What's up with RV quality in 2024 - learning from RV decision makers
What’s up with RV quality in 2024? What kind of things are RV companies doing today to make a difference in how RVs are built? We speak with two RV decision makers about what they are doing right now to make a difference. We also visit a competing RV company and look into their efforts.
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Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 270
Peggy Barthel
We've all heard that the quality of RVs has gone down.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That people are saying you shouldn't buy a new RV.
Peggy Barthel
But what's the real story?
Tony Barthel
Is there truth behind these warnings, and where are people getting this information?
Peggy Barthel
This week, we talked to 2 RV industry insiders who make decisions about quality every day and see what they have to say about this.
Tony Barthel
Then, we head over to their competition and inspect an RV manufacturing operation and go behind the scenes to get you the real story.
Peggy Barthel
We have this week's podcast along with the notes and all the stories that go with this episode, along with discounts, deals, helpful tips, and more on our home at the web at stressless camping dot com.
Tony Barthel
Oh, and don't forget to like and share, and thank you for joining us on our weekly RV podcast adventure.
Peggy Barthel
I'm Peggy.
Tony Barthel
And I'm Tony. And we're 2 part.
Peggy Barthel
I started instead of you. That confused us.
Tony Barthel
I thought we'd stereo it. We are 2 RV industry veterans who travel part time
Peggy Barthel
In a small trailer.
Tony Barthel
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips
Peggy Barthel
Tricks.
Tony Barthel
And discounts.
Peggy Barthel
We currently don't have a small trailer again. That's kind of been our story this summer. Right? We left in Indiana again. We just got home from a few days of driving home from Indiana.
Tony Barthel
And boy, is my keister.
Peggy Barthel
Boy, are my arms tired.
Steve Beiler
Boy, are my
Duane Yoder
arms tired.
Speaker 5
I just flew in from Indiana, and boy, are my arms
Steve Beiler
tired. Okay.
Tony Barthel
Well, actually, we drove in.
Peggy Barthel
We did.
Tony Barthel
Nothing was wrong with the trailer this time. No. It's just there because we're coming back to New Mexico for, like, 3 weeks and then going back to Indiana Right. To get a lot of inside information on 2025 RVs.
Peggy Barthel
We'll be gone for a little while, and then we're gonna come back, and we might be running out to Arizona for a few days.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. With the border hookups, they have an event called Romp It Up, and it's a it's a live music kind of festival. Do you know when it is?
Peggy Barthel
It's October, I wanna say 30th to November 2nd, somewhere right in there. It's Halloween weekend, basically. You
Tony Barthel
know where you can find out more information? On our show notes. Well, on our show notes. And also, Peggy does a great job keeping the RV calendar up to date Yeah. With all the latest RV events of all kinds, vintage, new RV shows, open houses, on and on and on.
Tony Barthel
It's it's a pretty big job, and Peggy is up to it and does a good job with it.
Peggy Barthel
Well, thank you. So we are considering going to that Romp It Up event, so that'll be the end of October. And then we don't really have any other major plans for the rest of the year Yeah. Until travel wise.
Tony Barthel
Right. Until a quartzite. Yeah. That's the current no plans plans.
Peggy Barthel
No plans plans. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
But you never oh, we're going to RV open house.
Peggy Barthel
Well, that's when we go in 3 weeks. I thought you just said that.
Tony Barthel
Oh, I meant sorry. Homecoming.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, well, sure. When open house is done in Indiana, then we'll be going to Amana, Iowa, and we're gonna be there for two reasons. One weekend is gonna be Frogtoberfest with the Forest River owners group, Frog, and then the very following weekend is homecoming with RV Miles. Yeah. So we're just hanging out in Amana, We're gonna wait until the rest of the RV Miles people get there, and we'll party 2 weekends in a row, and then we'll head home.
Tony Barthel
I have a feeling that if you are into investing, you might buy some stock in that brewery that's there in the mannequin. They do some good beer.
Peggy Barthel
They do some good beer and there's gonna be some good parties going on there in a few weeks.
Tony Barthel
For Oktoberfest and then homecoming. So Yeah. That's what we have going on. We have something for you.
Peggy Barthel
We do. Maybe. Maybe. Well, we do have something for maybe you.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Is
Peggy Barthel
that what you mean?
Tony Barthel
Something like that.
Peggy Barthel
We don't maybe have something. We definitely have something. It may be for you.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. There you go. We got a TST tire pressure monitoring system, and we're gonna give it away. And the way we're gonna do that is through our newsletter. So we do our weekly stress of scamming email newsletter.
Tony Barthel
No spam. Although I was talking to the bank today about maple spam. But anyway
Steve Beiler
Well, good news.
Tony Barthel
There's no spam. There's no BS. It's just, uh, stuff we think you might appreciate, and we only send it once a week. And this week, if you get the newsletter, there's gonna be a thing there. If you reply with, I wanna enter, then from all the people who replied with, I wanna enter, we're gonna automatically pick 1 and Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
You're gonna get a TST tire pressure monitoring system.
Peggy Barthel
That's right. Oftentimes, we'll pick a random number out of a hat, and I don't know. The sometimes we pick names that people just don't respond. So this time, we're gonna weed out the people who don't care first.
Steve Beiler
And then That's
Tony Barthel
what if you already have it.
Peggy Barthel
But if you already have it, you don't want it. So we are going to only choose from the people who tell us that they'd actually like to win.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. There you go. So something you might definitely be interested in is, uh, solar and lithium upgrade. Yeah. And we got to spend a day last week at ABC Upfitters, and one of the things that was really intriguing to me is what's called a DC to DC charging system.
Tony Barthel
And the way this works is it takes the power of the alternator in your tow vehicle and it transfers it through thick wires and through a smart system to charge the battery of your trailer. So 5th wheel travel trailer, whatever. And it's neat because it's another way to charge your master volt power system. So it could be, you know, you have your solar on the roof, and then you have your master volt system, and this can be one of the ways you can add power. And so we saw this DC to DC system last week, and the only reason we didn't have them installed on our truck is we're we're not sure what we're doing trailer wise in the very near future.
Peggy Barthel
It might be that we will be getting another upfit before too much longer. And if that's the case, then when we take the rig in for the upfit, we'll just have them do the DC at the same time.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So, anyway, but it's a nifty addition. Good news if you are buying a 2025 Rockwood or Flagstaff with the power package
Steve Beiler
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
It's coming with that. That's, uh, a new feature for 2025. But, uh, if not, you can still have it installed and the way to do that is to contact our friends at ABC Upfitters at 574 333-3225.
Peggy Barthel
That's 574-333-3225.
Tony Barthel
That's right.
Peggy Barthel
Or you can check them out on their brand new website. Well, we keep saying brand new. No. A few weeks old website, and we'll put, of course, a link to that page on the show notes for this episode.
Tony Barthel
Yep. And you can also see some videos we've done there. So how good and how bad are RVs nowadays? We keep hearing, oh, don't buy models made after COVID. They're not good.
