Spartan 1245

Nicodemus wrote:
So how do you like your unit now that you've been living in it?

We took possession of our Spartan 1245 that we bought in early March and have lived in it since. We traveled from Florida to PA/NJ/NY and now back to Florida. It added up to about 6,000 miles of towing.

Overall, we still love the rig. It's had a few minor hiccups but overall, I can't really complain as it's treated us pretty well.

One of the first things we did was removed the theater/love seat and put in a table, benches, and chairs. We later built a custom L-shaped bench for that area and still keep 2 cheap chairs for the other 2 sides.

We converted the garage into a kid's room with furniture from IKEA and modifications to the HappiJac beds (we removed the couch portion on the bottom; turned the upper portion long ways with the camper and put twin mattresses up there). Here's a video walk through of that area.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7_8KRUhlng

We've replaced a few outlets that were broken + cracked from the factory. They didn't hold up to use.

Towing-wise, we run right about 21,000 lbs. but only 3,400 lbs. of pin weight or so. It's fairly pin light, but we haven't had any sway in the areas that we've gone so far. However, it's not the greatest ride in the truck and I think it's because it's so pin light that it bounces around a bit. Coupled with an Andersen Ultimate Fifth Wheel Connection, it was pretty brutal. We went nuts and bought a Trailer Saver TS3.

Slides, leveling system, etc, have all worked (knocks on wood).

My warranty list is fairly minor items:

Warranty Items

- Water pump periodically lets water back-flow through it into the freshwater tank (I have tried resetting the internal check-valve by switching back and forth)

- On the Dometic thermostat, Zone 2 always shows the same inside temperature as Zone 1. It originally worked and then back in May, it was showing wildy inaccurate temperatures. A mobile tech did something and now it just always shows the same inside temperature as Zone 1.

- Loose screws holding the wardrobe slide to the camper (Schwintek slide system); they seem to back out when the slide is extended and pull tighter when it's retracted.

- Popping noise in the leveling system (need to add anti-stiction fluid?)

- Washer/dryer is plumbed to rear black tank vs. rear gray tank (have gotten pre-authorization from Prime Time/Spartan for this fix)

- When rear blank tank has overflowed, water leaked into under belly

- When full, the fresh water tank drips into the under belly

- Rear patio awnings makes noise when the extend button is pressed but doesn't extend

- Rear garage door needs to be adjusted on the driver's side (it is looser than the passenger side and driving in a hard rain, we had water come into the camper once)

- Refrigerator seems to put out a lot of condensation and uses an exorbitant amount of propane (a 30lb tank in a week!). Can the doors be inspected for proper seal?

- Refrigerator temperature rarely gets below 50-degrees.


Maybe warranty, maybe not:

- Inspect and adjust brakes, if needed. The brakes seem really "grabby" at times when towing- especially when backing into sites.


Non-warranty Items:

- Repack wheel bearings (by hand, not with EZ lube axles); note: triple axle camper

- Inspect rear exterior steps (Torklift Glowstep Revolution)- I feel like the steps themselves are shifting in the box on the camper