Shownotes
Transcripts
In staying on the road today we're going to be discussing weight distributing hitches, why you need one and why you should maintain it and enjoying the RV life. We're going to be discussing kid friendly RV activities which would include outdoor games, adventures and learning on the road.
And then in money saving tips, how to maintain your tow vehicle and or motorhome to avoid costly repairs. And in the next stop we're going to go coastal storm watching.
And then in RV Envy, we're going to talk a little bit more about Grease and Go's product I've talked about in the past. We're going to go a little more in depth in it now.
This is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your trusted source for RV tips and insights to embrace the RV lifestyle without worries. Let's talk everything RV and today is episode 191. So let's dig right into this bad boy. So welcome back everybody.
We got a lot of stuff to talk about today. You know the RV industry is still going on. The problems you face buying a new RV are still there. Hasn't got better. It's interesting.
I read a report recently how they're trying to reduce that at dealerships, make it better for RVers after they buy their RV from the dealership to bring it back. They're trying to get the window of repair time down to only 60 days. Isn't that just amazing? Only 60 days? That's ridiculous. Right?
Where you go to a good shop and they get you done the same day or in a two days window. Big difference. So the RV industry with dealerships is still having all the problems they have, even though they're trying to fix it.
It's just as bad as it was before. All right, so before we really dig into this, let's talk about RV help, which is going to be one of our discussions in the next episode as well.
192 check out rvhelp.com it's your mobile RV tech source. So if you're out on the road and your RV breaks down, something breaks in at the water pump, water heater, the furnace.
Go to rvhelp.com and it's a free service. Now they do have a subscription based service as well, which I highly recommend that.
In fact, if you want to learn more about it, go to the link in this description and it'll take you right there and you learn what you need to learn about RV help dot com. All right, let's get into enjoying the RV life. So kid friendly RV activities, outdoor games, adventures and Learning on the road.
Now, the first thing is you have to want to take your kids in your rv, right? Kids can be a drag sometimes. I only say that because I'm messing around with everybody. Kids are okay.
And actually, they can make the RV trip a little more fun, a little different, because they bring a new element to it besides constantly yelling, hey, Johnny, don't touch that, or hey, Sally, leave that alone. They have this curiosity and this desire to explore and learn, even though they're not really trying to. They're just being kids.
Kind of reminds me when I was a kid growing up in Catalina or going to Catalina island all the time.
And, you know, my parents, I don't think they really planned this, but I know my dad didn't want us on the boat all the time because we'd go over there, tie up to a mooring, and be there for three or four days straight. And he probably would have killed us if we didn't have activities to do. So it was probably for his own sanity.
My dad was very good at making sure we had things to go snorkeling with, swimming with tons of Frisbees, because we'd play frisbee golf out in the water, and we'd be out there for hours and wear ourselves out. But we always had activities. We could go hiking on the island. We could get into a small boat, go rowing around.
We had a boat with a, you know, dinghy with a motor in it, which that brought on all sorts of problems all on its own. We could go water skiing, fishing. My dad had enough stuff going there all the time. So we keep busy learning and thinking about that. We learn from it.
We think about what our parents did or didn't do to help us. So today in RVing, sometimes it's easy. Just let your kids sit there on their phone. That's their entertainment. But is that really entertainment?
Is that what they want? Probably not. You pull into the campground and you want to get out and do something.
You don't want your kids just sitting in the camp or the RV the entire weekend or out underneath the awning, and that's it. We want to have activities for them to do.
So the most basic activity, which I don't know how many people really know about, cornhole, but it's a game you play. You got a couple boards with some holes in it and beanbags. You stand at a distance and toss them into it. Sounds pretty lame, right?
It's actually pretty fun. And there's cornhole tournaments. There's people that play this game, you can actually get the boards just about anywhere nowadays.
Any sporting goods stores. So some of them are kind of big. Can buy smaller ones and make it work, or you can make your own even.
Actually, that might be a hobby in itself or an activity in itself to get your kids involved in. So it's not just cornhole. You know, you can. Well, actually, you can take cornhole and kind of turn it into something else as well.
Maybe your kids really aren't that good. Good or coordinated or old enough to understand how to throw it. Right. Or they just can't get the beanbag into the hole.
Maybe it's just if it gets close, that's a point. They bonk dad in the head with the bean bag, that's two points. If they throw it at another rv, that's three points.
You don't want to encourage that, but you get the gist here. You don't have to have some rigid set of rules for the game. Turn it into something fun for the kids. They will enjoy it.
And then they teach that to their kids when they finally become parents and have kids of their own. You know, Another thing you can do, too, is some campgrounds or RV parks have horseshoe pits.
They have shuffleboard courts, so you can take advantage of those. Those are free. They're good ways for kids to learn, too. Patience, waiting for their turn, learning how to play the game. Right.