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
We wanted to get to the bottom of that. Is that true? What's being done to counter that? What's happening in the RV industry that maybe we should all be aware of. So we talked with Steve Beiler and Dwayne Yoder from Rockwood and Flagstaff and asked them some pretty deep questions.
Tony Barthel
And so we thought you might appreciate hearing this. So without any further ado, here we go.
Peggy Barthel
Hey. We're in Rockwood.
Tony Barthel
And it may or may not be what we're thinking of for our next trip. Yeah. But the reason we're gathered Flagstaff with us who as we are touring the rigs at the frog show, frog rally, what we have learned which has has always been something we've understood I guess it's a terrible skin. We didn't learn it. We didn't learn it.
Tony Barthel
We didn't learn anything.
Peggy Barthel
New support of this bag.
Tony Barthel
Right. Is looking under the skin and deeper into an RV really pays off because not all RVs are built the same and you might say, yeah, that's why I buy whatever I buy. But a lot of times I read, oh don't buy a Thor or oh don't buy a Forest River and that's is one of the reasons we have these gentlemen here is to actually dispel that and state fact. So without any further ado, we are with
Steve Beiler
I'm Steve Beiler. I'm the national sales manager for Rockwood Flagstaff. Been with the company for 25 years now.
Tony Barthel
Since you were 1 years old?
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. I'm like
Duane Yoder
that. Wow.
Tony Barthel
Wow. Well,
Duane Yoder
Dwayne? I'm Dwayne Yoder. I'm operations manager for Rockland Flagstaff, and I've been here for 21 years, so before I was born.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
You are the one who kind of oversees putting all these together. Yes. That's why we are very fortunate that they are able to spend some time with us today to answer these questions.
Peggy Barthel
In 21 and 28 years, there's been a lot of innovations and changes.
Duane Yoder
There's been a lot of changes.
Steve Beiler
There sure has.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. In the eighties, I worked for a trailer company in Southern California. And just knowing how we did things that are so different from anything that's done today is Sure.
Tony Barthel
Remarkable. Well, you just had a gentleman in the cabinet shop who was has been there for 50 years. Right? Since Rockwood That is amazing.
Duane Yoder
From the very beginning.
Peggy Barthel
That is
Tony Barthel
amazing when you think about that. And that is, you have a lot of generational employees too, right? We do. I think during COVID, you were able to maintain these people as opposed to some people were just hiring and and slapping stuff together as quickly as they could, and you're like, hey. This is how many we can build if I'm not mistaken.
Steve Beiler
Yeah. I think COVID is a good example of, you know, we were running full capacity before COVID happened. You've seen our facilities. We don't have the space to really increase capacity. And so our employees stayed the same.
Steve Beiler
Our consistency stayed the same. Matter of fact, we made some effort to make sure that if you had got displaced because of a shortage of a park or something like that, we had checks and balances to make sure that it was taken care of. And I think the industry added a lot of unskilled employees during that time. I would go through a drive through at a fast food restaurant, and it would be closed because they didn't have enough employees. Right.
Steve Beiler
Because they would all go to the they're making so much money. But here you had guys that were flipping burgers and and nothing wrong with it, but but, you know, had one job one week, and suddenly they're on a production line because they had increased their production. And that's where that quality dipped so much. And we just didn't experience that at Rockwood Flagstaff. Yeah.
Duane Yoder
Yeah. We didn't increase production a whole lot through COVID because we, like he said, we were maxed out before. So we didn't really increase production. And we did put a lot of checks and balances in. And we heard repetitively from dealers and they called us and be like, how do you guys do it?
Duane Yoder
Like your units are coming in complete like they were before COVID. You know, it's not like there's anything different. And for us, it really wasn't any different.
Tony Barthel
We just kept plugging away. And that's something within, so if you don't know Rockwood and Flagstaff, first of all it's the same product under different, I guess brands or stickers, so it's the same product. So if you're at a local dealer and they sell a Rockwood or they sell a Flagstaff, Flagstaff, you're getting an equal product. But Forest River and Thor both really encourage the different brands not only to compete with the other brands under that umbrella, but also outside the company. I mean, you how much autonomy do
Steve Beiler
you guys get? We're able to create our own identity. You know? And and I think to what you're speaking, I think there's and I talk about this when I do training at the dealerships. And then because it's it's important that that the sales people know what the differences are.
Steve Beiler
Otherwise, it just becomes about price. Mhmm. And we're gonna usually lose that. But Right. I think educating them about the things we do different.
Steve Beiler
Like, I would consider us a a unit that you could travel in. Really put miles on. Or others, I might consider weekend camping. Right? Sure.
Steve Beiler
A couple times a year down the road nearby that you're not putting a lot of stress on it. And and there's great campers for that. But what do we do that's different that makes ours a travel? It's the tires and the axle. And you talked about the, you know, just the running gear that we use, the construction that we do, it's better.
Steve Beiler
And then we could get into all of that, but that's that's the difference between a weekend camper and going cross country and really seeing the country.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Well our buddy Bill has what year is his trailer? Do you know?
Peggy Barthel
Uh, his is a 20,
Steve Beiler
I think
Peggy Barthel
mine is a 21.
Tony Barthel
Yeah and he has he estimates over 50 1,000 miles long.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. We thought we were.
Steve Beiler
We thought
Tony Barthel
we were a hot potato.
Peggy Barthel
Smart having 20,000 and then he's like, psh, come on.
Steve Beiler
Yeah. I knew that in my sleep. Yeah. He
Tony Barthel
he has no qualms. He lives in New York. He has no qualms about coming and hanging out with us in Quartzsite.
Peggy Barthel
In Quartzsite, Arizona.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So and and it's he obviously has a Rockwood.
Steve Beiler
That's exactly what I'm talking about. Like, the money we spend on our axles. Right? The independent torsion axles. Other people don't find that as important if you're a weekend camper.
Steve Beiler
We do it to get that independent. So so you're not getting that wear, that vibration in the coach. We spend more money on tires. So maybe we're a little bit more money, but that's money that they're spending. If they're going to take a long trip to buy better tires, that's coming out of their pocket, we're already given to tire pressure monitor system.
Tony Barthel
And and the beads yeah. The beads. So tell us about the beads. This is something I learned at this show. I had never heard of this, and it's fascinating to me.
Tony Barthel
Balancing beads. Yeah.
Duane Yoder
So yeah. We do Goodyear tires. We do the TPMS, which is internal, and then balancing beads. That is basically balances your tires. So if anything becomes out of balance, like you know, your vehicle after driving it for a while, it'll start vibrating.
Duane Yoder
You gotta go get your tires rebalanced and all that. This, the beads are loose in your tire and it actually balances it as it in life, basically.
Steve Beiler
It will find that spot of of of wear, and the beads will then go there to to make sure that everything's balanced. Fascinating.
Peggy Barthel
So do you hear them? If you're roll if you're, like, rolling next to somebody,
Steve Beiler
can you I have on the side. You need to buy it.
Peggy Barthel
Rattling around.
Duane Yoder
And they're tiny little spots, like tiny little beads. And it's, um, it helps the wear on your tires.
