Trixxx
Well-known member
My wife and I have a fair amount of trailer experience over the years. In 2013 we bought a new, 42’ Toy Hauler and lived in it full time for 5 years. During this time, we learned what we liked, and what we didn’t. We also learned how poor the build quality is of *most* traditional American made trailers. Most are not designed to last, nor for full time usage.
In 2017, a project I was on ended abruptly, so we bought a M416 with RTT and did a 2 month, 8000 mile North American camping trip. We slept in that RTT every night except for 2-3 nights. We also had a 4 month old German Shepherd with us. That threw quite a bit more planning/coordinating into the trip.
With these two trailers, we learned the the extremes on both ends of the spectrum.
Last year, we decided we wanted the best of both worlds. The Casita has all the amenities of most full sized trailers, with the smaller size and robust build quality of many smaller trailers. It has AC, shower, toilet, fridge, freezer, microwave, stove, sink, side dinette, full sized bed, tv and dvd.
There are many big advantages to a full fiberglass trailer. With the full fiberglass body, there’s minimal seams in which it could leak. The interior cabinets and appliances are also built in molded fiberglass. This means in all the cabinets there’s not wood/screws that are going to start to warp and fall apart after many miles on rough roads.
There are some downsides to the Casita in general. While it has incredible build quality, it’s designed to travel on roads and not rated to carry much weight. The c-channel on the frame is wimpy, to say the least. The torsion axle is rated for 3500#, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for extra carrying capacity.
We knew with this trailer that we were going to beef up everything, and turn it into an off-road build.
Last summer, we picked up a 2016, 17’ (Total length from bumper to hitch) Casita with the Spirit floorplan. The day before we were headed to the Casita factory to order a new one (about 4 hours away) when I stumbled upon a slightly used one, right on our route. We figured we would check it out on the way. We met the owner in the enclosed storage unit, and it was clear that it had barely been used and was in near mint condition, loaded, with a lot of tasteful upgrades. She used it by herself to go to horse shows a few times a year, then left it stored the rest of the time. The trailers retain their value incredibly well and are very hard to find used, but we managed to get a pretty reasonable deal on the trailer.
Here she is stock when we brought it home last summer. We’re mostly finished with the build now, but I have a million pictures of the build along the way, so I’ll update this thread with the progress periodically as it’s far too extensive to make in one post (If we want to make this thread detailed).
In 2017, a project I was on ended abruptly, so we bought a M416 with RTT and did a 2 month, 8000 mile North American camping trip. We slept in that RTT every night except for 2-3 nights. We also had a 4 month old German Shepherd with us. That threw quite a bit more planning/coordinating into the trip.
With these two trailers, we learned the the extremes on both ends of the spectrum.
Last year, we decided we wanted the best of both worlds. The Casita has all the amenities of most full sized trailers, with the smaller size and robust build quality of many smaller trailers. It has AC, shower, toilet, fridge, freezer, microwave, stove, sink, side dinette, full sized bed, tv and dvd.
There are many big advantages to a full fiberglass trailer. With the full fiberglass body, there’s minimal seams in which it could leak. The interior cabinets and appliances are also built in molded fiberglass. This means in all the cabinets there’s not wood/screws that are going to start to warp and fall apart after many miles on rough roads.
There are some downsides to the Casita in general. While it has incredible build quality, it’s designed to travel on roads and not rated to carry much weight. The c-channel on the frame is wimpy, to say the least. The torsion axle is rated for 3500#, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for extra carrying capacity.
We knew with this trailer that we were going to beef up everything, and turn it into an off-road build.
Last summer, we picked up a 2016, 17’ (Total length from bumper to hitch) Casita with the Spirit floorplan. The day before we were headed to the Casita factory to order a new one (about 4 hours away) when I stumbled upon a slightly used one, right on our route. We figured we would check it out on the way. We met the owner in the enclosed storage unit, and it was clear that it had barely been used and was in near mint condition, loaded, with a lot of tasteful upgrades. She used it by herself to go to horse shows a few times a year, then left it stored the rest of the time. The trailers retain their value incredibly well and are very hard to find used, but we managed to get a pretty reasonable deal on the trailer.
Here she is stock when we brought it home last summer. We’re mostly finished with the build now, but I have a million pictures of the build along the way, so I’ll update this thread with the progress periodically as it’s far too extensive to make in one post (If we want to make this thread detailed).
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