Fleetwood Tioga Montara/Jamboree Searcher/Nexus Phantom

Good insight snowdancer. Although we like the extra room of some of the larger models, the smaller version will suit our needs better, which should lead to more use of it.

Thanks all for your input and for the great info found w/in this board.

sunseeker/forester 2300/2301

I also want to talk about the size not brand.. Our 23b is really 25 foot over all. It is easy to drive so both my wife and I drive it any where. We do not tow. We never have a problem finding a place to park it for sight seeing or shopping. But do end up walking some. We keep it parked out side the front door and use it any time we go for a day trip. Perhaps fishing (can do that with in 15 miles of home), just to visit friends or just park up in the high country in a spot with a great view for lunch. We always have the AC ect and our own bath. We do quick pull downs with the fridge by putting bags of ice cubes in both freezer and fridge and then filling with cold food so really using it as an ice chest untill it pulls it self down. So quick get aways are easy. We often turn the water heater on and when it reaches temp we turn it off. It keeps enough hot water for normal use the rest of the day until evening on very little propane. We never leave the water heater on when not using it. We often run 2 or 3 days on our tanks and batterys with no hookups. We are all weather..
For us to go shopping in Calif is a 200 mile round trip south to Redding or a 100 mile trip north to Medford Oregon. Going eather way we leave Fri. evening, and go to a camp ground or resort spend the night. perhaps go into town and look around but not buy much and back to campground. Sunday on our trip home we make our big shopping . So lots of mini vacations. I never worry about fuel cost as when you have it all with you there is little reason to eat out or stay in motels. Both states are taking out rest areas and at my age am not always able to wait another hour or so to the next stop..

If I were full timing or spend more than a month at a time or had a lot of family come with us I would go bigger. We have only the MH and our winter driver the Subaru Forester..

If you look at a small rig like we do you may find your self using it lots more for more things instead of a couple times a year for camping like most of our friends..

We are very happy with our Fleetwood Jamboree, though our 32' is longer then you are looking for. Ours is a 2009 and thus far have had no issues with the liveability or wear and tear on it. Holding up great. E-450 drives very well, plenty of power. We did change out the rear sway bar for a beefier one and upgraded the stock shocks for Bilsteins very early in our ownership. (1700 miles). Made all the difference in the world. It now handles like my Chevy Tahoe.

FishB8s wrote:


Snowdance - How has your Jamboree held up 13 years later? Still happy w/ it?

Mine has held up well and we still love it. Just normal things so far. Ours is on a Chevy because of were we live. We drive lots of two lane roads and the edge is were the pavement ends and its often 5 to 80 foot drops. 40+ mph cross winds are common, Roads are very rough with pieces of pavement several feet across missing 1 to 2 1/2 inches deep. No way to miss them. Chevys were a couple thousand dollars more then but ride softer and better control with less cross wind problems than the Fords. I did add a rear sway bar. I have the 7.4 Vortex engine and have never had it over 1/4th throttle even when climbing mountians every trip even on the freeway. Have had 10 mpg for the last 35,000 miles.

I drove a Ford V-10 3/4 ton pickup with full loads where I worked then loved the power, firm ride but far to rough to enjoy. Trying to keep up with the steering on the narrow roads with big drops was exhausting.

But not every one has to put up with these conditions. There are lots of post on this site that give information on how to fix the Fords so they handle better.

We have the Ford E-450 and would do the same thing, but we tend to be "Ford" people so I'm sure either one would be fine.

I would bet that the current Jamboree and Tioga are available with identical features but different interior dinette seat fabrics and trim.We have a 2004 Tioga 26Q, the Jamboree 26Q version was identical with differences in fabrics and trim as described above.

Littlemo - do you have the chevy or ford chasis? Would you do it the same if you were to do it again or would you have gotten different options? There is a new 2300 on a chevy chasis at the local dealership (1.5 hrs) that we may go look at.

Snowdance - How has your Jamboree held up 13 years later? Still happy w/ it?

We are really pleased with our FR Sunseeker.

The lay out in the Jamboree and Tioga is the same but the inside trim is different. On our 2000 Jamboree over the Tioga we got ducted air. Bigger fridge, more drawers when the Tioga just had blank spaces, Solar panel, more over head cabinets where Tioga had blank wall..
Have not looked into the newer ones but perhaps the inside of one will suit your needs better than the other..There was a big difference when we got ours and the Jamboree had more storage for travel whitch is what we wanted. The Tioga had a more sporty look and more open spaces where we have cabinets. The floor plan was the same..