Tony Barthel
Absolutely. The torsion axle suspension when we bought our first Rockwood, I specifically sought that out because I have driven on the roads in this country and there are sometimes where there are potholes big enough where I think they have their own zip code. So the torsion axle suspension helps smooth out the ride and why that is important it makes it easier to tow but also it is just less harsh on the camper and the less vibration and harshness transmits into the camper the less damage is likely to occur.
Steve Beiler
For sure. I always give the analogy of a horse trailer. You would never see a horse trailer with leaf spring axles. Yet that's what every RV owner or competitors use. Again, and it's a price thing.
Steve Beiler
But if they have a show animal or or a high end utility trailer that has snowmobiles or, you know, with precious cargo, the more that is jostling around, the more issues they're gonna have. You think about all your seals and windows and and, you know, all the things that need to stay intact as you're going down there. The less vibration, you know, the better your experience will be, the longer your coach is gonna last. And it's these kind of questions. You touched on this before we started.
Steve Beiler
A lot of people are just asking the wrong questions. Right. They get enamored with the dog leash holder or or an island, like, they say I need to have a but they're not asking about what is this cable
Peggy Barthel
That vacuum system or whatever.
Steve Beiler
Yeah. Yeah. And back
Duane Yoder
to the axles, like, leaf spring axles have war points. Torsion, you know, other than your bearings, you don't need to really worry about your torsion. Leaf springs are shackles that wear out, there's springs that break, there's you know that sort of stuff and there's technology coming out with leaf springs too that are going to be better and not as many wear points but that's not what most of the people are using. Right.
Tony Barthel
So you're saying that Rockwood and Flagstaff are not horsing around? That's good. I couldn't help myself the whole time. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
She was like, wait
Tony Barthel
for helping. My brain's like, yes.
Steve Beiler
Say
Duane Yoder
it. Say
Steve Beiler
it. Reels are turning fast. Yeah. It is good.
Duane Yoder
Yeah. Thank you. I don't know about that.
Tony Barthel
I don't know why anyone ever bothers to listen a second time, but they do. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Tony Barthel
Uh, but now something that as some of you may know, years ago I started a little Facebook group for Rockwood called the Rockwood Mini Light Fan Club then because I had a question I couldn't find an answer and somehow 13,000 or so people have found us and and you guys use that as a sounding board and the way my perception of the RV industry works is you look at warranty claims. So if I don't know what, let's say door handles are failing left and right, you know, okay we need to address that and solve it, but things like tire replacements, usually if you have a bad tire you just buy a new one. Mhmm. Or plumbing leaks, a lot of times if you have a plumbing leak you just fix it in the campground and keep camping.
Peggy Barthel
You're not going to stop camping, go to a dealer, wait 3 months for them to
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
To get to your rig. You're just gonna fix your plumbing problem, and then it doesn't get turned in as warranty and it doesn't roll back to you guys finding out that everybody's having this problem.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So sometimes it's not a problem people are aware of, but we have been talking about this, and you guys totally changed how you do plumbing on these new so tell us about that because to me, that I brings to, uh, that's close to
Speaker 5
my heart.
Peggy Barthel
Tears to your eyes.
Tony Barthel
Because yeah. Right. Yeah. Plumbingly. Because we did have a connection fail at the water heater and that is not likely to happen anymore.
Tony Barthel
And these are under the skin things that you are doing that may or may not be evident to people, but will make a huge difference. Mhmm.
Duane Yoder
So we we've heard, you know, the waterline stories, and and we've checked our warranty and and looked at service units that come back and and dug deep. And we actually just in the last year, we've switched all of our pressurized lines to PEX waterline. And there's other things that we've discovered along the process and like the the rubber washers that are in the thread on fittings, there's differences. And some of them, they flatten, and over time, you gotta keep tightening it or it'll start leaking. And it leaves our factory just fine, but that rubber washer doesn't have a rebound it needs.
Duane Yoder
So we switched fittings to a different rubber washer that always has rebound, always stays tight. Then we've done everything pressure. Now there is you'll see some flex lines in our units yet, but it's all unpressurized. It's all areas where, uh, like the black tank flush or something that's never under pressure, sits under pressure. And then there's also by the water pump because of the vibration you have to use a flex line, otherwise you'll have some vibration.
Duane Yoder
So the pump causes vibrates obviously a little bit and and if you have a hard line going right directly to it, uh, if it's not done right, you will get some noise, some vibration noise. So we do some flex lines up to the pump to to and it is actually in the pump install for that as well.
Tony Barthel
And you have changed the connections too, right?
Duane Yoder
I mean, we went to PACS, but it is, um, the connections that we change were the thread on with the rubber washer.
Tony Barthel
Okay. So things you won't see but are less likely to see because they're not going to
Steve Beiler
be fixed. These are the things that we're always working on that you don't always see in in a brochure or, you know, even on on a feature sheet. But we're always working. And, you know, the site you guys have is gold to us because it's real time feedback on something that's happening. And and we're not having to wait for a warranty claim.
Steve Beiler
Like we monitor the site. We we listen to the things that you guys said. It's it's
Duane Yoder
a goal.
Peggy Barthel
We've seen changes before. Not you know, like, having conversations. There will be conversations in our group and over and over the same conversation. And all of a sudden, hey. The new model has this thing that we've all been talking about.
Tony Barthel
Well I'm I can see one it's not Peggy obviously but for example a lot of the people in the group switched to a digital thermostat. Well now there it is standard.
Peggy Barthel
Uh-huh. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
I mean just so many things like that and all these fiber well not all, most of these fiberglass sided RVs are what they call laminated. So but basically pieces glued together and that is another area where you guys do things differently. Right? You own your own laminating plant, and you vacuum laminate your walls. There is different grades of glue and so many little things.
Tony Barthel
Yeah.
Duane Yoder
And that's an ever growing technology as well. And one thing we've like a lot of people are are pinch laminating through pinch rollers, which is a good way to do it. And I'm not dogging that. And we do some of our like our sliding walls and stuff but the vacuum bond liquid is still your strongest and all our walls are built with vacuum bond liquid. Uh, same way with our roofs.
Duane Yoder
That's still your best bond because you know if you have offset tubes around your slide outs and some of that areas, if you have any offset tubes, the liquid will just permeate in there where the pinch weld is just whatever surface it hits as it pinches.
Steve Beiler
And everything is controlled in our lamination. The temperature, the humidity, the dust, you know, a lot of our competitors, they're doing it in the middle of a plant, and then you've got doors open and closing. You got forklifts coming in and out, and they're sawing over here or welding over here, and they don't have that control over the temperature, humidity, and dust. And those those are all factors that lead to wall failure that that we
Peggy Barthel
we They're like little contaminants that get in. Right? And that stops them from seal sealing or whatever. For sure.
Duane Yoder
And we're like the facility where we make our skins or not I mean, it's all in the same facility, but the area where we make our skins, we have those walled off, and it's actually
Tony Barthel
air conditioned mainly because of
Steve Beiler
the humidity,
Duane Yoder
you know, to keep that temperature controlled. Funny thing is, like, for the longest time, we had a sign above the door in there that said gravy depot because they were the lucky ones that got
Peggy Barthel
the carpet.
