Help...confused shopper

jsparks12 wrote:
We did ask...the dealer said they bought a larger coach...Durango Gold. One concern my husband has is the 15 in wheels. Do you know what size wheels the new ones have? Also, does your unit have auto level? The one we looked at did not, but I sure liked the king size bed!!

Our camper has 15" wheels and it does not have auto level. Although Forest River advertises their 5th wheels as having a "Custom King" size bed, it's really an Olympic Queen. 66" X 80" We liked the bed size also. It's plenty big enough but we couldn't find sheet sets locally and had to order two sets online.

One other thing I forgot to mention. If you end up buying the FR 286RL, I had a heck of a time trying to locate where you use the manual crank to operate both the front landing gear and the bedroom slide if it were to ever become necessary. I found the hole for the crank to fit through for the landing gear in the small battery compartment. It was being used as a pass through for battery cables to where the 2nd battery would be housed in the front storage compartment. The location for the bedroom slide is under the bed and accessed by removing a small section of wood floor that's held in by 4 screws.

Quality is always a **** shoot. Sorry to disappoint you on that. All mfgs are pumping out stuff at crazy rates, quality has totally gone out the door.

We did ask...the dealer said they bought a larger coach...Durango Gold. One concern my husband has is the 15 in wheels. Do you know what size wheels the new ones have? Also, does your unit have auto level? The one we looked at did not, but I sure liked the king size bed!!

We just bought a new 2019 Forest River 286RL. We love it. The only issue we have is there's a bump and spider cracks in the Gel Coat on the Nose of the camper. Must have happened during the install because it's obvious that it got hit from the back side. The Gel Coat cracking from what I've read is very common on 5th Wheel nose pieces and not unique to Forest River. It's covered under warranty though. As far as everything else on the camper, we haven't had any problems but I would ask the dealer where it's being sold, why it was traded in.

You hear a lot of positives in here on GD, and some on K-Z, Forest River seems to get a somewhat lower level of praise when it comes to factory support.

If the FR is a used unit, it likely has had a lot of the factory-induced issues already fixed. If by a dealer, you might be able to get a list of things done. A conscientious previous owner might have given the dealer a list of things =they= fixed. Too bad we can't get an "RV Fax" on used RVs.

Lyle