2012 Thor ACE 29.2

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We looked at the Thor Ace's. Couldn't get past the little tiny kitchen sink. We ended up getting a Holiday Rambler Ultra Lite 31ft. Had more overall room with lots of upgrades. Got it at a Camping world in New York. Be careful buying from out of state. We live in Georgia. We made the deal in 5 days and didn't take delivery for one month. Once they got our money they were in no big hurry to deliver. We love it and like any new vehicle we had a few things to iron out. Anyway, most HR Ulta Lites are going for 75000 ti 80000, /we got ours for 65900. Camping World bought out a private dealer and Camping World does not sell HR's or Monaco's. They wanted to get rid of it really bad. Anyway we love it and the Ford V10 has been running great. Look into Holiday Rambler and Monaco products. There is a large dealer in Texas that has some pretty good deals. At least their ads look good.
 
A tip I learned last week at the dealership while getting warranty work done on our 30.1 is to hold the slide retract switch for a full 5 seconds after it stops moving.  This apparently helps the motors sync up and it appears to have eliminated the last bit of slide noise issue I was having.  The dealer had already done the Thor recommended shim install for the noise.

Dealer managed to get my driver and passenger windows to stop rattling... for a few hours, now it's back.  I'll have to study the silicone bead trick other members have posted.

We've had insulation installed behind the bunk inside the front cap on the driver's side.  On the passenger side the insulation was already there but it was bare on the driver side causing the condensation drip.

A question for forum members.: We're still seeing overnight temps below -6 Celsius.  Should I leave the furnace running at its lowest setting just to make sure the water system doesn't freeze up overnight?

We enjoyed taking the motorhome for a spring skiing trip this weekend.  With the low temps the ski hills near Colingwood, Ontario still have lots of snow.  Only issue is that the furnace can drain our dual coach batteries to the point that they can't start the generator by morning in the below freezing temps.  Not a big issue since we just start the motor, then start the generator and let everything charge up again.

Comfort wise in the cold weather I'm very impressed.  It burns about 1/8 of the propane tank per night which is a lot less than my brother's 5th wheel trailer in similar temps.
 
Taking the ACE in for a few things to be fixed before our 1 yr warranty is up.  Mostly just stuff that needs to be secured better and also a leak in the fresh water tank/hose. 

After that, we need to find a place to add seatbelts to the dinette to accomodate our growing family.  Then we should be set for some good trips this Summer!

Anyone going anywhere good?
 
BCinTOR said:
A tip I learned last week at the dealership while getting warranty work done on our 30.1 is to hold the slide retract switch for a full 5 seconds after it stops moving.  This apparently helps the motors sync up and it appears to have eliminated the last bit of slide noise issue I was having.  The dealer had already done the Thor recommended shim install for the noise.

Dealer managed to get my driver and passenger windows to stop rattling... for a few hours, now it's back.  I'll have to study the silicone bead trick other members have posted.

We've had insulation installed behind the bunk inside the front cap on the driver's side.  On the passenger side the insulation was already there but it was bare on the driver side causing the condensation drip.

A question for forum members.: We're still seeing overnight temps below -6 Celsius.  Should I leave the furnace running at its lowest setting just to make sure the water system doesn't freeze up overnight?

We enjoyed taking the motorhome for a spring skiing trip this weekend.  With the low temps the ski hills near Colingwood, Ontario still have lots of snow.  Only issue is that the furnace can drain our dual coach batteries to the point that they can't start the generator by morning in the below freezing temps.  Not a big issue since we just start the motor, then start the generator and let everything charge up again.