Tony Barthel
Well, and you had mentioned welding. We're all sat on a welded structure. This is another example of what you do. When you do benches or things like that, it's a welded aluminum structure, which is stronger and lighter, but not cheaper.
Peggy Barthel
Right. And and again, just brought. Just in comparison
Steve Beiler
with the competitors that are using wood cleats and and then just basically Stapling. The staples and play like, now imagine that with leaf spring axles and more vibration. And these these are just the things that separate us as as a traveling camper from, you know, a lot of the competitors are just weekend campers. And those are the questions that we encourage everybody to ask, not just what does the interior look like or or the dog leash holder or the island or whatever it is. Right?
Steve Beiler
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I feel fortunate that after a lot of poor Peggy. I dragged her to dealerships for over a year looking at campers before we chose
Peggy Barthel
We actually went to not super seriously, but for like 5 years every time we were on a road trip if we'd see a dealership like can we spare spare an hour? Let's go look at some rigs. Mhmm. And for years, we're like narrowing it down narrowing it down figuring out what we want and then our first travel trailer was a mini light and
Tony Barthel
19 05 s. Yeah.
Steve Beiler
1905 s.
Tony Barthel
And then the 22 0 5, which got rear ended. And then another 22 5.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And who knows what's next?
Peggy Barthel
Maybe next. Something else. Yeah.
Duane Yoder
Back to the waterline conversation, we're actually working on developing something new with with the waterline supplier. But right now, what we use is the best that's out there. And we're working and developing more better stuff that the industry needs really. That's an obviously an evolving process.
Peggy Barthel
That's great.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. You look at the changes year to year, and it's like, oh they added this or they did that. And speak to how the roofs are made, because it's also very unusual in the industry.
Duane Yoder
So they are vacuum bonded laminated roofs. Our way of gin
Steve Beiler
is a
Duane Yoder
little bit different because we do a dome inside and outside. We do a vaulted ceiling, but then obviously the dome outside as well. So we have these big molds that we bring in, and we lay the roof on top of that, and that's what what forms it. Then it's all vacuum bonded. It's I would say the strongest roof in the industry.
Steve Beiler
Sure. Fully walk on. But but think about it from an installations way of looking at it. Right? The way our competitors do it where it's just kind of like a loose loose insulation there.
Steve Beiler
I I give the analogy of of having a Yeti cooler and just putting a t shirt on top of it. Where on our roof, it's like putting the cover on it. And that's that's where a lot of the the warm air, you know, leaves or or cool air in the summertime. And and that's these are the things that that make make the difference. And and, you know, again, it's it's hard, you know, in a short amount of time or doing training with the dealer to get all of these things through that that this really is a trailer that's built better.
Tony Barthel
We do things that are different. Yeah. We've been on multiple tours of the factory, and it's it's fun to watch. Yeah. But that roof is also relatively light for what it is.
Tony Barthel
I've seen guys just put it on, you know, like lifting the whole structure so it's lighter, stronger
Steve Beiler
and better insulated,
Tony Barthel
but not probably cheaper. And that's you know again, you always get what you pay for, but we've been very pleased with these. So anything else we need to share about? I mean, I could go on and
Duane Yoder
on about I would like to point out, back to the roof, I would like to point out being a vacuum bonded roof, 1 piece roof, it adds an extremely amount of structure to our our units.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, sure.
Duane Yoder
Because it's not like a white hill right there. Like it's it's part of the structure and you're not depending on just your frame, your walls,
Steve Beiler
and
Duane Yoder
you know, your floor. It's also the roof is part of that structure, and it makes a tremendous difference. You know, we don't want to obviously, don't like to see it, but we've seen people being in accidents where the unit rolls over on the side or a tree falls on it. And it's always amazing to me, like, how well our units hold together after the
Steve Beiler
1000000. Yeah. Yeah. It really is. We we keep pictures
Tony Barthel
in our heads. Yeah. Yeah. Or or even hail damage. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
We've seen that.
Steve Beiler
So, you know, as far as differences go, a lot of people obviously, we're switching now from 20 fours to 20 fives. And and a lot of our competitors, they they roll out all these new things where, for us, it's always a process. Like, all year long, we're always making changes and improvements. We don't have to wait until that model. Now you might we'll see some new floor plan changes like the one that we're in.
Steve Beiler
Mhmm. We've got plenty of those. But as far as the construction, we stay consistent all year long. And if there's something that we need to do to better the product, you better believe we're doing it. We're not gonna wait Don't just
Peggy Barthel
wait till this we're
Steve Beiler
not gonna wait till this is 25. Right.
Peggy Barthel
Like, oh, in October, you're like, oh, can't wait for 9 months so we can start doing this.
Duane Yoder
That's a year long process.
Steve Beiler
It is. Is. This is something we learned from your group. The overhead cabinet doors in our slides didn't have the struts. Yes.
Steve Beiler
Yeah. We heard that loud and clear, and it was a running change that we made. And and again, that's we we take that input from
Peggy Barthel
your Mhmm.
Steve Beiler
Viewers and your followers, and we appreciate that.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. It's it's interesting to see. Well, sometimes stuff that you think about in a closed environment, like, you know, what what you guys see all day, and then stuff that happens out in the real world, very different. And then also people, you know, how they do things. That's got to be a good
Peggy Barthel
I feel like I had a, like a direct when we went on our first tour and we were in a slide. And the
Tony Barthel
It was a 2205.
Peggy Barthel
Doors, like, closer together with less dead space between the doors. And it was a was a 2205, and there were, like, 3 I don't remember what it was. But the doors were smaller. The gaps were bigger. And I said, from a user standpoint, this is kind of annoying because things get lost back there.
Peggy Barthel
And the next year, your doors are bigger.
Steve Beiler
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
I'm like, I did that.
Steve Beiler
Yes. You had
Tony Barthel
a presentation sign.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. That's
Duane Yoder
Obviously, you guys can't see this, but up here that's a good example of it.
Peggy Barthel
Yes. There's a tiny little gap between each one.
Tony Barthel
That and those doors all stay open.
Duane Yoder
Yes. They do.
Tony Barthel
So we'll we'll include that.
Peggy Barthel
I will let you know that I have already done my basket test. I have got the storage basket that we use in our current rig and made sure it fit in this cabinet. Good. It does.
Steve Beiler
Good. Another thing I would like to hit on is, you guys are going to love this, Every unit now has its own folder. Have you guys seen this? Yeah. That's Oh.
Steve Beiler
Yeah. It's like the binding of the refrigerator. Yeah. Let me check. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Because, yeah, that is so with the, like, touch up paints and stuff Yeah.
Steve Beiler
Touch up There's a touch up kit in there. But each unit has its own individual binder. Yeah. Specific to that unit. And as you go through the binder, the VIN number of that unit is on there.
Steve Beiler
The schematics.
