The great slide vs no slide debate

winnietrey wrote:
Hey Desert Capt:

I am Curious, as I do not know the answer, you state your Nexus is 101 inches wide, is the OD, or ID wall to wall inside? Our is 101 od, 97 inside. Ours too has 7 feet of headroom.

People talk about the weight thing, I get that if you are at 30ft, with 4 kids, but at the very worse leaving on a long trip full of gas, water, propane and food, we are maybe 150 lbs. over. Which is a very small percent of the GVWR. Hard to believe that would be a world ender in my opinion. (24ft E350)

Your last paragraph, is spot on. However we solved that years ago with a sawsall. Cut a notch out of the slide "post" hurt nothing, allowed the seat to go back another two inches.

Lastly now that I understand the slide by helping my cousin, thing is not rocket science stuff. Pretty sure I can fix it on the road next time. (famous last words of course, nxt time it will probably fall on the ground And I will end up having it towed home)

And I also agree with just the two of you ( or just the two of us, no slide, would work. But with the dog, and a GD that like to sleep to 9 on the jackknife sofa full out it sure does to us

The 101" is the outside measurement, I believe that is the max for most if not all RV's. The weight thing comes down to payload. If you have a slide you give up several hundred pounds of payload for a limited amount of benefit. As we all know Class C's often are payload challenged and the larger the C the bigger the problem.

Great job curing the drivers seat clearance issue but not many folks have the skills or the nerve to take a sawsall to the interior of their coach.

Other issues with a slide are also problematic... They are difficult to seal causing issues with heating, cooling and leaks. I think one of my biggest objections to a slide is that when you have a problem it is a big problem. Get it stuck in or out and life as you know and like it is over until the problem is solved. We go lots of places where outside help, that is often needed to cure a slide problem, is not readily available and it will always be very expensive.

The folks with slides that can and do their own maintenance fair far better than most RV'ers. PM is the key to any system but given the complexity and weight in most slide systems it is just a matter of time before a problem, likely serious will arise.

It all comes down to how you use your coach the most... if staying inside is your version of RV'ing especially accompanied by multiple bodies/kids as in areas given to lengthy stretches of inclement weather than I can see where a slide has its charm. Rigs with multiple slides baffle me completely and are rarely even close to being balanced... but I digress.

By all means folks should get what works for them but when buying, especially first timers, few have a clue how they will actually use the coach and salesmen love to push slides like an ugly sister at a country dance. :B At least the old nonsense that if you buy a coach without slides you will never be able to sell it has disappeared from this discussion as it never was true.

For the record I think auto levelers on a smallish Class C are as big a mistake as slides as they too add needless weight, expense and complexity in search of a solution for which there is no known problem... But once again I digress.

:B