Louise and I were heading off locally a few years ago, when I spotted a Freightliner Van in front of a Route 46 store. Pulled the car over, jumped out and gave it a hard look over. I announced that it was the best chassis I had ever seen for conversion to a motorhome. I’m not sure what year it was, but no one at that time was producing a RV on that chassis.
Fast forward several years and Winnebago was now producing RV’s, but I couldn’t afford one. As improvements were made on the Freightliner/Dodge/Chrysler/Mercedes they showed up in the Winnebago. The Freightliner/Dodge/Chrysler/Mercedes association fell apart in 2007,but there was no change, as Mercedes made all the chassis from the start.
Our View is a 2008, and built on the Sprinter 3500 chassis. It’s the first year the unit was equipped with a 3.0L Turbo V6, and it has a five speed automatic transmission. It’s reported to get 15 to 17 MPG, but we’ll see how accurate that information is. Bill, next door, says that on a good day his very nice pickup gets 15 MPG, so I’m feeling good.
The coach is fitted with sleeping for six and has seat belts for seven. It has a very nice dual propane gas/electric refrigerator that works great, a propane hot air heating system that blows air from vents in the floor. The air conditioning system requires 110V AC power, so either you drag a long cord, or run the propane fired Onan generator to stay cool. There is a propane/110V AC hot water heater, a dual microwave convection oven (also 110V AC), a three burner propane stove (they have since downsized the stove to two burners) and a surprisingly large stainless steel sink.
Water to the coach is either street water through a hose, or the 12v water system that has about 30 gallons of water. I added a house sized filter to filter all water going into the coach, so we’ll see if it was worth the effort. I feel better about it already, so I guess it was.
The bathroom works well, the shower is tight but easy to use, (I’ve taken a shower already, and good news; will continue) and the toilet works, well, like a toilet. Ridding oneself of the grey and black water tank contents seems to always be portrayed as *icky*, but it was no problem for us. I suppose we’ve had too many *icky* things to do, in too many of the jobs we’ve had. Good for us now I guess.
For us, this is the Goldilocks RV; not too big, not too small; it’s just right, and we’ll keep you posted on things we discover/research/need/find, as we use it more.