klhutch
Sububan Chicago
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Hokie_Camper wrote:
I asked about the 5.4L because when I started looking it seems that the rental units 23A that Cruise America has, have the 5.4L.
Well, that's a good point, rental companies have enough pull to get units made to their specs, regardless of what appears on the website. There are other things to be concerned about in ex-rental units. You'd want to have a rental unit checked out carefully before buying. And perhaps in previous years the 5.4L was standard in the 23A for non rental units too. With legions of Sprinter based C owners proclaiming that their vehicles have "plenty of power" at 154 Hp/280 ft-lbs I don't think you have any reason at all to fear a 5.4L with 255 HP/350 ft-lbs. I'd trade that amount of power for another mpg or two.
Ken
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Hokie_Camper
Blacksburg
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klhutch wrote:
Well, that's a good point, rental companies have enough pull to get units made to their specs, regardless of what appears on the website. There are other things to be concerned about in ex-rental units. You'd want to have a rental unit checked out carefully before buying. And perhaps in previous years the 5.4L was standard in the 23A for non rental units too. With legions of Sprinter based C owners proclaiming that their vehicles have "plenty of power" at 154 Hp/280 ft-lbs I don't think you have any reason at all to fear a 5.4L with 255 HP/350 ft-lbs. I'd trade that amount of power for another mpg or two.
Ken
Well displacement/power/mpg are always a trade off. Way back when I had an S-10 pickup that had the small 2.8L engine which was just too small for the truck. I replaced it with a S-10 Blazer with the 4.3L engine and it got better MPG even thought it was a bigger engine in a heaver vehicle. The reason being that the 2.8 had to be pushed harder to do the same amount of work.
I suspect that while the 5.4L is a great engine (I have one in my F-150, and they're put in many F-250s) if pushed to hard it would get worse MPG than the V10. On the other hand if the unit is light enough and not used to tow it could get better MPG. So one really has to think about what they're buying, how they're going to use the vehicle, and what trade off they're willing to live with.
In my case, I'm looking for a sub 30 foot unit with the V10. The way I intend to use it, I'd like to find a unit as small as possible with the rear queen. I need/want the V10 since I plan to tow with it. A 23 would be great but I haven't found one with the rear bed instead of a rear bath. So it looks like I'll be hunting for something around 28 feet which might be perfect anyway. So sometimes things workout out.
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klhutch
Sububan Chicago
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Hokie_Camper wrote:
Well displacement/power/mpg are always a trade off. Way back when I had an S-10 pickup that had the small 2.8L engine which was just too small for the truck. I replaced it with a S-10 Blazer with the 4.3L engine and it got better MPG even thought it was a bigger engine in a heaver vehicle. The reason being that the 2.8 had to be pushed harder to do the same amount of work.
The real reason might well be that the newer engine had a more accurate engine control that could squeeze more economy out of the larger engine. If all it took to get better fuel economy was a bigger engine we would all be driving 700 HP motorohomes. My 323 HP Chevy 6.0L gets a little worse mpg than 305 HP V10's get in similar MH's but the older 300 HP version of the Chevy got a little better than the Ford. If you want a V10, you want a V10 and nothing wrong with that. If you are going to be towing heavy loads all the time it is probably what you should want. If you want this small a MH and aren't going to towing anything the smaller engine will do you just fine. You will be passing all the Sprinters and most all of the class A's on grades and pulling away from stoplights, if you want to. I'd have to see some data from Ford before you could convince me that the 5.4 gets poorer fuel economy. Ford doesn't seem to publish any mpg data on the E series now and they have never rated the V10 to my knowledge. I've yet to see two engines with the same technology where the more powerful gets better economy than the less powerful. We will see when the new fuel economy regulations go into effect. I expect the most powerful engines to be the first casualties, so get 'em while you can if you want 'em.
Ken
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Gene in NE
Omaha
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klhutch wrote:...I've yet to see two engines with the same technology where the more powerful gets better economy than the less powerful...Ken Back in the days of carbureted engines, it was possible. Usually, with three different modes of fuel mixture, a carburetor fed the engine the amount of fuel requested based on the position of the throttle valve. A larger HP engine often could pull the load at a smaller throttle opening. 
2002 Trail-Lite Model 211-S w/5.7 Chevy
Gene
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Cougargm
NE PA
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Hokie,
The 23A we're considering has a rear bed and wasn't a rental. Actually we found two of them, one being sold privately and the other at a dealership (neither is a rental). We also prefer to buy as small a C as possible without going too small and being cramped. Some of the 26' in another thread seem like great floorplans for us but most of them are newer and in a higher price range than we're looking at. So are present thought is perhaps to go with the 23A for now and in a few yrs move up to a newer, larger 26'.
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Dakzuki
Carnation, Wa, USA
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When I was a kid we had a family of four plus a dog is an 18.5 ft Chinook RV. It was built to sleep 6 (if two were small enough to fit in the overhead). It was compact but we survived just fine. We did state/federal/provincial parks (no RV parks) so us kids usually had somewhere to explore. If you spend most of your time outdoors (which I still do) the small RV becomes more of a hard sided tent that is self propelled and carries lots of stuff. We are outside until bed time......unless the weather goes really bad. Campfires are really soothing to sit by at night.
95 Chinook Premier
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beachcomber_1
Alton, Illinois
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It would work if you put the kids outside in the own tent. We did that and they wanted outside. I realize that ages make a difference. We family camped in a small pop-up, 5' box with 5 people , but you really have to work at it. Buy a 28-30' with a slide.
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