Welcome to the forum Chris and Cheri!

We also have the 09 Montana 3665RE and love the floor plan. If your unit came with the Goodyear Marathon tires and it's in your budget I highly recommend replacing them. They are famous for tread separation so watch them for uneven tread wear and sidewall bulging. We had signs of abnormal wear within 6 months and had to replace all 4 at 19 months...one tire had 4" of cord showing. I have a tire pressure monitoring system and keep my speed at 60 mph and very rarely travel with a full tank of fresh water unless it's a short distance. There is some good info on this forum about tires and wheels so check it out if your interested using the search function.

As for the large cargo bay we have a few plastic storage containers as well as the original boxes that some of our items came in.

When we added our solar system we upgraded to 4 of the 6volt golf cart batteries. They are far better than your standard 12V deep cycle batteries. We have since learned that the AGM batteries are even better as they are maintenance free and last much longer.

About the only things we got rid of were dressier clothes and jackets that we packed around for about 30 months and never wore. Everyone's lifestyle on the road is different...ours turned into shorts, flip flops, jeans and t shirts...gotta like it!

Safe travels!

Chris and Cheri,

Welcome to the forums at RV Dreams.  You've already got the "gist" of what questions to ask, and I'll guarantee you that you will likely read of various ideas.  Feel free to ask any question that comes to mind as we all tend to learn from each other.  Who knows?  You may ask a question with a different perspective that gets us all to thinking.

Since Jo and I are not traveling full-timers, but "static" instead, I can't say a lot to your question number 3.  Even after we got rid of a 2250 sq ft home (with a three car garage) on 3/4 of an acre, we still have managed to "purchase back" a few things.  Being "static" full-timers, we did buy a smaller grill, but still larger than most RV'ers carry.

As to the "basement" area, I've seen both tubs and shelves put into that area.  Many like to get the "roll-out" tray that allows them to store things on it and then pull it out to get the things they need that may be in the middle of the bay.  We chose to not get one of those because the tray itself takes away some room that may be valuable at some time.  In our case, we've got eight 6" high (I think that's the right height) clear plastic tubs in the front compartment area of our coach with four in each stack and two stacks side by side.

The wife is planning on "forcing" me to remove EVERYTHING from the basement and help me get that one organized.  It is different in that a number of the things I carry are longer than most of the plastic tubs out there, thus they lie on the floor between other items to keep them from shifting around.  We have enough "stuff" in our basement that nothing is really shifting around.

In our case, we have the fifth wheel (usually refered to as a "fiver") towed by a Ford F450.  (Our coach (fiver) weighs 18,500 lbs, so a larger truck was preferred in my case.)  Then we also have Ford F150 with a topper shell on the bed.  With that, we can carry larger, bulkier, and heavier items in either of the two trucks.  The grill, which is a Coleman Roadtrip LX, will likely be carried in the F150, unless I can better arrange the basement.

I'm not much to advise you on the batteries as when we ordered our coach, we ordered it with a pure sine wave inverter and they "built" an extra compartment on the door side of the front of the coach for the extra two batteries.  Then, the installed the inverter on top of that compartment inside the basement so it would be close to the batteries.

Good luck with your planning and research.  You will find a lot of knowledgeable folks here that have a wealth of information for you.

Terry

Chris,

Look into all of the tire monitoring systems.  There is another one called TST that also monitors temperature as well as tire pressure.  Truck System Technologies' Page for TPMS system.  The benefit of monitoring temperature as well will allow one to know if one tire is heating up more than the others, thus perhaps indicating a bad bearing or brake pad rubbing on metal and the heat "migrating" to the tire.

Terry

Hey Chris...did you get my May 1st response to your personal message?

Cheers