As they get older, you know, there's competition there. Competition can be good or bad, you know, depending on the kids, how competitive they are. My family, everybody likes to cheat all the time.
When we play games, you know, competition is a matter of just cheating, which really isn't good. That's the way it is in my family. Then there's also other games, like lawn darts. You can bring a volleyball. You can bring a basketball.
Even if there's not a hoop or a net, you can still, you know, dribble, practice, mess around. You know, just do whatever is keeping everybody involved in something. It doesn't have to be all day long, but it's. So there's things to do.
So kind of some of the basic things that you can do for activities. And there's bicycles. You can either bring your bikes, rent bikes, you can go on Segway tours.
See, we start thinking about there's a lot of things you can do, even in an RV park, they're generally pretty safe. So your kids can get on their bikes and just ride around the RV park. What could go wrong there, right? Sure.
If my dad was alive, he can come up with all sorts of things that could go wrong with that. But, hey, he's not here. So it's all about us right now.
Another thing you could do, probably a little more on the expensive side would be going on jet boat rides.
If you're near a river where they have them river tours, you're along the coast and they got some waves, you can go for surfing lessons, Teach your kids how to surf or get a boogie board or whatever they call them anymore. And, you know, you got that whole water sport thing.
So when you really look around, there's a lot of things to keep you and your kids involved and keeping you involved with the them. Tech is another thing you can use as well, which, you know, everybody has phones anymore or a tablet of some kind.
It's using the tech, right, though not just like, okay, little Billy, go sit underneath the awning and sit on your phone for six hours. We'll be back. That's not it. It's finding games that maybe everybody can do, share on their phone.
Some sort of a game where you can all log in and play the same game, compete with one another. You could do a scavenger hunt with pictures, Go around the RV park taking pictures. You know, we got to get a picture of this, a picture of that.
So you walk around and get those pictures. You could do something like that. So that would keep everybody pretty busy.
Trivia games could have the kids create videos on what they learned that day or even capture some video throughout the day. Then that night, they could probably compile it on their phone and you could watch some videos.
So that keeps it real cool, keeps them involved, and it keeps the phone in front of them to a degree, because we know they're going to like that. These things make it real simple. And then you don't have to hire a babysitter or someone else to watch your kids, right?
Turn them into daycare for the day. Forget that nonsense. So the other thing to do too would be to turn it into a learning adventure.
You know, it doesn't have to be books and a chalkboard and everybody sit down, we're going to have class today. But you can go out on hikes and there's different apps for that. Like, all Trails has an app.
Inaturalist has an app where you can learn things and your kids can see things along the trail and not wonder what they are, but actually understand what they are. Figure it out. With these apps for, like, all Trails, your kids can actually define the trail. And you'll have to, you know, prove this sure.
Make sure that it's within all your abilities. But they can be the guide for that day and along the trail they can tell you what they find and what it is. So that would be pretty cool for the kids.
And then at the end of the day you can cap it all off with something real simple like a little small projector. I can't think of the name of them. There's a real small ones that are available so they work great for RVs.
And you can just put something on the side of the RV, a sheet if you want to. Some RVs, you wouldn't have to put anything on there. A projector will show up fine. But you can do that at night.
You can play some board games, kind of take it easy. So it doesn't have to be all day, but give them some things to do during the day. And of course you want your time as well.
So it works out pretty good. Depending on what activities are available around you. Check it out on the website and enjoy it.
Take your kids and make it a good trip without all the arguing and sitting around. What are we gonna do on board? Right? And you're looking at your kids like, why'd we bring them? So we want to avoid all that.
Take your kids, just plan for it. Now let's jump right into money saving tips. So maintaining your tow vehicle or your motorhome and how you can avoid costly repairs.
And that sounds pretty simple like, or obvious. But is it obvious? Because some people really don't get the obvious. Now I'm going to use an example here. Yeah, we're going to talk about tires.
So yesterday in our store. You know what, I'm going to hold off. We'll wait until we get to the tire port.
Now you see, you got something you're in eager anticipation waiting for. You're driving down the road and you know everything's going good. You're pulling this grade and all of a sudden a check engine light comes on.
You're like, oh no, what's going on? You know, is it going to be some $10,000 repair, $100 repair? Am I going to have to get a tow truck?
You know, all the little things run through your mind, what it could be and is it really going to be something that big or crazy where it's out of control, expensive. Well, sometimes it might be.
Sometimes there's things that just happen, you can't do a thing about your transmission, might decide, hey, I'm done, I quit. And just leave you stranded on the side of the Road. But a lot of times what happens is problems occur because we're not maintaining everything.
As I said that, it made me think about something my wife and I did. We jumped in the truck. We were going on a bike ride, and the truck has under 100,000 miles on.
It was like at 85 at that time, or 80,000, but it was like 21 years old. So we're driving down the road and we. There was one thing led to another. But anyway, the hood of the trucks open because we were looking for birds.
