Question for View Navion owners!

[bigdomino]

Am wondering if any of you stay in your RV for more than a month at a time? Any of you spend the winter in one? We have a Monaco 38 footer and want to down size. I know, a big change.

Also do you pull a car? I have a Honda CRV I pull behind the Monaco. Will a View handle it? What about stopping on a steep hill? I assume there isn't an exhaust break.

Thanks.

Steve

[mgtr]

In 2010, we sold our 42' Monaco Dynasty 4 slide, and ordered a 2011 Winnebago Via 25T. The coach was great, drove well, and pulled a car about the same weight as your CRV. No problem braking, no problem on steep hills. Very good quality. We traded it away for a larger coach after 8 months. Problems for us: The kitchen area is a bottleneck (a friend called it a one-butt kitchen). The lack of a permanent eating place is a pain -- we ended up getting a folding table from Walmart. The need to turn the seats around every night in order to watch TV or to have a comfortable place to read. The need to hold down the pump switch to drain the grey water tank. The lack of hanging space. The cramped bathroom.
Now, taken alone, none of these kills the deal, but taken together the irritation factor was too high for us.
But, I repeat, the quality was there for sure.

[SeeTheUSA]

Originally Posted by bigdomino

Am wondering if any of you stay in your RV for more than a month at a time? Any of you spend the winter in one? We have a Monaco 38 footer and want to down size. I know, a big change.

Also do you pull a car? I have a Honda CRV I pull behind the Monaco. Will a View handle it? What about stopping on a steep hill? I assume there isn't an exhaust break.

Thanks.

Steve

We had a 2006 View for 7.5 years, routinely traveled in it for 2 months at a time each fall, some other times for 1 to 2 month stretches, even lived in it for 5 months during one stretch (winter in Dallas/Fort Worth area) while our house was being built.

With our current 2012 Navion iQ, we have continued the fall 2 month trips, other 1 to 2 months stretches at other times of the year.

We pulled a Scion xA, then a Mini Cooper with the smaller 5-cylinder View, now we pull a Ford Escape with the V6. Tough little diesels! No problem for your CRV. Be SURE to have some sort of supplemental brake! Can't imagine any toad without it.

There is no exhaust brake, but the "slap shifter" thing works fairly well, easy to downshift to help retardation.

[smiller]

Originally Posted by mgtr

In 2010, we sold our 42' Monaco Dynasty 4 slide, and ordered a 2011 Winnebago Via 25T. The coach was great, drove well, and pulled a car about the same weight as your CRV. No problem braking, no problem on steep hills. Very good quality. We traded it away for a larger coach after 8 months. Problems for us: The kitchen area is a bottleneck (a friend called it a one-butt kitchen). The lack of a permanent eating place is a pain -- we ended up getting a folding table from Walmart. The need to turn the seats around every night in order to watch TV or to have a comfortable place to read. The need to hold down the pump switch to drain the grey water tank. The lack of hanging space. The cramped bathroom.
Now, taken alone, none of these kills the deal, but taken together the irritation factor was too high for us.
But, I repeat, the quality was there for sure.

This is what's really nice about the 'J' model View (and Navion I guess), not much larger than a B+ but with a full-time bed and full-time dinette. And I agree that without those the routine of setting a bed or dinette up and tearing it down every day gets old.

[Shuffster]

Did not work for us. We had a View 24h model. No bed. OK for short trips, not for a month. We wound up with a Vista 30w and think this is the right compromise for us. I would have liked the 30t better, but found a deal on the earlier 30w model. (2 slides).

[bigdomino]

I have looked at the 30t. The layout is very nice. However, I thought that the View would drive so much better. The chassis and engine seemed to be good for quality and longevity.

If they could build a Winnebago Vista 30T with the View quality and chassis it would be very cool.

Steve

[Shuffster]

bigdomino- the View will drive better, but the Vista lives much larger. The View is limited in towing. With Cummins engine announcing their new 5 liter diesel as an alternative to the Ford V-10, I expect WGO to pick this up in the future and I would think that this engine could get the 30T into the 12 to 13 mpg class, reasonably close to the Vista when towing a car. I also see other manufactures addressing the 26 to 30 foot market with significant creativity.