Bought 2013 Itasca Reyo T

Be careful when swiveling the front seats.  The seat position lever cable can catch during the swivel action and break.  The lever mechanism is plastic.  Just paid $250 to have mine replaced.

Tom P said:

Be careful when swiveling the front seats.  The seat position lever cable can catch during the swivel action and break.  The lever mechanism is plastic.  Just paid $250 to have mine replaced.

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Thanks for the tip. DW has learned that you don't need to use that lever while you swivel the seat. Agree?

Hey Oldedit, I read your thread about the RS Adventurous, which I have been seriously considering.  It's very helpful to hear about your experiences and thoght processes while owning the class B and then upgrading to a class A.  I have also been looking at the Itasca Navion, and am wondering if you ever considered it before settling on the Reyo.  I recall you mentioning that you didn't even want to consider a class C, and I'm really curious to know why that was, considering the Navion is also on the Sprinter chassis.

^^Welcome^^

Atterman,

We don't like the corner beds in so many Cs. And we don't like the noisy, gas guzzling Ford Cs. Maybe the new Ford Transit will be better for B vans, but the old Ford Cs still will be around. I just don't like driving them or listening to them.

The Mercedes Sprinter chassis isn't perfect, but it's a 10 compared to the Fords, which are a 4 for us. When you drive the Mercedes, it feels like a high-quality Mercedes.

And despite my fears, the Winnebago built Itasca Reyo turned out to be the best built small class A we drove or looked at.

No power for C-PAP dry camping. Battery required.

We don't dry camp much in our 2013 Itasca Reyo. But we did last night and discovered a C-PAP can't be plugged in when you dry camp without shore power or a running generator.

We could use the C-PAP while dry camping in our 2006 Roadtrek Adventurous.

So, I guess we need to buy a battery for the C-PAP?

Does 2013 Itasca Reyo ride harder than bigger coaches? Nope

We've just completed all 135 miles of Alaska's Denali Highway.

While the road isn't as rough and there hasn't been as much dust as I anticipated, there's been more of both than DW expected. In her Alaska trip journal, our friend Linda Stock says the Top of the World road is much rougher than the Denali Highway. So we'll not only bad mouth the Denali Highway, we'll also stay at the bottom of the world.

We've driven the notorious Denali Highway at  between 5 and 25 mph. Mostly 15 to 20 mph because of the washboard road and the potholes that show up every now and then. Driving this slow over mild inclines and declines has cut our mileage to about 13.8 mpg from the 17 to 18 mpg we've gotten driving through Yellowstone and Glacier National parks, most of Canada and most of Alaska so far.

Meanwhile, we've seen big 40-foot tour buses dash by us. Do the big coaches absorb washboard roads better than our Sprinter Van chassis, which is very European and lets us feel the road like most European cars do?

We got our answer from new victims of the 40-ft. Princess tour bus that took them three hours east from Cantwell on the Denali Highway and back.

The tour bus ride was rough and tortuous, they reported across a shared table at the famous and wonderful Road House in Talkeetna, AK.

So, I guess we need to buy a battery for the C-PAP?

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If your CPAP plugs directly into a regular 120V wall socket, then a small inverter might do the job. It will depend a great deal on the power draw (in watts)  to know if this would be practical.

If the CPAP used one of those block power supplies that plug in the wall, check the real voltage requirements (output) of the block. You might get lucky and find it is 12 Volts DC (just a swag on my part)....

Both these suggestions require you to know/determine the exact power requirements of the CPAP you use.

We're in Homer, AK, with about 10,800 miles on our 2013 Reyo (T model). Over the first 10k miles, the odometer tells us, we averaged 15.1 mpg. But because speed limits in Yellowstone north through Alaska are mostly 55 to 60 mph, we're averaging about 16 to 17 mpg, sometimes hitting 18 and even 20.

While all the good things I've had to say about the Reyo/Via stand, the one pain is that I have to unmake and remake the king-sized bed every day. But that's a small price to pay for having a motorhome that is fun to drive, a great place to live for three months and attracts a fair amount of attention from fellow campers.

As we hoped, the Reyo is both a great driver and a wonderful place to hang out in good weather and bad. The shades black out very well in the bedroom area. Because we wear masks when we hit our pillows, the light that comes through the curtains over the windshield don't bother us. DW made a blackout curtain for the sleeping area, but we've never used it even though sunset is about midnight up here.

DW has installed our tea kettle in the cabinet above the fridge. Unfortunately, she used a couple of compression bars inside the door to keep stuff from sliding out while we're driving. I think she put the bars too close to the door. That caused one of the hinges to pull loose. Liquid Nails failed me. I'll figure out a new fix after we get home.

Another minor problem has been the hoses that feed washer fluids to the windshield wipers. The hoses grew brittle and broke when I pulled the wipers out to clean the window. Auto Zone in Eagle, AK, had replacement tubes at about $1 a foot. With help from DW and some dish detergent to make it easier to install the new hose, we got the problem fixed on the driver's side. The passenger's side still is making do with Duck tape.