Duane Yoder
Yep. Wires. You'll see size
Steve Beiler
of windows. You we go as far to put every component that's in here, the VIN number of that component is in that book.
Tony Barthel
That's really cool because the stickers fade over time.
Steve Beiler
But not only that, but let's say one of you have an issue with with a unit and you take it into your service department to get some work done. You know, they they go through. They put the slide out. They evaluate the problem. They give it to their parts person.
Steve Beiler
Their parts person calls someone from from Forest River. We send a runner out out to grab some and somewhere along the way, the information got wrong. Mhmm. And we send the wrong part. They put the slide out that, you know, and now it's
Peggy Barthel
He's starting all over again. Right. And now it's it's
Steve Beiler
a month until it's finally fixed and you're a month without your camper. This this binder with the VIN numbers of everything, the sizes of windows, the sizes of cushions, the sizes of awnings, all those things are on it. So there's no guess work for Yeah. That's right. I agree.
Duane Yoder
It's it's huge. We even yearly go through and look at what parts were the most frequently ordered.
Steve Beiler
Mhmm.
Duane Yoder
And we provide that list in the back of it.
Steve Beiler
Yeah.
Duane Yoder
With our part numbers to where they can call them if they need a lens for a clearance light or taillight or whatever it may be. They can call in hey I need this part number and it makes everything just work so much smoother.
Tony Barthel
Oh that's because that's a common question in the group is where do I find a lot of times like where do I find this and my responses go to the dealer but but still that makes it so much Yeah.
Duane Yoder
They can directly call us our parts department and they can just
Tony Barthel
answer your question.
Steve Beiler
And the owners manuals for all the components. Again, listen, we're just trying to make the customer experience after they buy something. Like, there's again, some of the weekend campers, that first sale is important to them. And they're not as concerned with that. We want we want everyone coming back.
Steve Beiler
We want the buyer of the Rock River Life Center. We want your business for life. And these kind of things that we do, building a better trailer, always making changes, you know, these are all things that we're continually doing to to give everybody a better experience.
Tony Barthel
Well, what I would say for us, it's the way it's been.
Peggy Barthel
It's the way.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. So Yeah. Oh, I had a great smart aleck comment, and I forgot
Steve Beiler
to name it.
Peggy Barthel
Oh, darn
Tony Barthel
it. Oh.
Duane Yoder
Oh, man.
Steve Beiler
You can edit it in. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still there. We'll look for that.
Tony Barthel
Oh, well, but it was also pretty relevant. Oh well, who cares? It's gone now.
Duane Yoder
But I do want to also point out on the Facebook group just this morning. I got a screenshot. You know, we have multiple people like and we don't necessarily that's not a requirement of their job. They care enough
Steve Beiler
that they're watching that thing on a regular basis.
Duane Yoder
And I get weekly, I get I watching that thing on a regular basis. And I get weekly. I get multiple screenshots. Hey. Did you see this?
Duane Yoder
Hey. Did you see what someone said? And and that stuff all the stuff
Steve Beiler
we address or look at
Duane Yoder
look into and Well, I mean and your service after the sale is really good.
Tony Barthel
Of the service department. And I mean our experience with her was exceptional. We have told you that we had a hole punched in the side of our latest trailer and I literally, I looked, I cannot tell at all that they literally had to replace the whole wall. And that means take the slide room out and just put everything back. Even the stickers are the sticker, the right stickers.
Steve Beiler
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And the way I can tell that it's a new wall, I had command hook hat books on my side of the wall and they're not there because obviously it's not a Rockwood Park.
Steve Beiler
But you
Peggy Barthel
know what's great about that? I have put 5 hooks now instead of 4 because every time I give him a hat hook, he gets more hats. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So yesterday, I got
Steve Beiler
a hat. Right?
Peggy Barthel
He's double hat ball. Yeah.
Duane Yoder
I do.
Tony Barthel
But it was just the service was remarkable. So it's just part of the overall experience and why we're very happy with buying Rockwood trailers and hopefully we'll be doing that soon even though we hadn't planned to.
Peggy Barthel
We hadn't and I and 50 people in the group said, oh, are you going to look at a bigger rig? And I'm like, no. We don't want a bigger rig. The 2205 is perfect for us. I don't want it.
Peggy Barthel
I don't need oh, look at this rig. Yeah.
Steve Beiler
That's how it's supposed to work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
And it's I bought you
Peggy Barthel
and they're like, well, I mean maybe.
Tony Barthel
Alyssa was Alyssa is the head of marketing for Rockwood, and that's who we deal with the most. And she's like, oh, I'm really surprised that you wanted I think she thinks of us differently than than we think of ours. Anyway, she's like, oh I was surprised you liked that feature that's in here. I'm like, oh yeah because one of us it was the split bath. So in this rig the bathroom splits the unit in half basically and that's good because Peggy is a normal person and wakes up at 7 to 8 typically and I'm weird I'm up at 5 and in the 22:0:5 it's all basically one space.
Peggy Barthel
He won't make coffee because he knows the coffee grinder is gonna make noise and wake me up.
Duane Yoder
Yeah. And far be
Tony Barthel
it for me to grind the night before.
Peggy Barthel
If we could close two doors, I wouldn't even know when he grinds his coffee. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
I'd just be out here grinding coffee and
Steve Beiler
Making coffee.
Tony Barthel
Writing RV reviews.
Steve Beiler
Yeah. And he said
Duane Yoder
You are on RV time if you get up to 5.
Steve Beiler
Yeah, oh yeah.
Tony Barthel
A lot of times I will get texts from you know this area and then people are oh I am sorry, I hope I did not wake you up and I am like nope, been up for a couple hours already so. Yeah.
Duane Yoder
In this county you can pretty much text or call anybody at 5 AM. But they're probably Yeah. Then we got to remember that when we call outside the area. Yeah. They're probably still sleeping.
Tony Barthel
Their phone should be on night mode. Well, anything else that we have not covered that maybe we should share?
Steve Beiler
You know, again, we have got brand new floor plans, um, new designs, new color. And again, same Rock wood flagstaff quality that we've always been so proud of. And we really are proud of it.
Duane Yoder
We do. Um, we're there.
Steve Beiler
But, yeah, check out the, you know, we're we're updating all the new floor plans and trying to get the 360s done. So so everybody can see some of the exciting things that you guys are able to see this week.
Tony Barthel
Or read my reviews in the various places. Yeah. There we go. There's already one on the 2506 FK. So it's already out.
Steve Beiler
Oh, good. That's good. That's where we're sitting right now.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's where we're sitting. Well, thank you gentlemen. It is always a pleasure seeing you when we come to town. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
I really appreciate you taking some time to share this knowledge with our audience.
Steve Beiler
We appreciate all the things you guys do to make
Duane Yoder
We really do.
Steve Beiler
This product better. We really do. We really appreciate it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah, it is a collaborative effort. You guys step up and knock it out of the park.
Duane Yoder
You guys do numerous things but the Facebook fan club page has been just as much of a blessing to us. It has been the people part of it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. It is a good it is a good thing. We will put links in the show notes so you can find it too. And of course find your local Rockwood and Flagstaff dealer.
