Forrester 2151SLE

ron.dittmer wrote:
Hi Cardinals,

Regarding your floor plan. One thing you will want to get a fitment for is the driver seat when the slide out is put away. For such a design, the slide out will interfere with the adjustment of the seat. It is a common complaint with taller people, sometimes so bad that they regret their purchase. With the slide out put away, sit in the driver seat, set it as far back as you deem most comfortable, then adjust the back rest to a comfortable driving position. You might find that you cannot position the seat properly for your driving comfort.

My wife and I are turning 63 this year. Our floor plan is very similar to the one you are considering. As others have stated, the rear corner bed is going to become a bigger and bigger challenge as we get older and older. So far, so good for us. We are not overweight people with good hips and knees so our mobility is still good. But who knows what the future holds for us.

You will want to determine the model year of the Ford E350 or E450 chassis. The chassis could be one model year older having the older 6.8L-V10 engine. Or it could be a current model year with the new 7.3L-V8 engine that is more powerful and more fuel efficient. The past 1.5 years has been a "transition" period for the Ford E350 and E450 chassis, so new motor homes being sold today could have older technology or the latest chassis technology with their associated benefits in fuel efficiency, performance, and comfort.

If your rig is for just two people, I strongly advise to avoid a design with a large front over-head bunk. The long winded post below will clarify this comment. The post also needs a little update-tweaking on some chassis specs to reflect 2021.

Ron, I have a different perspective with respect to your sentence above advising against a large front over-head bunk.

There's two of us and one small dog on our RV trips in our 24 foot Class C of the "classic design" (with the normal full queen bed above the cab). The wife has back problems so she gets the entire corner bed in the back, and as such has plenty of maneuvering room when sleeping in it and wiggle-room for getting into and out of it. I get to use the entire overhead cab bed for sleeping and it's a whole bunch of room for sleeping. The wife is 75 and I'm 78. Winnebago even designed in a switch right by the overhead cab bed that turns on a floor light back by the bathroom to light my path for nighttime toilet trips. By the way, the complete "classic" overhead cab area in a Class C is an excellent design for shading the entire cab area and hence keeping the sun off the cab area when traveling and camped during warm weather.

When traveling I push the back half of the overhead cab bed slightly upwards and forward a couple of feet so as to rest it up onto the front half and thus expose the underbed floor cutout that makes it easy to enter and exit the cab seats while nearly standing up. When traveling we can secure and store a lot of soft stuff on the remaining overhead cab bed surface area and on the two overhead cab floor "wings" that stick out slightly above the driver and passenger seats.

We love our two queen beds for each of us to sleep in. We have occasionally had to use the additional full bed we get by dropping the hinged dinette tabletop and spreading out the seat cushions to make the mattress for it. Our small dog-person sleeps and travels in her own crate sitting on one of the dinette seats secured with a seatbelt.

FWIW and somewhat related, there's an excellent video somewhere on YouTube showing how an older couple lives full time in a 24 foot classic Class C, with most/a lot of it being drycamping. It's very interesting how they do it in complete comfort for two adults.