My wife and I are considering purchasing an Off Road model Livin Lite 16TBS. Our tow vehicle is a 2007 Xterra Off Road manual transmission with tow package. We would appreciate any advice.
[quote source="/post/5814/thread" timestamp="1420336039" author="@teamshangrila"]My wife and I are considering purchasing an Off Road model Livin Lite 16TBS. Our tow vehicle is a 2007 Xterra Off Road manual transmission with tow package. We would appreciate any advice.[/quote]Anything in particular that you need advice on?
Where are you located?
We live in Atlanta. Chamblee area. I like the idea of the "Off-Road" option which raises the ground clearance of the TT. We often prefer to camp on sites that are off the grid and up in the higher mountains (at least for Georgia!). So, my question is this...Is the off-road package equipped 16TBS trailer ideal for our kind of camping? Is the all aluminum build that makes the camplite trailer so light also a build that could be categorized as fragile? I have researched light-weight trailers until I'm blue in the face and all roads lead right back to Livin Lite. I just want to be as sure as is possible that pulling this trailer up forest service roads will not trash it! For those who may not be aware, these forest service roads can be rough, steep (10%+), and most have large waterbars for erosion control. I welcome all opinions and I offer thanks for all in advance as I am totally new to travel trailers. One other thing...does anyone have any experience with an Australian off-road towing hitch product called "McHitch"? See the two youtube links below if you care to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYRwV9byYT4&spfreload=10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQwKPl5FJT4&spfreload=10
http://mchitch.com.au
We have the standard, ie non off road, 16TBS. Some LLs have low ground clearance under the waste drain valve and need the off road package for anything except for smooth roads. Ours does not; it has lots of clearance. We too like to camp in USFS campgrounds and I have not had any trouble with ground clearance. Once in Vermont I had to go into 4WD to get up a FS road to get to the campground. No clearance problem.
Your Xterra should do fine as a tow vehicle with its 4 liter V6 and 5,000 lb tow rating. We tow ours with a 2013 Pathfinder with no WDH and it tows steady with no sway. Our Pathfinder is a little heavier than your Xterra but has the same tow rating with a 3.5 liter V6. The only problem you might have is with the manual transmission. Many, many years ago as a teenager I towed our family's TT with a three speed manual transmission on a 6 cylinder. Was tough starting uphill. After a few years of this treatment we found that the springs in the clutch friction plate were all broken. But hey, it was a 1960 era Nash Rambler so who knows ;-).
FWIW the 16TBS weighs about 3,500 lb loaded and has a tongue weight of 300 lbs. We got ours with what at the time was a dealer installed sofa on the slideout rather than the factory installed dinette. Works perfectly for us.
As for the McHitch: Looks like a gimmick to me. Lots of weight and complexity for little benefit.
David
Welcome to the forum.
Ride DS bikes on fire roads and drive our 2WD pickups (when it's dry) on fire roads. The aluminum construction is not fragile, I consider it to be rugged. Not familiar with the 16TBS set up as an off road camper, but LL builds a 16' off road toy hauler with higher GVW. We tow a CampLite 11 with a Frontier 2WD pickup and would tow our CampLite 11 on some (not all) fire roads when dry.
You're on the right track by planning to go off the beaten track! The lowest points on our standard (non off-road) 16TBS are the axles and waste pipe outlet. They are approximately 10 inches off the driveway. That may be close to the ground clearance of you Xterra? I used a tape measure but didn't measure exactly because it's cold and snowy out there. The clearance is fine for all but the roughest of roads, but I wonder if a simple "skid plate" of sorts could be bolted around the waste outlet for protection from tree stumps, etc. Like you, we may take ours in weird places. In terms of fragility, the only thing I would worry about at all is having something hard hit the waste pipe outlet. The rest of the trailer is solid. We also seriously considered the off-road package and saw that being installed on a trailer at the Livin Lite factory. I envied the much better tires, but adding the angled spacers between the axles and the frame to get the greater ground clearance raised the center of gravity too much for my liking. From my years of boating experience: keep the center of gravity as low as possible for better handling! That McHitch is something I've not seen before, but I have heard about hitches based on universal joints like that to get more flexibility. However, adding the weight distribution mechanism seems to negate the flexibility, so better get some advice for someone who has used one. One last comment; the 16TBS is the longest trailer I would want to tow into really tight places. Have considered an even shorter one for maneuverability?
