Our brand new RV is…. just like our previous RV! Jennifer and I and Bo drove our 2015 Roadtrek CS Adventurous XL to our friends at American RV in Grand Rapids, MI yesterday to trade it in and pick up a 2017 Roadtrek CS Adventurous XL.
What's the difference?
Two things.
The new one has 4X4. If you are a regular, you know Jennifer and I like boondocking more than any other style of camping. We have favorite spots all across North America and in our home state of Michigan. We boondock in as out of the way places as we can find. Add the extra ground clearance (several inches) and extra power assure us that there are very few lace where we won't be able to go.
The second reason was that…. well, things change.
In our case, the 2015 unit we got was a prototype, filled with new and even experimental innovations developed by the research and development folks at Roadtrek. Some of those things we were sworn to secrecy about. But Roadtrek used our real world experience with the unit to evaluate and make tweaks to the systems they were testing. Often, I'd drive it back to Kitchener after a long RV trip and the engineers at Roadtrek would remove some things, maybe add some new things, sometimes replace them.
In the two and a half years since we started driving the 2015 model, even better solutions came along and now, most of the things that were experimental in our 2015 have been improved and made part of the standard production process, available to others.
So, after some 70,000 miles of testing, Roadtrek has swapped out our prototype with a production model. And we wouldn't' be more pleased.
We have pretty much all of the same amenities as the other: Solar on the rood, Alde's hydronic heating system (we love the heated floors and bathroom), the EcoTrek lithium power module and Roadtrek's proprietary Voltstart auto start charging management feature. EcoTrek and Voltstart were experimental in our 2015. In the 2017, they are perfectly integrated and standardized production features, offering us energy independence.
This new unit is silver in color, with a light cherry interior.
You can see the video below and “virtual” tour. We made this video and streamed it live right after the folks at American RV handed us the keys, right from their parking lot.
We drove it back home across the state with it last night. We will spend the next four days installing and outfitting it with the accessories and little personal touches that make it ours, plus the traveling technology gizmos and gadgets I use to do all videos, podcasting, writing and photography form the road (look for a video showing all those things over the weekend).
As we recommend others do when they get a new RV, we will also spend a couple nights in it, fairly close to ur Southeastern Michigan hoe, so we can make sure everything is working right.
Then, early next week after we record the next episode of the podcast, we take off for our summer travel schedule – first stop Glacier National Park in Montana.
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