Comfort wise in the cold weather I'm very impressed.  It burns about 1/8 of the propane tank per night which is a lot less than my brother's 5th wheel trailer in similar temps.
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I want to share a little information on the type of slide we have in the ace. This is in regard to the " hold the in key for 5 seconds" My dealer was told that from thor as well. You don't train the drive on these units. They plug in, and work. How...you say... Well, After the motor retracts the slide ( one on each side) the current is switched of when the draw reaches a certain level. You set that level on the unit in the coach, with a potentiometer. Thats it....no hold the button for 5 seconds. I think it was a carry over from an earlier production of the slide rail system from Lippert. I have this info from Lippert them self. My "effort" was set at maximum on the slide controller, which makes sense as it is a very big room. Only thing that can misalign the slide is if it was incorrectly installed. Dealer will tell you anything, well.... most of them, and Thor for sure.
 
We are researching our next RV and the 29.2 keeps coming to the top of the list - no matter how much I look at others and what I find.  I have read through the posts here and am comfortable with all the issues described and very much appreciate all who are willing to share their experience.  The ONE thing that keeps bugging us is the sink.  I know many have said it works out, but for our family and lifestyle it just seems small.  Even our 24' no slide travel trailer has more sink space.

So - I'm a fairly competent DIY guy, no problem replacing plumbing, modest electrical work and handy as a basic carpenter.  (Don't let me touch an engine though... topic for another post!)  Has anyone considered or actually changed the sink in their RV?  If there is adequate space underneath the countertop, could I just cut out a new hole, rerun the plumbing and put in a RV sized double sink?  I would go look but the nearest dealer is a couple hours away, and we aren't really ready to buy for a few more months at least.  Mostly, I don't want to have to try to change the whole cabinet, just want to make sure there is enough room in there that I could modify the existing space to fit a larger, double sink. 

Thanks in advance for anyone who owns and and take a look and see if this is reasonable!
 
WarPhil said:
We are researching our next RV and the 29.2 keeps coming to the top of the list - no matter how much I look at others and what I find.  I have read through the posts here and am comfortable with all the issues described and very much appreciate all who are willing to share their experience.  The ONE thing that keeps bugging us is the sink.  I know many have said it works out, but for our family and lifestyle it just seems small.  Even our 24' no slide travel trailer has more sink space.

So - I'm a fairly competent DIY guy, no problem replacing plumbing, modest electrical work and handy as a basic carpenter.  (Don't let me touch an engine though... topic for another post!)  Has anyone considered or actually changed the sink in their RV?  If there is adequate space underneath the countertop, could I just cut out a new hole, rerun the plumbing and put in a RV sized double sink?  I would go look but the nearest dealer is a couple hours away, and we aren't really ready to buy for a few more months at least.  Mostly, I don't want to have to try to change the whole cabinet, just want to make sure there is enough room in there that I could modify the existing space to fit a larger, double sink. 

Thanks in advance for anyone who owns and and take a look and see if this is reasonable!
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I have read of at least one replacing it with a SS unit. There are plenty of room for more with, and the only thing you need to keep in mind, is that the deeper bowl you install, you will/might have interference with your under sink trash can. But is sounds like your going for with anyway. I would buy my 29.2 again....and again. But again... we got ours for $59.000...  :) :)
 
I've followed this thread since its inception and I have to say I am surprised.  I too am interested in an ACE but I refuse to buy one until I start reading reports of the issues I'm seeing being addressed by Thor.  I understand this is a house on wheels and all the manufacturers have issues.  But there is no way I'm going to lay down my hard earned money knowing I am buying a rolling box full of known problems.  Apparently the guys building these ACE units don't care one bit about quality.  Misrouted wiring, squeaking slides, rattling windows. missing insulation, sliding doors that won't stay put and on and on.  These are quality issues that any manufacturer should address and yet these problems still exist in the third model year.  One might say that with my attitude I will never be able to buy a motorhome.  But I say until the manufacturers start losing sales because people start demanding quality and service the manufacturers will never change.  They will continue to put out crap and people will continue to list a whole myriad of problems and then say "but I love my ACE".  You should hate your ACE and the lack of service being provided by Thor.  Would you accept this lousy level of quality in anything else you buy?  Much less on something you spent $70k or more.  I could buy a nice used airplane for $70K.  If I knew it was built with the same quality as your Thor ACE would you fly with me?  I think not.  I'm still in the market for an ACE and would be happy to own one just as soon as Thor and the people that build their units get off their butt and make an effort to provide the RV consumer with a decent product.  Unfortunately these units seem to be selling like hot cakes and I have to wonder why.
 