Well, that's a whole other story for another day. Had to notice the drive belt was coming apart. You know, I'm thinking mileage, because those drive belts, 100,000, you know, they go forever.
But it was the years that was a problem, not the miles. So even that. So we had to replace that drive belt.
And that actually made us drive down the road, backtrack, go to a little tiny town, and hopefully they had a store there that would have the belt and then have the tools. And this time I didn't have the tool. It was really the weirdest thing. Had to buy one there. But nonetheless, we got it going under half an hour.
But that could have been avoided. You know, I was thinking miles and not years. And I should have been thinking years because the truck's older with low miles. Looking at your.
Or your, your RV or your truck that you're towing, your trailer with, your suv, whatever it is.
Think about these things, little basic things like checking the fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, the oil, the transmission fluid, your antifreezer, coolant. Look at them. Make sure that they're not the point where they need to be serviced, that they're not low.
Or you're thinking, well, I'll just get that next time I get fuel, I'll just put a quart of oil in. What if you forget? Because it's easy to do. Then you're driving down the road, all of a sudden, panic hits you, oh, my gosh, we were low on oil.
I should have put it in the last gas stop. Now what am I going to do? You're going to pull over, check the oil. Yep, it's still low.
But you don't have any oil to put in, so avoid those types of things. And also, if it's too low, it can cause a serious problem for the vehicle.
Maybe you're low on engine oil and you're pulling a grade, the oil sloshes back in the pan. Not everything's getting lubricated like it should, modern cars do. But you know, why take a chance? Don't let those things happen.
A major disaster happen or even a minor disaster happen out on the road. Fix it at home in your driveway where you're in control. Now, that brings us to tires. It goes back to the story you guys been waiting for.
The guy in our store yesterday, him and his wife, very nice couple.
You know, they're Sincere, they love RVing, and they have an Airstream trailer, and they asked me why their tires are wearing one side of the trailer is the right side? I believe so. The right front, right rear tire, tandem axle trailer. The tires are wearing odd.
So we start going through the motions, talking about it all. I'll save you all that, and we'll just kind of get to the point. The tires were about six years old, and they had approximately 10,000 miles on them.
So in my book, they need to be replaced no matter what. But that still didn't solve the problem why they're wearing bad on. On the outer edge or the inner edge, whichever it was. But they are wearing wrong.
There was something wrong there. So I asked them, so since you put on the tires, when did you notice this taking place? Well, we just noticed it yesterday or that day.
So you never checked them and noticed any place else? No. Do you ever check your tires? And the husband says, yeah, I put air in them. But do you ever check them? Do you look at the tread?
You look at the sidewalls, inspect and make sure there's no damage on. I just put air. I don't even look at the tread. You know, as far as I'm concerned, we're good to go every time.
Well, that was his downfall because really, he didn't know if he had a thousand miles on him when that started or 10,000 miles if it was a slow problem that took 10,000 miles to really appear and look bad, which that makes the problem not so bad, because if you get 10,000 miles out of the tires, heck, you've done good. It might not even be worth fixing, you know, depending on how, where you go and all that kind of stuff. But you'd have to monitor it.
You know, I would fix it, but some people want it because they want to save the money, and it's not a big deal to them. But the point is, he was putting air in the tires, and that was it. You have to look at the tread, keep track of things.
You know, the sidewall starting to crack. Is the tread separating. He wouldn't have known any of that because he never looked at that. All he did was put in air, which kudos to him for that.
But that was it. You have to go a little bit more than that.
Along with that, if you have a little book, which I've talked about, keeping track of stuff, write it down. Keep track of it. And I talked about RV help.com in the beginning. They're actually coming out with an app.
I think it's all going to be after the first of the year where you'll be able to track so much stuff about your rv. I think they're going to have a free version. Then if you have the subscription, you get the better version.
But keeping track of stuff, even if it's just on pieces of paper shoved in a book someplace or in a drawer, but it's all there and you can find it. But I would recommend just getting a small binder, a journal of some kind and just writing things down so you have an idea what's going on.
Simple maintenance. And then if you go to sell the RV or the truck, you have a record of this stuff. So do you get it? We're just going to keep things very simple here.
So let's recap this.
And if you treat your RV like it's always in service or heavy duty service all the time, you'll be doing more maintenance, but you'll be taking care of it much better. And then take five minutes or so before every trip. Check out the RV thoroughly or your truck thoroughly.
Walk around, check the fluids, make sure it's all good. Inspect your tires, check your brakes. Show respect for the tires and brakes. They deserve it. They're keeping you going down the road.
And keep a simple maintenance log. These things are going to keep you going down the road and they're going to keep everybody in the family happy because you're not breaking down.
Now let's jump into staying on the road. Talk about weight distributing hitches.
If you have a truck or an SUV and you're pulling a trailer, we're just talking about a bumper pole type trailer, not a fifth wheel. This is for you. Weight distributing hitches, why you need one and why you should maintain it. It's real simple.
