Hi Everyone. Well, after 15 years the RV-Dreams Community Forum is coming to an end. Since it began in August 2005, we've had 58 Million page views, 124,000 posts, and we've spent about $15,000 to keep this valuable resource for RVers free and open. But since we are now off the road and have settled down for the next chapter of our lives, we are taking the Forum down effective June 30, 2021. It has been a tough decision, but it is now time.
We want to thank all of our members for their participation and input over the years, and we want to especially thank those that have acted as Moderators for us during our amazing journey living and traveling in our RV and growing the RV-Dreams Family. We will be forever proud to have been founders of this Forum and to have been supported by such a wonderful community. Thank you all!!
I was looking at a topic about tire choices in the “Ask Howard” forum and several contributors mentioned the miles they had on their tires. That got me wondering how people track their travel miles on trailer RVs. Is it just log book tallies, or something more sophisticated like axle counters seen on tracker-trailer rigs? Just curious.
Steve
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2017 Starcraft 26BHS Autumn Ridge TT, 2019 Chevrolet 3500 SRW Duramax 6.6 4WD TV
Plan to retire/full-time in 2021. Favorite place to camp; Texas State Parks.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.. Mark Twain
I built a spreadsheet with columns for travel date, destination, trip miles, nights spent, and mileage on tires, bearings, suspension, and total rig miles (separately for all). I write comments on RV parks, etc., in the far right column. I copy formulas from the row above that calculate everything but the travel date, destination and miles which I enter manually. Everything else is calculated off the travel date and trip miles. Here are the numbers from the row for where we are currently staying (I've entered the next travel date to get the nights to calculate).
Date Destination/Event Travel Miles Nights Tires Bearings Susp. Tot Rig Miles 6/1/2017 Midway RV Park, NSA Mid-South Millington, TN 158.0 7 9,321.4 7,702.4 7,702.4 17,779.4
I periodically back up all critical files to an external hard drive and a paper copy of this can be printed out if needed.
Rob
PS - after posting, it's obvious that I couldn't get the column labels and data lined up on the forum... sorry.
-- Edited by Second Chance on Friday 2nd of June 2017 11:17:52 AM
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2012 F350 DRW Lariat 6.7
PullRite OE 18K, Demco Glide Ride pinbox
2020 Solitude 310GK-R, MORryde IS, disc brakes, solar, DP windows
I use a paper log that is kept in my TT maintenance/receipt file. Not modern or fancy but works for me.
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Winnebago TT 2101DS & 2020 Silverado LTZ Z71. 300 watts WindyNation solar w/MPPT, 2 Trojan T-125s. TALL flag pole. Prefer USFS, COE, BLM, USF&WS, NPS, TVA, state/county camps. 14 year Army vet-11B40 then 11A - old MOS 1542 & 1560.
Remember for all RVs, it is TIME that is a real factor, not mileage. UV/Ozone are the enemies of tires and they need to be covered when not rolling down the road. We never worry about the miles on the tires, we watch them and replace at our target date (8 yrs) to replace them when passing through Oregon.
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Barb & Dave O'Keeffe
2002 Alpine 36 MDDS (Figment II), 2018 Ford C-Max HYBRID
I'm like Second Chance. I use Field Notes Notebooks…one per year…that Connie and I have dubbed "The Book of All Knowledge". In addition to carrying it just about everywhere for taking important notes…I have a page for each travel day with date, from/to, start miles, stop miles, destination address and GPS, and notes about pre-payments for the campground or places we have to stop if there are limited rest stops. Once we stop…that gets transferred to a spreadsheet with date/to/from/start miles/finish/miles. It's got formulas for total miles, total miles this year, average miles per trip and stuff like that and a notes section where I put in anything like maintenance, bearings, etc. I also keep a scanned copy of the invoice for any truck or trailer maintenance including truck mileage, RV towed mileage, and date so I've got all of that.
In addition…it's got a tab that has every campground we've ever stayed at…name, address, GPS, phone, reservation details, cost, number of nights, site number, info we might want to know later like "get site 30 as it's right on the river", etc. That keeps track of our total lodging cost and average cost per night…currently running at $30.62/night since July 2012. One of the nice things about this tab is if we're ever in an area again we already know a good campground.
Bill Napier's spreadsheets are…undoubtedly…even more detailed than mine. What can I say…we're both recovering engineers although he's an EE and I'm a ME.
I also have a text note with all of our tire manufacture dates and reminders in my calendar and reminder app for when they reach the magic 7 year old number. Nothing magic about that but one should really think about replacing RV tires when they get that old…even though our H rated Goodyear G114's will likely have plenty of tread left by that time.
We have a file server in our rig that keeps most of our data files…but important stuff including these spreadsheets I have in a shared DropBox folder where (a) Connie can get to them, (b) I can see them from my iPhone if I need to look up something, and (c) they get backed up to the cloud in addition to all my internal rig and truck backups…after I was a submariner and the budget guy I was the computer guy at the Pentagon and learned the benefits of good/multiple backups.
