 inch tire all around
Probably 2010+ model year chassis
Fridge
Cooktop and microwave or convection oven
I’m not going to kid myself and think that I can take a full camper rock crawling or doing serious offroading, but I would like to take it off road. By that I mean I want the ability to drive off into a field, down a rough dirt road, through mud, snow, or heavy rain, washboard roads like in Alaska,etc with confidence. I took my Rialta places it had no business going and it survived, but I don’t know how.
I’m not sure if I want a wet bath or not. I never used it on my Rialta because the water tank capacity was Not very high and there was usually a lake, campground, or truck stop available within a couple days. The girlfriend might appreciate it. Having a toilet is nice but the black tank, at least in the Rialta, was gross and didn’t seem to seal properly all the time. The ones you can flush out with fresh water are interesting. I see some of you have cassette toilets and those seem nice because they’re compact and don’t require a dump station but I am not very familiar with them or how they work.
I was looking at Exclusive Outfitters, seems like they make some cool vans, but can’t find much third party information on them.
A user here recently posted an Airstream sprinter with a bunch of modifications for over landing in the classifieds. Seems like it would be damn near perfect but I am not in the market right this second.
does anyone have any guidance on what to do? I feel like I’ll be needing to take a big manufacturer chassis like Airstream / Winnebago and modify it or go completely custom.