Danno. I paid for my new RV ace roughly $70 000 with all the extras and full body paint. I understand when I was buying this RV that I am buying budget product. My other option was to pay close to $120 000 to get RV with better interior and over all better quality.

Well I think that not all of us are able to spent as much to get perfect RV.

I am grateful to Thor for selling something what many of us can afford. Actually i am happy with this RV and problems with this model are not that bad.

On the end all is set by price you are willing or able to pay.  ACE is budget RV for poor buggers like me. ;)
 
Jan Stiskala said:
Danno. I paid for my new RV ace roughly $70 000 with all the extras and full body paint. I understand when I was buying this RV that I am buying budget product. My other option was to pay close to $120 000 to get RV with better interior and over all better quality.

Well I think that not all of us are able to spent as much to get perfect RV.

I am grateful to Thor for selling something what many of us can afford. Actually i am happy with this RV and problems with this model are not that bad.

On the end all is set by price you are willing or able to pay.  ACE is budget RV for poor buggers like me. ;)
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I second that exact opinion. We spend about 10 months studying the competition. We looked at EVERYTHING in the sub 70K class. Nothing came close to have the features of the ACE. Granted there have been a few issues. But you also have to keep in mind that this is the internet, and every bad thing is here, while most dont report on the good things. A fantastic RV. Simple as that. :)
 
I have to agree with the others...you get what you pay for.  If any of us were able to afford one of the big boys for $200K-$400K then we would have.  We chose the ACE because it had a lot of great features for a low price.  Any product you buy has some type of issues so an RV won't be any different, no matter how much you pay.  However, a lower end model is going to have more issues in general because you are dealing with cheaper products.  When a car manufacturer comes out with a new model it takes a couple years to get all the bugs worked out, I don't think it is unreasonable for the same to be common with an RV.  These are complicated machines with lots of parts.  It's a process to get it all perfect.

One another note, we finally figured out what was causing the stains on the storage hatch.  As we suspected the tail lights were leaking.  Thankfully we took the RV into the shop 10 days before our 1 year warranty ran out.  They have already resealed the tail lights and THOR is going to completely replace the storage wall panels so we don't have the unsightly stains.  I was impressed with all of the warranty work that was done the last year (Giant Recreation World has been great).  I am really interested to see how things go with our extended warranty from now on.  Happy Travels Everyone!
 
While I can understand your statements concerning price point I don't feel that should be an issue.  Thor is crowing about their quality while at the same time not monitoring their employees putting these units together.  The design engineers know how to design a quality unit.  Thor has been building RV's for a very long time.  The issues I read about are mostly quality control problems.  Just yesterday I read a thread about a guy feeling wind coming from under his sofa.  Turns out the seal for the slide out doesn't go all the way across the width of the slide.  That means some non-caring idiot at the factory just slapped a seal in there without any concern whatsoever about the money you spend to buy a motorhome.  Do you believe the insulation problem above the drivers area is a design fault?  Heck no it isn't a design fault.  The person responsible for installing that insulation didn't care whether they did a good job or not.  Was there a QA inspector that was supposed to insure the job was done properly?  Who knows.  Maybe there was and he/she didn't care either.  It's not "cheap components" that are breaking down, it's people who could care less assembling them.  Lesh you mentioned trim pieces falling off.  Why are they falling off?  Cheap trim?  Noooo.  Somebody did a sloppy job installing that trim.  I worked on high energy radiation therapy machines during my career.  If I worked on them with the same attitude and lack of caring as Thor employees you would have been worse off after completing treatment instead of better.  It doesn't matter whether you paid $70,000 or $700,000.  Your money is hard earned and it deserves the respect of the people at Thor.  Right now I don't see that being the case.  I don't mean to rant and rave here and cast aspersions on your decision to buy a Thor ACE.  As I mentioned before I would like to buy one myself.  Price point is the reason I am looking at them.  But at this point I don't think Thor is doing anything to improve upon their quality control.  I test drove an ACE about a year ago and I heard the squeaks and rattles and noticed trim installed poorly and screws around the windshield being driven in too far thus warping the metal surround.  When I mentioned this to the sales lady she said "oh they all come out with a few problems".  This attitude of taking it on the chin from the manufacturer and telling ones self "I still love my coach" has to be music to the manufacturers ears.
 