Neil, forgive me ... Due to my perfect recall, I just commit everything to memory. When called upon to retrieve it I just ask Janice "what was the name of that last RV park we stayed at in Virginia?" BOOM!, perfect recall kicks in and I have my answer!
I did say forgive me, right?
-- Edited by RonC on Friday 2nd of June 2017 07:31:44 PM
-- Edited by RonC on Friday 2nd of June 2017 09:22:28 PM
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Ron and Janice
2016 Ford F350, King Ranch, DRW, 4x4, CC, 6.7 PS Diesel, remote control air lift system
2017 Durango Gold 381REF, Lambright furniture, MCD shades, morRYDE IS, 8K Disc brakes, GY G114 LR H Tires, 27,320 lbs CGVW
No way that would work for us Ron…we been in so many campgrounds a lot of them just sorta run together…including this week. We're at the KOA in Goodland KS where we've been before…but we got here and said to ourselves "This isn't what we thought it was."…turned out that's another KOA up in Montana that we were remembering.
Bill Napier's spreadsheets are…undoubtedly…even more detailed than mine. What can I say…we're both recovering engineers although he's an EE and I'm a ME.
We're about the same as Neil. Linda and I share a lot of records and they are either on the PC's or in a book for the maintenance receipts. I do keep detailed maps of every trip and location - by Latitude and Longitude. Don't trust addresses. They are wrong a lot of the time. Every mile the trailer takes is recorded including maintenance items. I confirm each campground location by Lat / Long / Satellite prior to each move. The maps really come in handy when planning trips. We have spending records, etc. Naturally all records are double backed up on separate network drives. Does all this matter? Have no idea but it does come in handy when I can't remember stuff.
Neil ... just MO, but I like your details ... between you and Bill I have really gone to school. Still not yet a graduate, but I'm enrolled. So in case you never hear this ... thanks for your willingness to share!!
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Ron and Janice
2016 Ford F350, King Ranch, DRW, 4x4, CC, 6.7 PS Diesel, remote control air lift system
2017 Durango Gold 381REF, Lambright furniture, MCD shades, morRYDE IS, 8K Disc brakes, GY G114 LR H Tires, 27,320 lbs CGVW
Our friends are long time full timers. From day one with their first RV when they were just part timers the kept a small notebook in their tow vehicle each year. In it they would write down miles traveled, fuel bought, gas mileage, any repairs or maintenance to tow vehicle or trailer, entry fees or campground fees. Plus they would list any highlights of the trip.
These notebooks at the end of the year were kept in the trailer for reference. Many an argument was settled by going back through one of these books.
They knew how many miles the tires on the trailer had traveled, how much they spent during the year for propane, quarts of oil used...it was very impressive. My DW and I do not have the discipline it takes to do something like that.
-- Edited by The Bear II on Monday 5th of June 2017 11:19:35 AM
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"Small House, Big Yard "
"May the FOREST be with you" Alfa See-Ya 5'er and 2007 Kodiak C4500 Monroe
Thanks…(blushes). We try but Bill is the real long term RVer smart guy here…I'm getting there but still have lots I don't know about yet…but I have lots of friends who do.
Thank you all, just when we're about to start living the dream, there's homework :/
Hit the open road, follow the weather, enjoy the journey, spend time together. We're gonna have a carefree lifestyle !
Now there's a list, Spreadsheets, Do I need to track average marshmallows consumed at campfire, burn time, # of logs used? wtf
However I do plan to keep a log/journal of maintenance, miles traveled, fuel, campgrounds and maybe even travel, non-travel days
Plus a note or two on the day's Fun
I tracked a whole lot of stuff over the years, sometimes it was helpful. Now as we are in our final stages of prep it's going to the shredder.
I had OCD, got medicine , now I'm just organized. However with age comes CRS, so of course I make notes ( to do list), stack them up, and after a few weeks review and realize I actually did it,
Didn't have to do it, and mostly ain't gonna do it. Just re write to a new list.
On a serious note, I get it, and Thank You to all who post. I have found a lot of information
Bill
On that list is to create a "signature", I'll just do it manually
Laurie and Bill
2002 Airstream Land Yacht 39ft diesel
Acme tow dolly, 2016 VW Jetta
Launch date 8-14-2017, leave NY mid Sept 2017
I'm really glad I asked this question. I enjoyed both the serious and silly replies.
And Bill, I too have started making lists evey time I take a trip..and I sometimes actually check it before I leave. I also have promised to create a signature file but haven't done so yet.
Steve
2017 Starcraft 26 AR One Max TT, TV 2004 Tundra SR5 Double cab 2wd 4.7L
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2017 Starcraft 26BHS Autumn Ridge TT, 2019 Chevrolet 3500 SRW Duramax 6.6 4WD TV
Plan to retire/full-time in 2021. Favorite place to camp; Texas State Parks.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.. Mark Twain