Peggy Barthel
Join the group now so that when you buy your Rockwood you will already be in.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Or Flagstaff.
Duane Yoder
Stuff. Thank you. Alright.
Steve Beiler
Well, thank
Duane Yoder
you, guys.
Steve Beiler
Thank you for your time.
Peggy Barthel
Well, what do you think? Did that change your mind about anything? I was pretty impressed by some of the renovate renovations? No. Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
Not renovations. Uh,
Speaker 5
uh, pervations.
Peggy Barthel
Provations. So I know there's a word for it. Some of the new things, improvements that Rockwood is doing Rockwood and Flagstaff are doing, you know, other companies too. But, hopefully, the days of, quote unquote post COVID rigs is coming to an end.
Tony Barthel
Well, and the reason we wanted to have Rockwood Flagstaff on is there is a difference in how an RV is made. Mhmm. There are absolutely company because, you know, I do weekly RV or weekly. What am I saying? I do almost daily RV reviews, and I look at a lot of RVs.
Tony Barthel
And truthfully, there are absolutely RVs I wouldn't consider.
Peggy Barthel
Sure.
Tony Barthel
And there are some that are like, yeah. It's okay. And there are some that are just great.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
So I think more than ever before, shop carefully, do a bit of research, and know what you're getting into because and don't just go based on, oh, I've heard that brand is good, because there's at least 2 brands I can think of that have been good in the past that you couldn't give them to me.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. So do your research and get some new new information. You know, if companies were struggling before, maybe they've picked up the pace a little. And if companies were fantastic before, make sure they still are.
Tony Barthel
Yep. I don't know if you also know this, but we run several Facebook groups, including some about specific RV brands. And in one of those groups, somebody lost an entire wheel and brake assembly on their trailer.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
And it turned out their lug nuts were loose. Right. Now something Dexter Axle told me when I went to the Dexter Axle class, because who doesn't wanna go to that? Aluminum wheels on travel trailers, very specifically, the lug nuts can come loose, and it's a phenomenon specifically about aluminum wheels on travel trailers. We cannot be more enthusiastic.
Tony Barthel
Is that the word? Sure. About recommending that you have a torque wrench in your bag of tricks, especially if you have a towable RV 5th wheel travel trailer with aluminum wheels.
Peggy Barthel
Right. So you're gonna wanna check the torque on your lug nuts. Uh, I know that Dexter told you, like, right away, like, after 50, your first 50 miles or something like that. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
When the wheels do a lot.
Peggy Barthel
Miles or something. And then regularly after, you know, this is as I say a lot of times, put this on your 90 day or your 30 day checklist of maintenance items, and periodically just check the torque. Now, how are you gonna know if you have the right torque?
Tony Barthel
Get a torque wrench and carry that with you. And if you don't already have one, we have the Air Gear Tire Changing Kit, which comes with the torque wrench and a bunch of adapters for different size lug nuts and and a few other things including a safety vest and all that. Right. This is something that if you don't have this already, get it. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
I know we like to spend your money.
Peggy Barthel
We do.
Steve Beiler
But we
Tony Barthel
like to spend it on things that'll keep you
Peggy Barthel
safe. Now we used to have it just a torque wrench, and it actually didn't have enough torque. No. And so it's not just have a torque wrench, it's have the right torque wrench for the jobs that you're gonna need to do. But the nice thing about that air gear tire changing kit is it has a great torque wrench in it.
Peggy Barthel
And like Tony said, different nuts, other things that you might need for safety if you do have to change a tire. Maybe avoid having to change a tire by making sure your plug nuts don't fall off.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. I mean, I was surprised at the damage this did.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. So this one seemed like the nuts were kind of loose and then things were rattling around, and so the actual, like, bolt that the nut was supposed to be attached to,
Duane Yoder
all of them
Tony Barthel
were gone. Popped off.
Peggy Barthel
Like, they were all gone. It
Tony Barthel
was bad. And the funny thing is, on a 2 axle trailer, the dude towing didn't know about it.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. That's
Tony Barthel
fair. Someone came and they're like, hey, your wheel is back there, and it's on fire. And, again, you know, we don't wanna mess with fire because there's a lot of dry brush around.
Peggy Barthel
Right. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Anyway, we have a story about this and a place where you can buy this kit, or if you already have a torque wrench, that's so much the better.
Peggy Barthel
Yep. So as I said, we just got back to New Mexico for, like, I don't know. It feels like an hour and a half, and then we're heading out again. But on our way home this time you know, on our way home last time when we came home in June, we took the kind of route 66 route, and we stopped in Atlanta, Illinois because the American Giants Museum had just opened.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And we did a podcast about that if
Steve Beiler
you haven't
Tony Barthel
had a chance to listen to that. The American Giants are those basically 21 foot tall people that stand in for they're called muffler men by people, and now there's a whole museum of them. But we were we heard through the grapevine.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. So when we were at
Tony Barthel
Jack more.
Peggy Barthel
At the American Giants Museum, they said, oh, you're just a little bit too early. The restaurant, the oh, I just forgot. Country Air. The Country Air restaurant right here in town is about to get a new American Giant, and she will be a waitress, and rumor is she'll be holding a pie.
Tony Barthel
Well, we have met her, and her name is Lumi.
Peggy Barthel
Her name is Lumi. She's named after the restaurant's owner who bakes all the pies that they're really famous for. By the way, she does a great job. We had a couple pieces of pie with our lunch, and we got to visit Lumi. And then we beat feet to make it far enough and fast enough that we could, the very next day, we made it Get
Tony Barthel
to Tulsa.
Peggy Barthel
Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we got to visit the other newest installation. Not the newest giant, but the newest installation.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And that's MediGold Mac, the friendly lumberjack.
Peggy Barthel
That's right.
Tony Barthel
If you know of Buck Adam and Stella Adam, they are the inspiration of Mary Beth, and she also opened sort of a collection of local vendor stores. It's like an antique mall
Peggy Barthel
Right.
Tony Barthel
But not
Peggy Barthel
But they're not all antique. Some of them are crafty things, and some of them are
Tony Barthel
There's ice cream.
Peggy Barthel
Just sort of wacky things. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
It's really
Steve Beiler
a cool place.
Peggy Barthel
Mall. It's like a vendor mall, and it's super fun to walk through. We wandered through it a couple times, and then we got to meet Mac.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Medagold Mac. Medagold Mac. Lumberjack.
Peggy Barthel
And we got ice cream as Tony said.
Tony Barthel
It was really fun to see this, and Marybeth is really kind of inspiring a lot of new and innovative and creative places right there in what's called the Meadow Gold District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Right on
Peggy Barthel
Right on 60 6. 66.
Tony Barthel
So this Mac is one of the lumberjack figures that International Fiberglass made. And as Mary Beth was putting together this antique mall or, you know, this collection of vendors, somebody said, oh, I have a tall guy like Buck in my basement.
Peggy Barthel
Just hanging out in their basement. Like Like, who does that?