I could just say you need to have one for safety and that's that. But there's more to it. Weight distributing hitches, yeah, they cost a few bucks.
g hitch and they can go up to:I kind of like the sky's the limit, depending on how much money you Want to spend what the dealership's going to sell you when you're buying your new rv, your new travel trailer, because they're going to sell you the granddaddy of all weight distributing hitches. That bad boy, that's going to be 2,000 bucks. Oh, don't worry. You throw it in on the financing for 15 years and it's only $3 a month.
You can handle that.
So keep track of how many things you bought that were only $3,000 a month or $3 a month when you're buying your RV as well, because the interest over 15 years adds up, doesn't it? All right, we're getting sidetracked here. That's going to be another episode talking about money again, right? And how to be smarter with it.
You have the weight or you have the trailer now. And maybe at the dealership you decided, I don't want to buy any from you guys. I just want to get the trailer home. I want to think about this.
I'm going to just pay for it anyways. The financing has nothing to do with it. I just want to get out of here. I'm done with you guys. You know, you've been lying to me all day.
I just want to go home. And then you can actually go home and you can do research and think about it, or you do it before you go to the dealership.
But you don't necessarily have to buy the weight distributing chip or weight distributing hitch at the dealership. You can avoid that because that might be a costly error.
So now you're driving down the road with your new trailer and you notice that, you know, maybe it's a little. It's dark now. The headlights are pointing up on the front of the truck. The trailer and the truck in the center are dropping down. It's not right.
Well, that's what a weight distributing hitch is going to fix. It's going to get the truck in the trailer so they're level. And why do they need to be level? Well, it's all about towing and safety at that point.
So it's going to take the load of the trailer and it's going to equalize it and bring it up to where the truck and the trailer are sitting level now, all the way from front to back. Because when the trailer is dropping all the weight onto the back of the truck, it's lifting up the tires of the front of the truck.
They're not off the ground, but there's less weight on them. So you're losing some of your control over the front of your vehicle, the steering, if you will.
So it's not going to steer as good, it's going to feel a little bit looser. It's just not going to have that great feeling to it. Your braking distances will increase because you're not really getting the control you need.
The back of the RV is out of whack because more weights in the front than the rear and it needs to get again pushed up so there's more weight in the rear than there is in the front. And then the RV and the truck, it's going to sway. And you know, swaying can become a very dangerous situation if you're not ready for it.
And even if you're ready for it and if you've been driving down the road and you don't have a weight distributing hitch or it's not set up correctly or doesn't have the sway control built into it and the separate one you left off or didn't adjust it right, you know, a semi passes you and all of a sudden your truck and trailer is going out of control, swaying back and forth and you've got a mess on your hands. Well, you don't want that because that thing can get out of control and you might not ever be able to get it back in control.
Or maybe you followed somebody. You're thinking, gosh, they've been drinking all day. The way they're driving down the road, swaying back and forth.
Or they're going through a windy pass and the trailer is just like jacking to the right, to the left real fast, rapidly. They don't have a sway control. Things aren't set up right.
It's very important to have a weight distributing hitch and even more so with a sway control built in. That's newer technology, if you will. I mean it's been around for a while.
In the old days you just had bars, they're called spring bars and they'd have a chain that would attach to the, to the tongue of the trailer. And you still get those today, they're just less expensive.
And I kind of used to just think, yeah, that's the way to go, who cares, you know, Until I actually bought a way safe weight distributing hitch. And man, what a difference between what I had before, which was an ease lift and going to the weigh safe with the built in sway control.
The weigh safe's a little over the top at least. I think it's pretty cool. We're going to talk about that in episode 192. Get a little more in depth but it's a nice system.
How do you know you need one? Basically, if you bought a travel trailer, you probably need one. It's how the truck and trailer load together.
If your loaded trailer weighs more than about half of what your tow vehicle's weight is, a weight distributing hitch is recommended or required. A second ago I said sway control, I meant a weight distributing hitch.
You always need a weight distributing or a sway control if you're pulling a trailer. Very few people can get by without one. So that's where buying the weight distributing hitch with it built in is the way to go.
And another way too is if your truck, when the trailer's on it, it drops down, it squats. Then you definitely need a weight distributing hitch. That's one of probably the biggest clues. That's what most people are looking at.
Take it for a test drive with the trailer. Maybe everything's somewhat level. You're not too concerned about it. But how does it feel when you're driving it?
You know, when you're pulling your trailer, it should have a pretty good feel to it that it's just hugging the road. It's not all mushy or sloppy or loose. It should feel like it's hugging the road.
And that sounds kind of weird, but if you drive a trailer that needs a weight distributing hitch or pull one with and without, you can definitely feel the difference. So driving it's going to make a difference. A weight distributing hitch doesn't make it so you can tow more weight.