Danno9 said:
While I can understand your statements concerning price point I don't feel that should be an issue.  Thor is crowing about their quality while at the same time not monitoring their employees putting these units together.  The design engineers know how to design a quality unit.  Thor has been building RV's for a very long time.  The issues I read about are mostly quality control problems.  Just yesterday I read a thread about a guy feeling wind coming from under his sofa.  Turns out the seal for the slide out doesn't go all the way across the width of the slide.  That means some non-caring idiot at the factory just slapped a seal in there without any concern whatsoever about the money you spend to buy a motorhome.  Do you believe the insulation problem above the drivers area is a design fault?  Heck no it isn't a design fault.  The person responsible for installing that insulation didn't care whether they did a good job or not.  Was there a QA inspector that was supposed to insure the job was done properly?  Who knows.  Maybe there was and he/she didn't care either.  It's not "cheap components" that are breaking down, it's people who could care less assembling them.  Lesh you mentioned trim pieces falling off.  Why are they falling off?  Cheap trim?  Noooo.  Somebody did a sloppy job installing that trim.  I worked on high energy radiation therapy machines during my career.  If I worked on them with the same attitude and lack of caring as Thor employees you would have been worse off after completing treatment instead of better.  It doesn't matter whether you paid $70,000 or $700,000.  Your money is hard earned and it deserves the respect of the people at Thor.  Right now I don't see that being the case.  I don't mean to rant and rave here and cast aspersions on your decision to buy a Thor ACE.  As I mentioned before I would like to buy one myself.  Price point is the reason I am looking at them.  But at this point I don't think Thor is doing anything to improve upon their quality control.  I test drove an ACE about a year ago and I heard the squeaks and rattles and noticed trim installed poorly and screws around the windshield being driven in too far thus warping the metal surround.  When I mentioned this to the sales lady she said "oh they all come out with a few problems".  This attitude of taking it on the chin from the manufacturer and telling ones self "I still love my coach" has to be music to the manufacturers ears.
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While I can't disagree with your assessment as weather it should be...... It is the way they all come.... Does not matter what the label says. Georgetown.... no difference. I can assure you it is not just rv's. I could explain how the last 3 corporate jets we bought, last one at 11.3 Mill. Unbelievable what is wrong at delivery..... But not to bore anyone, I think the best thing you can do is to visit your local dealer, and buy a model you feel is build well, and have no issues to your inspection. I don't like it, but are happy with what I have, as I looked into solving the issues, rather than be bothered by them, But that's just me..... :) :)

Erling
 
Has anyone had any issues with the wheels squeaking?  We had the RV in the shop to have the AC fixed and when we left the wheels started squeaking (front 2 only).  We hadn't heard anything like this before it was in the shop so we took it back. They are telling us that the wheel caps over the hubcabs are rubbing the tires.  We can either keep the caps off or pay $600 per tire to get now hubcabs that don't need covers.  They said that overtime the caps can become warped.  It seems strange that this would all of a sudden happen.  There wasn't a peep out of the tires before it was at the Ford dealership.  It sounds like we have ducks trapped in our tires when moving and it gets louder as we gain speed.  It isn't a sound that you want to be driving around with...very embarrassing!