I tow my regular 16DB with a Nissan Frontier.... no problems towing whatsoever without any weight distribution or sway control. Upon hitching up my truck stance goes from the normal unloaded forward rake to perfectly level. As far as offroad strengh of build I think someone on here purchased one from a rental place that rents these to hunters to take out in the woods somewhere on mostly dirt roads. Apparently they hold up well in those conditions. I wish I could find that thread for you. Good luck!
[quote timestamp="1420403764" source="/post/5826/thread" author="@teamshangrila"]One other thing...does anyone have any experience with an Australian off-road towing hitch product called "McHitch"? See the two youtube links below if you care to.
[/quote][font size="3"]Re the McHitch: No personal or third party experience with it but I viewed the video. I see weight distribution but no sway control. I see what appears to be a damper to reduce porpoising; not sure how well that works. As far as the quick hitch up, unless you're a fireman chasing a blaze, it looks like a gimmick. If you can get that close it just ain't that hard to get out and couple up. If you had to uncouple to level during setup anyway I don't see the benefit.
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Wow. Thanks for all the great feedback. I appreciate the comments concerning the Xterra as a tow vehicle. I have studied on this for sometime now and concluded that the Xterra would be appropriate for pulling a 16TBS. As for the higher ground clearance of the off-road package, I agree with the concerns for higher center of gravity and I considered that. That said, I still believe that the off-road package is the right decision for us. I may very well end up fabricating some sort of skid plate protection for the black water drainage. I have spent over 25 years doing metal fabrication in the commercial aviation industry so fabrication comes easy to me. Concerning the maneuverability of a 16 foot trailer in tight spots, I agree that A 16 footer is about the max size that one could still have some maneuverability. The Australian McHitch product that I mentioned was and is appealing to me not for the quick connect element of it but for the multi directional articulation without binding of any kind. I admit that the verdict is still way out on that but it is a curiosity and I just wondered if anybody else had any experience or knowledge on the product or something similar. Please keep the feedback coming. It is very helpful and I really appreciate everyone taking the time to share.
Hmmmm.....if you make a bolt-on waste pipe outlet skid plate/frame out of aluminum for a 16TBS, make 2 and I'll trade you something for one. Or, at least post photos and a how-to!
[quote source="/post/5849/thread" timestamp="1420492023" author="@teamshangrila"] The Australian McHitch product that I mentioned was and is appealing to me not for the quick connect element of it but for the multi directional articulation without binding of any kind. I admit that the verdict is still way out on that but it is a curiosity and I just wondered if anybody else had any experience or knowledge on the product or something similar. Please keep the feedback coming. It is very helpful and I really appreciate everyone taking the time to share.[/quote][p]It seems to me like the articulation is at crossed purposes with WD. I think if you are going over terrain where you need that much of an angle between the trailer and TV, the WD will stress the frame too much. If you use WD, I think you'll want to disengage it before you get to those forest roads.[/p][p]
[/p][p]So the question is whether there is really more range of motion from the u-joint than from a ball. Dunno, but you wouldn't be the first to take a trailer on such roads with a ball, so...not sure it's necessary. But hey, go for it.[/p][p]
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Welcome neighbor... No input on your questions but I recommend these folks for a TT.
http://www.southlandrv.com/
Yes. My wife and I visited Southland RV a week or so ago and we were very pleased. We spoke with Brett Hensley. I have his card in my wallet right now.