Whatever your truck can tow is what it can tow. Cut and dry. You can't add more weight because you have a weight distributing hitch. That's not how it works.
And the weight distributing hitch is based on the weight of the trailer or the tongue weight of the trailer. It's not what your truck can tow. But with that being said, make sure your truck can tow whatever it is you're going to buy.
So when you're at the dealership and you get all excited about a trailer, make sure your truck can tow it. And there are online resources for that. I don't know that I would trust the salesman at the dealership because you're all excited about this trailer.
He's all excited about his commission check. He's already got it spent and he's oh yeah, yeah, your truck will tow it no problem. Quite often they don't.
Just recently someone came in the store, had a F150. The trailer was a lot bigger than what the truck should be towing. They're like, ah man, you know we shouldn't have bought the trailer.
It's too big, you know, but we're kind of stuck. It's like, okay, you know, try to make it work. But you got to be very careful doing that. Now what parts come with a weight distributing hitch?
Now that we kind of figured out we need to have one. So you have the shank which slides into the receiver hitch. So the vehicle has the receiver hitch.
Then you have the shank that slides into the receiver hitch. Then you have the hitch head which bolts onto the shank.
Then you've got your spring bars which attach to the trailer and slide into the head or attach to the head. And that's what basically makes up the weight distributing hitch. Then you'll have some brackets on the frame.
No matter what style or brand you get, there's going to be brackets that go onto the frame and they hold the spring bars. Now, some trailers will only be able to use certain weight distributing hitches. That sounds kind of odd, but there are some. Airstream comes to mind.
Because of their propane tank configuration. They require a specific blue Ox weight distributing hitch because there's things on the frame that are in the way.
And you actually have to install the weight distributing hitch a little out of ordinary according to the instructions to make it work. It's still safe. It works, but it's just because of the way the trailer is designed. They didn't think about this. So this blue ox hitch.
Blue ox hitch just happens to work. So keep that in mind. Buying a trailer. Will any weight distributing hitch work with it? Will I have to buy a specific one for that trailer?
Because that can be a game changer in price. You could go from 5 or $600 maybe to 8 or $900 or $1,000 or $1,200 just depending. Just keep it in mind.
Now, why does maintenance matter on a weight distributing hitch? Well, you want to keep that thing ready to go in good shape. You want to check it out, because they do wear out.
Now, if you just bought 1 in 20, 25, you got years before that thing's ever going to wear out. Unless you have a problem brewing and you don't really know it. You think maybe it's normal, right?
This, with this hitch, these things just break periodically. Well, things typically don't break on.
And the only time you replace parts is because you lost something somehow, some way, tension or the spring bars need to have that tension on them. So they have a constant tension on them when you're using it. So that puts a load on Things wear and tear.
And then of course, you have different elements on the road while you're traveling.
You have road salt, dirt, gravel, dust, rain, oil, moisture, this, that, the other thing, and you have thousands of miles of that thing being flexed and a strain putting on it, hitting bumps on the highway. So that can actually add to the, to the, or minimize the life of the weight distributing hitch.
It certainly plays into the wear and tear on it on an overall scale. So that's why inspecting it and making sure it's in good shape is a good thing to do.
So make sure that you have some spare clips and parts that would break easily or are easy to lose because you can't always expect if you lose a pin for it to just go into the store at the campground, to the local RV store to pick them up. There's a lot of different brands of these and not all stores carry all the different parts. It's kind of a juggling game for a parts store.
And some that do a lot of hitches, they're going to definitely carry parts for the hitches that they sell, but they're probably not going to carry a whole lot for other brands. So keep that in mind.
So have some spare parts, things that you think you could lose easily or just lose in general, or something that could break or wear out just out of natural wear and tear. But you know when it breaks, you're going to be stuck wherever you're at. Now, bolts can loosen up, screws can loosen up, cables can come undone.
So you want to take all that and get it under control before you go on your trip.
And then when you get to your destination and you're getting ready to go back home or onto your next destination, check to make sure everything's still intact and good, in good shape. Check the areas where there's friction, where things are going to wear out from, you know, normal wear and tear and friction.
Make sure that they're not wearing through. Do they need to be lubricated? Put some grease on them, if so. So it's just basic maintenance and taking care of it.
But keeping that routine up is very important.
So you want to walk through a, or walk around the hitch, look at it from both sides, inspect it, make sure things are good, that your hitch pins are there that are holding the tension bars in place or the spring bars, no clips are disappearing, or you've been bending them and kind of making them work for the last three trips. That could be a problem as well. Make sure the spring bars aren't breaking, cracking, wearing out prematurely.
Make sure they're seating into the head properly. And make sure the frame brackets are tight and they're not starting to bend and get out of shape, which can happen over time as well.
And the frame brackets, you don't want them loose and moving on the frame because that can create a whole other set of problems for you also. And then not part of the weight distributing hitch is your breakaway cable. And the safety chains, make sure they're in good shape.
