New purchaser Pleasure Way Plateau TS 2006

Thanks again all. Fortunately my husband is very mechanically inclined and he also adds his thanks for the heads-up on the resonater thingamajig thing. Also, buying Pleasure Way from a friend so have good intel on the history of the RV. BTW, has around 66k miles on it.

Throwing couple of other questions out there. First is the bed. Comments and suggestions on comfort? I am making a bed sack with sheets like ones I saw on line.

And, at some point taking our 2 kitties with us on trips. Anyone have experience with that?
Thanks?

Okay, Bob says, in corrobation with Asheguy, that it's essentially a muffler. But it's a pressure-relieving muffler hence the decapacitation when it gets a leak. Per Bob leaks commonly occur, like ours, when the seam "between the round half and the flat half" fails.

I'm wondering if the "resonator eliminator" is the metal version I mentioned.

Neecies wrote:
What is it besides a thingie and a bastard? Will have to get my husband to explain, or maybe Escargot can, but I'm a girl not a mechanic, and best I can tell it's what controls air flow to your turbo-charger.

I'm a woman, too. Never had a turbo anything before, so can't help with the mechanical explanation.
The resonator went out on my PW at 5000 miles when it was still owned by the original owner and under warranty. Since it was under warranty, the dealer had to replace it with an original part.

Apparently, the manufacturer manufactured a bunch of the defective / weak resonators, although, now I'm sure if it was the manufacturing process or faulty engineering of the part.

My PW has 24,000 miles on it now and I haven't had any problems with it. I also keep forgetting to buy a spare resonantor.

The turbo resonator has the sole purpose of reducing the noise of the turbo. We have had three failures of the Mercedes part in 120K miles so finally replaced it with the turbo resonator eliminator.

Wouldn't worry about this until you get yours and see if it still has the original part. If so, the eliminator is a good idea. It is supposedly a little louder with the eliminator but it is hard to detect. No downside as far as we are concerned.

What is it besides a thingie and a bastard? Will have to get my husband to explain, or maybe Escargot can, but I'm a girl not a mechanic, and best I can tell it's what controls air flow to your turbo-charger. When its insufficient, you go into limp mode, which is a forced slow speed so you can get to help maybe with a minimum of damage. We actually asked the Merc dealer we limped to expressly to check that and they did--but didn't know where it fails to look for cracks--they just checked the connections at either end and deemed it fine.

Ours, in this case, had a tiny lateral split at a seam in the middle--not visible until it was removed. (The resonator is something particular to this 5 cyl engine, apparently, an excellent engine with this one little weakness so don't you fret--buy a spare and maybe copy a set of replacement instructions off the internet to pack with it--that way, any decent mechanic in any out of the way burg can help you on a Saturday night.) We racked up quite a cost in both time, delayed travel and diagnostic $$ to determine that it was the resonator after all (and we had a spare with us all along!). And who finally diagnosed the problem? My husband who out of frustration started tearing things apart.

After all that, Bob said next time some performance issue didn't make any sense, first thing he'd do is change the resonator and see if that doesn't fix it.

Oh, one other thing about resonators, apparently there are plastic and metal (aluminum?) versions. Plastic is the original, cheaper and less lasting, but the metal one's noisier. Or so suggests internet lore.

Ok,my new friends, a resonator top of the list. What is it? I truly appreciate your interest and help.

You can also order the resonator from Amazon, $100 and change as I recall.

Oh gosh, I just thought of something else.

A spare resonator. You MUST have one.

Do you know about the resonator? The 5 cylinder Merc engine has a thingie in called a resonator and it's a bastard. The dang things blow about every 15-20,000 miles, and symptoms of resonator failure can present in such insidious ways that even a sophisticated Merc dealer in Seattle can't identify your loss of turbo boost as a resonator about to blow. They'll charge you $450 and say "we haven't a clue". Ask me how I know.

We traded in our 07 with 38K on it, and it was already on its 3rd resonator. Not a big part nor an expensive part, but it's essential that you travel with a spare because of the likelihood of you ending up with a problem in Timbuktu where a spare isn't readily available.

Neecies wrote:
Hey, how odd. I only registered within the last 24 hours, and I'm using an alias, but in spite of that (apparently the forum software did a search on my home address) I see I have been involuntarily identified as a Good Sam RV club member. It's true I am, and it doesn't really bother me to say so, it's just a little creepy....

THAT SAID, we have gotten a great deal of value from Good Sam and Camping World (same company, Gigi). The Atlas I mentioned shows also shows Camping World locations and self-serving to them as that is, I can tell you as we were driving across eastern Oregon in need of a certain water filter part, seeing on our map that a Camping World was coming up in Boise at which we could purchase a replacement was VERY reassuring!

Camping World has all kinds of cool RV stuff you can't live without. Fun place to shop. When we got our 07 we went there so often we still joke about driving past one without stopping--doesn't feel natural! In addition to all the manly stuff like levelling blocks, flashlights and hoses, they do stock a number of kitchen/bathroom things but most of what they have is suited to larger Class As. STILL--def worth joining the Club. The discounts add up fast, and friends who have used it swear by the roadside assistance.

You'll find more for outfitting your precious and limited B Van space at a Storables.

What takes us back to Camping World time and again, though? Toilet paper. Last time we were in one, here in WA state, we ran into a couple we knew from Alaska, of all things, and what did we stand in the aisle and talk about that wouldn't be polite conversation anywhere else? Not Sarah Palin--toilet paper! The RV world is a world unto itself, I'm finding.

it recognized the 'cookies' from your computer

Hey, how odd. I only registered within the last 24 hours, and I'm using an alias, but in spite of that (apparently the forum software did a search on my home address) I see I have been involuntarily identified as a Good Sam RV club member. It's true I am, and it doesn't really bother me to say so, it's just a little creepy....

THAT SAID, we have gotten a great deal of value from Good Sam and Camping World (same company, Gigi). The Atlas I mentioned shows also shows Camping World locations and self-serving to them as that is, I can tell you as we were driving across eastern Oregon in need of a certain water filter part, seeing on our map that a Camping World was coming up in Boise at which we could source a replacement later that day was both reassuring and essential to planning the next leg of our trip.

Camping World has all kinds of cool RV stuff you can't live without. Fun place to shop. When we got our 07 we went there so often we still joke about driving past one without stopping--doesn't feel natural! In addition to all the manly stuff like levelling blocks, flashlights and hoses, they do stock a number of kitchen/bathroom things but most of what they have is suited to larger Class As. STILL--def worth joining the Club. The discounts add up fast, and friends who have used it swear by the roadside assistance.

You'll find more for outfitting your precious and limited B Van space at a Storables.

What takes us back to Camping World time and again, though? Toilet paper. Last time we were in one, here in WA state, we ran into a couple we knew from Alaska, of all things, and what did we stand in the aisle and talk about that wouldn't be polite conversation anywhere else? Not Sarah Palin--toilet paper! The RV world is a world unto itself, I'm finding.