Now that we have had our RV for a year and dealt with some issues I have to say that the biggest failing on the part of RV manufacturers is that fact that one dealership can't fix everything.  It's really frustrating to go back and forth between the Ford dealer and the RV dealer....especially when they are across town from one another.  We have had so many issues with parts being ordered and one dealer fixing one thing and the other another that we have had the RV out of storage for 3 weeks.  We have had to keep it in my grandmothers yard when it is between shops.  They need to work something out where the RV dealers can work on the entire RV.  The back and forth stuff is ridiculous.
 
I've had some minor squeaking from the front wheels on our 30.1 but it has always gone away after running for a few minutes.

Our dealer's windshield contractor has still failed to fix our leaking front windshield after multiple tries.  Drove it the rain (and sleet) on Sunday and it leaked again from the top left corner.

I agree that it's terribly time consuming getting repairs done.  I'm very close to having the long list of issues resolved but I started in March knowing how much persistence it took last year to get anything done.

I also gave up on dealing with the Ford dealership separate from the RV dealership.  I gave them the Ford service bulletin diagrams and parts required to fix our daytime running lights and they said it didn't match our unit .  A local shop figured it out in 30 minutes using the same service bulletin and found that the parts where already installed properly by the factory.  They reversed the Ford dealership's hard wiring of all the lights on and now it works the right way.
 
Bumping this thread up!

Our new little one is here,  a baby boy, Zach was born on June 14th.  Just days before that we finally got our extra seatbelts installed in the dinette.  Now we have enough for all 7 of us plus one extra. 

I look forward to some good little trips this summer.  We won't venture out too far or for too long with the infant, but hopefully will have some good times.  My husband wants to go to Springfield during the IL state fair to see the fair and Lincoln stuff.  Not sure yet where else we will go.
 
Congratulations jemz on the family addition!

The weather in our area has been wet but we've been out most weekends anyway.

 
Few people here complained about emptying grey water.
I always use my levelling system when emptying. Just lift left side of your ace little and emptying is done much quicker.
Cheers
 
Good tip, Jan.  Thank you!  Are you travelling in the US again this summer?

Erling... WOW!  That's awesome!

Tomorrow we finally get back out in the RV.  Unfortunately the weather isn't looking great at our destination (Central Wisconsin.)  I'm sure my husband will write about our travels in the blog.  Then we'll be home a few days and off to Springfield, IL.  It looks like that's all we'll have time for this year.  :'(
We have other travel planned for September and November.

We should think up a really good RV trip for the Spring.
 
Hi Jemz
Yes we are still in USA and leaving tomorrow. Our season this year is done. I am currently preparing RV for storage in Glen Ivy RV Park LA. I went to RV show in LA on weekend and after seeing about 100 different rv units, I left so happy with the purchase of Thor ACE 29.2 I made last year. This show just confirmed for me that I have good deal. I love the setup and composition. I love the way they utilised every inch of this RV. And mainly I love the price for that RV.
I know that there is few issues with this model, but I assume that no RV is perfect, you always find something not to be happy with.
One thing is strange, after using this rig for 13 thousand miles the noise behind my head from slide disappeared. I do have this noise there only on some occasions, but not to often. I have no idea why. I still have problem with sensors on black and grey tank, but really now when I know my rv, I don't need to look at the sensor. I just know when full. And if I go long with out dumping, drain just stop working and you actually can see in toilet when is filling totally up trough the toilet for last 10 uses or so.
I am also happy with bathroom sink going to toilet instead to grey water tank. Grey water tank usually fills much faster than toilet and this work out for us just fine.
Vinyl on floor find to be absolutely best thing for flooring in RV I ewer have. So practical,  and not as hard as tiles.

Well looks like I am happy camper. But we Aussies are much more adopted to compromise and not us fussy like you guys are here in states. Americans demands perfection and good service more than we do. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Cheers to all ACE owners.
Jan
 
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