You know, get a good breakaway switch. Make sure that cable hasn't been dragging on the ground. You can actually test it, pull it out of the breakaway box.
When the pin comes out, the brakes on the trailer should lock up. And you can hear it. I mean, don't leave it that way for too long, but you can definitely hear it.
And put the pin back in and the brake should release. Simple little basic tests there. Make sure your safety cables aren't wearing through. They haven't been dragging on the ground for a thousand miles.
And the links are starting to get ground through and rusting and all that fun stuff. Now you want to keep some lubrication on the hitch or some grease handy. So you can just keep up on this maintenance.
So there's going to be different places where grease is important. Where the spring bars go into the head. Generally grease is required there.
There might be different places on the spring bars, depending on the manufacturer, where you're going to want to put grease. So you'd clean off the old grease, put on new grease. Don't keep putting grease on top of grease because it gets dirt in there. Dust.
Other things that make it more of like sandpaper. You're creating a liquid sandpaper, I guess. You know, little basic things like that.
Use the kind of grease that the manufacturer, the hitch recommends.
It's probably not the end of the world, but sometimes they have a grease they find someplace that works really well over other greases that you wouldn't know about unless you read their documentation. There you go, you've got a nice grease. You're sticking with things. And that way it's a good warranty thing as well.
Then periodically you got to take this hitch and you got to put it up on a bench. Even though they weigh 9 million pounds. Well, maybe not 9 million, but they heavy.
Inspect it not just on the back of the truck, but put it up someplace where you can shine a flashlight on it. Make sure there's no wear and tear points that are starting to wear out, that it's getting real oblonged or something's.
Breaking hairline cracks, checking it out from time to time.
And I would just do it once a season, you know, at the beginning of the season or twice a season, the beginning of the season, end of the season, if there's problems, take care of it.
And then at the beginning of the season, I would just check it again to make sure you didn't forget something, overlook something, or maybe you thought you took care of it and you didn't. You're going to and you just spaced out on it and you think you're ready to just go use it. Oh man, I forgot I got to replace this bolt here.
It was a little oblong or worn out, whatever it might be. When you're buying a weight distributing hitch, there's some things you have to be careful of. Not all of them are the same.
I mean they all have their different pros and cons. Do some research. You can go to your favorite RV store and talk to the parts guy.
There's make sure you tell them Eric sent you because that always gets you so much further down the line. Just kidding. It'll get you thrown out of the store.
Some places go to the store though, check them out and make sure you're buying the right size weight distributing hitch for your truck and trailer combination. More so the trailer.
If your trailer has a thousand pounds of tongue weight, which the tongue weight is generally 10 to 15% of the overall trailer weight, when it's fully loaded, everything's in there. What you think you're going to have, how much the weight is going to be 10 to 15%. A lot of people just use the 10% because it's easier math.
ly. So you're going to want a: But you don't want to have:There's no reason for it. It's not going to work the way it's supposed to work. So get the right one to begin with. And these things aren't cheap.
And you know what sucks about stuff like this? We don't really enjoy it. We put it in, we use it and that's it. We're Just driving down the road and it's there.
It's kind of like tires, you know, you don't stand out and talk to your tires. Hey, tire, how are you doing today? Weight distributor hits is the same way. It's kind of boring, you know, not like buying a new iPhone, iPhone 17.
It's got all this stuff on here and you can do this or that. Don't go cheap because of that. Buy what you need and don't go skimpy on it. Get something good because it's safety.
And yeah, you might have insurance, but your insurance won't replace your family and they're not going to.
And even if there's not a major accident, you still don't want to have to go through an insurance claim and find out how bad your insurance company really is and what they're not going to cover, even though they said they'd cover it. You follow me? Get the good one.
Make sure it's installed correctly, check it out from time to time, make sure it's driving good, everything's adjusted and things are working good on it. Now let's go ahead and just wrap this up. We've covered a lot of ground here. The weight distributing hitch isn't just some fancy option.
It's something that's very functional for the safety of your travels. Keeps your truck and trailer on the road right side up without any problems. It's going to level your truck and trailer.
It's going to keep it the way it's supposed to be. It's going to give you enhanced or better steering, more control over everything.
And the braking, it's going to stop or reduce the sway to where it's totally controllable. And it's going to reduce wear and tear on your tow vehicle. And that matters too, because these things add up.
And sometimes this wear and tear can be working in the background. It's like a silent killer. You don't see that it's happening until all of a sudden something breaks and then you find out why.
Oh, man, I didn't have that. That really sucks when you get to that point. We want to avoid that.
So make sure it's set up correctly, that it's maintained properly and you're using it the way it should be used. And you will get years and years and years out of that weight distributing hitch.
And you're going to have more confidence when you're towing a vehicle. You're going to have more control and this thing will be one of the best investments you made. Even though it's back there working silently.