Oldedit said:

We're in Homer, AK..

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Oh my gosh - have some fried halibut for us!  All things considered, sounds like your Reyo is doing a good job for you, thanks for the report.

John Canfield said:

Oh my gosh - have some fried halibut for us!  All things considered, sounds like your Reyo is doing a good job for you, thanks for the report.

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Halibut fishing seems to be so so. Haven't seen many catches above 15 lb. Local prices are high. We think we get better halibut and prices at our Whole Foods in Colorado. So we're eating cod fish & chips and other good stuff.

Glad you liked the report.

Re: CPAP We use a marine battery stored in the slim storage unit by the sofa in our R model, and connect it to an inverter. In the winter we have this setup in the bedroom closet in case the power goes out at home. We also can run an extension from the built in inverter under the sink area, that has an outlet built into it. We store the extension in the bottom kitchen drawer. Third, an electrician put in an outlet under the TV that runs on the "house" inverter. We haven't used it as the outlet under the sink area in the built in inverter is closer.

reyo owner said:

Re: CPAP We use a marine battery stored in the slim storage unit by the sofa in our R model, and connect it to an inverter. In the winter we have this setup in the bedroom closet in case the power goes out at home. We also can run an extension from the built in inverter under the sink area, that has an outlet built into it. We store the extension in the bottom kitchen drawer. Third, an electrician put in an outlet under the TV that runs on the "house" inverter. We haven't used it as the outlet under the sink area in the built in inverter is closer.

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Thanks for the info. We'll see what we can do with your ideas.

Check on what is available for your CPAP, For my wife's unit I found that they make a 12v cord for it and it plugs in to the cig lighter plug by the bed.

It would be much more efficient to do it this way versus an inverter just to step it back to DC power for the machine. I find that the draw on straight 12v is quite manageable for overnight operation.

It was a regular car battery, not a marine battery, and we charge it with a Trik-L. We used the 12v with a truck camper and it worked fine.

A year and almost 12k miles after buying our 2013 Itasca Reyo (Model T), we turned on the hot water heater and tried out the shower. Love it!

Has anyone seen a good, clear description about how the hot water heater in a Winnebago product works and how to maintain it? The manuals from the hot water heater and Winnebago leave much to be desired.

1. I filled a gallon water bottle to see how much time it takes at our Ocean View RV park in Haines, AK. About 58 seconds.

2. The fresh water tank is 28 gal, the hot water tank, which apparently fills from the fresh water tank, is 6 gal.

3. So to put 15 gal in the tanks, fill for 15 minutes? Well, the tank monitor went from 1/3 to 2/3 in about 4 min. And after my shower, it went back to 1/3.

4. We're heating with electricity, but we can heat with LP or with both to get a quick recovery in the amount of hot water after we use some.

5. The instructions for winterizing are detailed and daunting, imho. What a hassle.

Thoughts?

Oldedit said:

Has anyone seen a good, clear description about how the hot water heater in a Winnebago product works and how to maintain it?

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Remove the water heater drain plug and flush the precipitates out annually with a wand like this or make your own from the plumbing department of a big box DIY store.

...So to put 15 gal in the tanks, fill for 15 minutes? Well, the tank monitor went from 1/3 to 2/3 in about 4 min. And after my shower, it went back to 1/3.

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Your sensors are apparently not placed properly on the tank walls, buy a digital water flow meter and recheck your 1/3rds.

The instructions for winterizing are detailed and daunting, imho.

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Thankfully we have never had to winterize the coach other than putting a heater in the plumbing bay.

Thanks, John.

John Canfield said:

Remove the water heater drain plug and flush the precipitates out annually with a wand like this or make your own from the plumbing department of a big box DIY store.
Your sensors are apparently not placed properly on the tank walls, buy a digital water flow meter and recheck your 1/3rds.
Thankfully we have never had to winterize the coach other than putting a heater in the plumbing bay.

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We too have a 2013 Reyo T and love it. Since one of us is still working we have only taken it out twice. I leave the bed set up in the King formation. Because of surgeries on my neck and back I did find the bed uncomfortable. I bought a gel foam mattress topper at CostCo ~ well worth the $159 price tag. Glad to hear you are enjoying you Reyo T. We downsized from a 36' 5th Wheel Toy Hauler and 2500 Chevy Duramax Diesel.
The Reyo is so much easier to set up and take down!! Waiting for our Haulark 7 X 16 V-Nose Low Hauler to come in. Surprised at how good of diesel mileage it gets. The Mercedes Dealership said it should improve after 15-20,000 miles.

The water level indicator going fron 1/3 to 2/3 and vise versa only tells you that the level changed, not how much! If you are certain it is empty and then fill to 1/3 you have learned something. However, if the rig/tank is even slightly off level, the reading may change significantly.

If you wish to calibrate flow rates, either do as John suggests (best) or empty the tank completely and then fill to overflow (reasonably close).

Jm2c

Ernie