Tony Barthel
A 21 foot tall dude in their basement.
Duane Yoder
But Who has
Peggy Barthel
a basement that will hold such a thing?
Tony Barthel
Anyway, so Medogold Mac went and got all spiffed up and put back to like new condition, and now he stands in front of Medogold Mac, the friendly lumberjacks store. They're on Route 66 in Tulsa.
Peggy Barthel
That's right.
Tony Barthel
There's a story, of course, on our website. Yep. I have to tell you, I'm getting
Duane Yoder
kinda hungry.
Peggy Barthel
It is just about dinner time, and I was very surprised to find last week when we had a potluck with some friends at in Shipshewana. I love making this chicken and broccoli bake. When we're in the RV, when we're at home, whatever, we it's one of our, really, our favorite dishes, and I made it for the potluck. And then I said, oh, I wonder when I last posted this recipe online Yeah. It's just one
Tony Barthel
of our regulars.
Peggy Barthel
Never have. It is so easy, and it is so delicious and it does need an oven, but you could use your Omnia oven.
Tony Barthel
Oh, absolutely. If you
Peggy Barthel
put it on the stovetop, if you don't have an oven or don't want an oven, you could use your convection oven. We bake in our convection oven at home. And this is really, really easy. It's cooked chicken, it's broccoli, it's cream and and I'm not giving amounts of ingredients because I make it differently every single time. Sometimes we have ricotta, sometimes we don't.
Peggy Barthel
Sometimes we have cream cheese, sometimes we don't.
Tony Barthel
Sometimes you feel like a nut,
Steve Beiler
sometimes you don't.
Peggy Barthel
I never put nuts in it. No. But basically, some dairy stuff, some shredded cheese, some chicken, and some broccoli.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And you could use, like, leftover rotisserie
Peggy Barthel
chicken. You could use
Tony Barthel
canned chicken. You could just make chicken. Right. Whatever. Whatever floats
Peggy Barthel
your boat. Whatever floats your boat. Whatever
Tony Barthel
drives your camp.
Peggy Barthel
Whatever cooks your chicken. Yeah. So that recipe is now, uh, the newest recipe on our recipes page on the stressless camping.com website, and I hope that you'll check it out and try it. And like I said, make it yours. Do it however you want to do it.
Tony Barthel
Well, and then share what you done did.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Please do.
Steve Beiler
On
Tony Barthel
our Stressless Campers Facebook group.
Peggy Barthel
That's what it's there for.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. We got a couple of walkie talkies that someone wanted us to try from a company called Tid Radio.
Peggy Barthel
It's all one word, but tid, like, Thomas Indiana driver. I don't know. Tid Radio, but it's all one word. And when you first turn the walkie talkie on, it actually sounds like turn on the radio, but I think it's actually saying Tid Radio. Oh,
Tony Barthel
and then it says channel and it whatever.
Peggy Barthel
And tells you the channel that you're on.
Tony Barthel
We like having walkie talkies for, like, backing up and Mhmm. And such. What I really liked about these is they're very small.
Peggy Barthel
They are really nice and small.
Tony Barthel
The distance at the Elkhart Fairgrounds, I rode the bike around and we tested just how far we could go.
Peggy Barthel
Well, I'm surprised. Yeah. You rode, like, kinda to the far end of the fairgrounds, but then remember I took them and went grocery shopping.
Tony Barthel
Oh, that's true.
Peggy Barthel
I took one, and I was we were in Goshen. You were at the fairgrounds in our campsite, and I was driving back, you know, from town, and there's a lake. The main drag of Goshen, there's like a lake between there and the fairgrounds. So So when I had that open space, I think it was probably 2 miles, but I I wanted to map it out and look at it. I think it might have been about 2 miles, and you were able to hear me as long as we had that open space between us of the lake.
Peggy Barthel
Yeah. Yeah. Then I got where there were trees, and then you couldn't hear me for a while. Then I got back to where you could again. I'll doctor up some maps, and we'll put those on our
Tony Barthel
Now I know notes. There's a bunch of stuff you can download and modify on these, and I did none of that. I just turned it on, changed the channel, and started yapping.
Peggy Barthel
They've just worked so well.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. They just they're just simple. I like the size. So, yeah, so 2 thumbs up, and we'll provide a link to the review on our show notes.
Steve Beiler
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
So last week, obviously, this week's interview is with the folks from Rockwood and Flagstaff. But last week, I spent the whole week with the folks from Jayco. If you don't know, Jayco is a company that started in 1968 by the Bontragers, who the granddaughter of the founder is the one who started Amber.
Steve Beiler
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
But the Bontragers, uh, eventually sold Jayco to Thor. And I know more than a few of you are gonna go, oh, hoo, hoo, hoo. But I have to say, this facility was absolutely mind boggling. I mean, it was enormous. And Jayco is unusual in that they make everything from tiny little trailers
Steve Beiler
to
Peggy Barthel
To big old class a's.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. There's like a $1,000,000 class a diesel pusher. And I got to see all kinds of new 2025 rigs. One of the things that really struck me was that something struck me. I was crossing the street and didn't look.
Tony Barthel
No. I'm sorry. That's not funny.
Peggy Barthel
Hopefully, it wasn't lightning.
Tony Barthel
Something that struck me while I was there, uh, I got to speak with Trey Miller, who's the vice president of marketing of Jayco, and he spent an hour with me just showing me around. Nice. First of all, thank you. Jayco has a number of what they call PDI facilities. So every RV now that Jayco builds, there's a separate facility, and that RV goes through this quality control process in that facility.
Tony Barthel
So they test the plumbing and the electrical, and all those different systems get tested on every single RV, not statistically valid number. I'm talking a 100%.
Peggy Barthel
That's statistically pretty valid.
Tony Barthel
Well, it is. This facility, I got to see the newest one. And something Trey was talking about was how they've really upgraded the break rooms and how they've upgraded the facilities there and how they make it so it's a better work environment. They have their own clinic on their property. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
I was
Peggy Barthel
really impressed when you told me that. So if you work for Jayco and you or maybe one of your children or something is ill, they have a clinic that you can Yeah.
Tony Barthel
You just go.
Peggy Barthel
Go. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
So I have to say, you know, I was a little concerned when Thor bought Jayco, as I'm sure a lot of people were.
Steve Beiler
Mhmm.
Tony Barthel
But looking at the investment that they've made in this company and where they're investing and how they're investing, I was pretty doggone impressed. And another thing Trey was telling me, there's a lot of feedback from customers, and some of that feedback I directly saw. Like, Jayco has typically put furnace vents in the floor of their trailers.
Peggy Barthel
Mhmm.
Steve Beiler
And
Tony Barthel
almost every single 2025 I saw, they're up in the cabinets Yes. Where they belong. Yeah. They have upgraded the mattresses. They've upgraded a lot of both easy to see and difficult to see pieces.
Peggy Barthel
Okay.
Tony Barthel
And I tried out some of the mattresses. And, I mean, you know, truthfully, it's, what, 2 minutes laying on a mattress.