It never talks to you, it never smiles when you walk by. It doesn't acknowledge you. But it keeps everybody happy and safe. The weight distributing hitch is a must have. Don't skimp on it.
Buy a good one and make sure it's installed and set up correctly. All right, everybody, let's go on to our next section now, which is the next stop and we're going to talk about coastal storm watching.
Does that sound weird? Coastal storm watching? Well, if it does, it does, but we're going to talk about watching storms on the coast. How's that?
Now that might sound kind of crazy, especially if you live in Ohio or Kentucky. There is no coast. You guys are missing out, man. So make a trip, go to the coast.
You know, here in, we're in Montana, but I think about growing up because I grew up in Torrance, California. So we had beaches, we had cliffs, we had all that stuff.
And me and my buddies, once we got our driver's license, we generally would head on down to the. Head on down to the. To the bayou. Catches a gator.
So we'd head on down to the liquor store, we'd buy a 12 pack and then we'd go to the, to the cliffs and watch the waves break and all that kind of stuff happening. It happens, something like that. But anyway, you go to these cliffs in different areas, especially when it's cloudy and there's storms coming in.
It's amazing what you're going to catch when you're watching storms. It can just be a day, an afternoon, it can be an hour. It could be many hours of just pure, just awe watching this stuff happen.
Different parts of the coast are going to respond differently to the storms or even just heavy waves or heavy seas. You know, you don't want to go out there when the sun's out. Nice calm day. That's going to be really boring.
I mean, it's cool to watch, but you know that's going to get boring pretty quick. So you think about that.
You know, you're in this campground, you're on a cliff, you're overlooking the ocean and down below there's these waves that are crashing into the rocks or on the beach and they're violent and you know, it's just things are getting pushed and moved and the awesomeness of the waves, it can be very impressive. So you want to take the time and make a trip to the coast and experience this. If you live along the coast, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
But if you haven't lived near the coast or seen this kind of stuff. You want to go experience it.
So you want to do it safely, though, you know, having, like, cliffs, someplace where you can look down on is probably the best place, because there's a temptation. If you're on the beach, you're going to want to get closer to it. And then once you get closer to it, I want to get a little bit more closer.
I want to. I want to touch the water, you know, I want to put my toe in the water. But, you know, the waves can just come in and you don't know.
They call them sneaker waves sometimes that, you know, everything looks pretty normal. You think you've got it gauged, and it's very clear how those waves are going to break.
And all of a sudden, one out of nowhere just breaks, comes in harder, goes up the shoreline, another 50 yards. What happened, you know, and that could be enough to drag you, knock you down, drag you out into the ocean.
Now you're out there with the waves, and that can become a problem. No matter how good of a swimmer you are, you know, how great you think you can be, that can be a serious problem. And it does happen.
You know, these things happen to people quite often if they're not paying attention or get a little cocky thinking, oh, I can take care of this. This isn't a big deal. That's a lot of water. It's a lot of force.
The best to go is probably the worst time to be out there is when there's a storm, maybe raining, it's wet, you got all this stuff happening, you know, because that's when you're going to see the most. And you want to be prepared for that. Like wearing a waterproof jacket, you know, and pants, because you're going to get wet.
Different layers so you stay warm. Boots that get traction so if you're down near it, you can take off running. Traction so you're not slipping and sliding.
Because sometimes, depending on where you go, you might have to do some climbing to get down to where you can actually see it. Or you might want to climb down some rocks or some trails to get closer to it, which is okay. Just do it with caution.
Depending on where you're going, sometimes that's a little easier said than done. And then bring your kids along, too. If you have kids, this is an activity for them.
But don't let them get real close to the water because, you know, a little kid, man, they can just poof. Be gone in a second. Never see Them again.
So if there's a fence or some barriers, keep them behind that, you know, keep them out of harm's way, if you will. Staying up is better than going down in terms of safety, but sometimes going down to it is a little more action happening there.
And another good point to remember, too, is if you're on the beach, you know, and you're kind of, I don't know, maybe when the waves are breaking, you're. You're running away from them.
But don't ever stand on the beach with your back to the waves, because if you're not paying attention, and we've probably seen this in newscasts, they're talking about tornadoes or something or just how big the surf is. Some guy standing there with a microphone, his back to the ocean. The cameraman, don't say a word to him.
This big old giant wave comes creeping up behind him and just crushes down on him, smashes them. Everything goes flying. Hey, what happened to the news guy? And the cameraman is just standing there, you know, he didn't warn him or anything.
See, that can happen. It happens to. These guys are professionals, right? So don't let that happen to you. You don't want to be on the.
On the evening news of the guy who was washed out to sea and never came back. Or. Or your family is. Anyways you're out to sea, you'll never know. It won't matter to you unless you see a cruise ship going by.
You look up in the window, they have a TV on, you can see yourself. But the likelihood of that is pretty slim, I would imagine. Do it carefully. It's a great experience.
And you have, you know, the whole western coastline. You have the eastern coastline, you have the Gulf Coast. There's a lot of areas where you can go and see this.
And I'd imagine some large lakes would have something that's pretty darn cool when the weather's permitting or not permitting, how you want to look at that. But it can be a good family adventure as well, and great time to have a good camera or a video camera, take some pictures, get some videos.
You never know what you might catch. You might catch one of them videos at the right time, that becomes a viral video, and it's shown around the world a million times. Do it.
Have some fun doing it. Just do it safely so no one gets hurt. All right, now that brings us to RV envy. And today we're going to be talking about easy, grease and go.
I should have brought one up here. And for those that are Going to be seeing this on YouTube. Easy grease and go. It's the coolest little gadget thing, product that has come out.
It's the size of a chewing tobacco tin. You know, if you've ever seen skull, whatever, it's. That's the size of it. A little tin like that.
And it has grease in it and it has a little peel cover. You peel off and then this grease is exposed. Now what do we do with this grease? Because this thing's pretty cool. But what do we do with it?
Well, hang on, let me back up a little bit. One thing about this easy grease and go is, is the shape or the size. That small tin, it's, you know, all plastic. Part of it is actually soft rubber.
The bottom of it, rigid sides. And you have a top that peels off. But what is so cool, it has grease in it. But you can store this thing just about anywhere in the sun.
And it's not going to melt out. It's not going to leak out. So if you had it sitting on your dash, it's not going to have like grease leaking out on your dash.
If you had a dash cover, it's not going to ruin it. Leave it on your seat, it's not going to ruin the seat. That's one of the cool things about it that I really like.
Because this is grease and you're storing it and you don't want grease leaking out anywhere. Now what the heck is an easy grease and go? You use it on your hitch ball to put grease on it.
So before you put your coupler on there, you grease it up, you put your coupler on there and you got fresh grease. And now the coupler is not going to wear out the ball. The ball is not going to wear out the coupler. Now what makes it so cool, though?
Okay, big deal, Eric, we're putting grease on the ball.
Gee, I just get my finger, put it in the tin and wipe it around the ball and wipe my finger off of my pants or my shirt or I lick it because I think it's, you know, whipped cream. I don't know. It's because it's. You don't have to do any of that. It's a little container. It's self contained.
You just put it on the ball and you turn it back and forth and just move it around a little bit. This would be much better in a video, which I've been promising to do a video, but it just hasn't happened yet.
My wife's shaking her head like, yeah, you loser. You need to do it. And the people at Easy Grease and Go probably like it too, you know, but heck, we'll get to it.
So it puts the grease on the ball and you haven't touched any grease yet because this thing's in your hand. You just move it around. When you're all done, you throw it in the trash can. It's that simple. It makes life so much better.
And you're also extending the life of the ball in the coupler. You know, balls are easy to replace. So if you're wearing out the ball, you know, it starts out chrome.
Next thing you know, there's no chrome left on it. You just got, you know, steel and it's starting to rust. That's not a good thing. But a ball can be replaced and a coupler can be replaced too.
But how many people want to take their trailer down to the fabrication shop, have them cut off the factory installed coupler and weld on a new one and have all the confidence in the world that there's not going to be a problem with that? I think I'd rather stick with the factory coupler. Even though the factory sometimes really screws up building RVs.
But they don't seem to screw up on those welds. Those are probably the only welds that really are matter on an rv. Couplers do not fall off. And I'm just kidding too. Welding shops can do a good job.
A good welding shop, you know, you want to make sure it's definitely a good one because this is a serious deal. But this thing's pretty cool. It's so easy to use and, you know, you don't have to get your hands dirty.
And you might have some rubber gloves that you use, you know, you can put them on and wipe it on there and all that and then peel off the glove and throw it in the trash. And that's great too. But these things are just a one use deal and you can store them anywhere.
Like I said, you can keep a couple of them in the door panel, your truck, you can keep them in center console. It doesn't matter when it's time to use it. You can put on and away you go.
And occasionally wipe off that old grease, especially in the coupler, get it out, because like I said, you'll just make that paste with dirt and all that, which isn't good. Easy grease and go. Awesome product. There'll be a link to their website in the description of this podcast as well.
Now that brings us to the end of the show. Today. We made it. So we come to the end and it's time to say goodbye.
So I want to thank everybody for coming by today, listening to the show and subscribing and sharing it with all your family and friends and people you don't even like. Every everybody under the sun. Because we want as many people as possible to know how to maintain their RVs and take care of it.
And in two weeks, we're gonna have episode 192. And as I say that once again, I don't remember what it's about. So pathetic.
And I. I got all this paper here and stuff, but I just can't even keep that straight. I won't belabor the point.
So this is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your go to guide for smarter RVing and unforgettable adventures on the open road.