Peggy Barthel
It's so subjective also.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. That's true.
Peggy Barthel
I mean, some people thought that those mattresses that they've been using that most of us feel are a piece of board was perfectly comfortable. So it it really depends
Steve Beiler
on the
Peggy Barthel
kind of thing that you like.
Tony Barthel
But, anyway, I was pretty pleased with what I saw. Again, Rockwood and Flagstaff are a good brand, but I was pretty impressed with what I saw coming out of Jayco. And looking at a lot of these 20 20 fives, there were some models where it's like, wow. That's really, you know, something to look at. Now they also make a very affordable series of trailers, and I saw those.
Tony Barthel
And they're affordable trailers, but but they have a better warranty than a lot of companies. So, again, yes, I think the RV industry is listening, and Jayco can actually quantify how they're listening. And I promised I would let them see the article about the PDI facility. I'm hoping it'll be out by when you get to see this because I was very, very impressed.
Peggy Barthel
Great.
Tony Barthel
So there you go.
Peggy Barthel
Very cool. Well, last week, as you know, we were at the frog rally and then Tony was at Jayco, and we saw a lot of 2025 models. Yeah. It kind of prompted, of course, our question of the week last week, which was, do you look at new models and daydream about owning 1? Now I'm gonna say I'm not gonna read everybody's answers but they kind of run the gamut which my own brain also runs.
Peggy Barthel
No heck no I love my RV. Or also, on the other hand, wouldn't it be nice to have a new one? Also, on the other hand, do I really wanna trade everything out now that I've got mine dialed in or on the other hand? Right? I mean, I think a lot of us, you know, we're like, no, we're perfectly happy with what we have, But if you go to an RV show just for kicks and you start wandering through and think, oh, wouldn't it be cool to have this feature or that feature?
Peggy Barthel
I can't imagine anybody saying, ew, gross to everything. Right? I mean, there's gotta be something about your rig that you wish was different and you find a rig that has that, and then you're like, oh, it'd be cool to have this.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. And So does it translate into, oh, I like that new model a lot.
Peggy Barthel
Right. Does it translate into, yep, I'm changing rigs?
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Right. And it may for us. We don't
Peggy Barthel
know yet. But we sure found one that we that a lot of the I don't wanna say we don't like. A lot of the things that we feel could be different in our rig, we found a rig that meets those criteria.
Tony Barthel
And that's because of how much we travel and
Steve Beiler
the
Tony Barthel
fact that we work in our rig. There are a lot of people for whom the Rockwood Mini Lite 2205 s is the perfect camper.
Peggy Barthel
It was for us for couple years now.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. But we work in it, and so anyway Mhmm. We'll see what happens.
Peggy Barthel
I think we've talked about this before. So thank you all for answering that. This week, my question for you is, how do you deal with, you know, misbehaving campers? I think we talked a little bit last week about there's been a little bit of a series kind of, uh, coming out of Girl Camper about crappy campers.
Duane Yoder
Yeah.
Peggy Barthel
And, you know, they they talked about dogs and generators and trash and, you know, different things and
Tony Barthel
Fruit Loops.
Peggy Barthel
Fruit Loops. Yes. Yes. If that didn't make any sense, someone actually poured a bowl of milky cereal into a tree stump instead of finding a trash can to pour it into. So, anyway, how do you what do you do?
Peggy Barthel
How do you deal with people like that?
Tony Barthel
Where could I answer that question or pose my own questions?
Peggy Barthel
You could do all those things at our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook group. Woah. Yeah. It's so much fun and, uh, you know, I love that people come in and answer our questions, but I also love when people come in and ask their own questions, Brian. I also love when people share their stories and share their RVs and share their travels.
Peggy Barthel
Not nearly enough of you do that and I really would love to see more of your
Tony Barthel
Well, we all love seeing
Steve Beiler
Yeah.
Tony Barthel
We love living vicariously.
Peggy Barthel
For sure. Yeah. Or finding the next place on our to do list. Right. Yeah.
Tony Barthel
Hey, did you also know that we do a once a week newsletter that's absolutely free, including being spam free when it has links to the stories, videos, and podcasts that will help you get the most out of your stressless camping experience.
Peggy Barthel
Just visit our website and sign up at the bottom of any page. Or if it's your first time, which is kinda weird now, after 260, 70 episodes, but hey, we get new people every week. So if it's your first time there will be a pop up. We try to avoid pop ups but that one we think is worth it just once. Anyway, go to the bottom of the page, sign up for the newsletter.
Peggy Barthel
When you get the newsletter and if you want to win that TSTTPMS, UmG. Be sure to respond to your newsletter and let us know that you're interested in winning, and that you're only gonna get one newsletter a week.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. We're too lazy. We're
Steve Beiler
too lazy.
Peggy Barthel
We're too busy to send more. We don't spam. We don't share your information. We just send you one newsletter a week, remind you that the podcast is out, maybe share some other RV or travel or camp stories that we have seen, and that's it.
Tony Barthel
That's all, folks. Hey, you'll find the show notes for this episode, episode 270 on the podcast page at stressless camping.com, and that is where you'll find our discounts and deals for the best deals on the things you'll need for your stressless camping adventure.
Peggy Barthel
And if you know of a deal or you know of someone who has a deal that we don't know about, can you please let us know? Because the bigger and better that page gets, the bigger and better that page gets.
Tony Barthel
Of course, we're in all the social places, but you can start at stresslesscamping.com. In the upper right corner, there are places you can tap on or click on that'll take you to all the places that we all enjoy being social.
Peggy Barthel
So we are doing our podcast now by YouTube but if you are still a listener and you prefer audio, fine. Great. Fantastic. That's how I prefer them. And you can subscribe, in case you didn't know this, for free to the Stress Is Camping podcast on any podcast catcher.
Tony Barthel
Well, here's some news that came out of Apple. Oh. Apple has been the big daddy rabbit in the podcast world, and now their podcast tool is web based. So if you have an Android phone or a Linux computer or whatever, you can actually take advantage of Apple's podcasting Oh. Platform in a browser.
Tony Barthel
So it's kind of a cool deal.
Peggy Barthel
So Apple is saving you a seat around their virtual campus.
Tony Barthel
That's right. Apple's pulling off the chair, but not so much so that you fall on your beyond.
Peggy Barthel
Uh, we like to remind you that a review will help others find the podcast and the more people that listen, the more we can continue to get great guests. So if you haven't had a chance to leave a review, please, please, we really, really appreciate it.
Tony Barthel
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Well, did you hear something you liked? If you did, you can share from our website or on our social pages.
Tony Barthel
We have tips on how you can do that on our website. You can join the stressless camper camper force, share articles and resources so that you are caring for others by sharing information that's actually vetted. So it's a neat way to, from our website, share, just share, share, share. So have you changed your mind about RV quality? Are you like, no, uh, I don't know yet.
Tony Barthel
I'm curious to hear that too. Yeah. We really appreciate your being here as always, and most of all
Peggy Barthel
Stressless camping.
Mark Ferrell
We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next stressless camping adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure, and we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.
