From Airstream 2 Oliver

0:00Thanks for joining me on a route to adventure podcasts. My name is Pete Robinson and I look forward to sharing a story. I call it the from Airstream to Oliver episode. That's our story for today. And it starts in 2022. My wife and I purchased a beautiful 2022 Airstream Globe Trotter 27 foot FBT, which stands for front bedroom twin. We bought it brand spanking new from Airstream of Utah. It wasn't long before we made some cool add-ons to that to that rig. We added aircrafters inlet, ER pods to help with the airflow. We also added a beautiful custom table from Typhoonos Baki of topics Woodworks. This guy is like, he's amazing with wood.

1:00Let me put it to that way. There's all kinds of things. In fact, it wasn't just the table top we had. We had purchased a stove cover, a sink cover, and some other items. But yeah, he's just an amazing guy that does awesome woodwork. In fact, we hope to have him do some stuff for the Oliver. But that's another episode. Anyway, we purchased a lot of goodies. I was also a top contributor on the Facebook Airstream Attics forum or group. And not to mention, our friends also own an Airstream. So we were really into the Airstream thing. That was part of our life. It wasn't all smooth. We had some minor but expensive hiccups along the way. We needed a brand new fridge, which turned out to be a defective unit, as well as a new AC and a water heater. But in all RVs, with that stands for repair vehicle. And all RVs, things go wrong.

2:02And in the Airstream world, they go wrong as well. The good news was that we got everything taken care of. And before our next big trip going out, my wife and I, we had an epiphany. We realized that our camping style really wasn't of Airstream-ish. But more of something smaller, something a little more easier to maintain, easy to clean, and just something that's easy to pick up and go. It wasn't that the Airstream was bad. It wasn't the style of camping that we found ourselves in, in that stage of our life. Even in the Airstream, we didn't carry a bunch of stuff. We packed very light and fast. And for the most part, we spent very little time inside the trailer. Yeah, it was great having our friends come over and visit in the evenings with us.

3:07But to be honest, we'd rather visit outside by the fire. Our idea of camping was hiking, biking, lunches and dinners outside, and just not being inside a tent or a trailer, no matter how nice it is. Now I get it, we had rainy days. It was nice to be in the trailer on those days. But for the most part, it was for us, it's the outside experience. So anyway. We started thinking along that trip. We really started kind of going through stuff. And we decided that when we got back home, we'd start our search for the perfect reg. We all know that perfect reg, right? And because we enjoyed the Airstream, we looked there first. We thought, hey, we really liked this Airstream lifestyle type of thing. We just feel that the 27-foot globe trotter just kind of wasn't our thing. But let's take a look. So we actually looked at an Airstream range line van.

4:11You know, the hashtag vanlife type of deal. We looked at that. And it had a lot of features we liked. And we started to kind of get excited about that. But you know, you get home, you talk it over, you think it over, which I sometimes overthink things. But in the end, I didn't want anything with an engine. I just, yeah, I just didn't want to go down that road. So we then kind of switched it up. We looked at the Airstream base camp. It looked good. But it had several features that were just deal breakers to me. You know, we even looked at the new world traveler edition. But again, I just didn't care for it. And I saw myself right back in the mode of adding accessories and getting back into that game again. And I just kind of had to put that behind me. Now going way back, way way back, we had once seen an Oliver at one of the shows.

5:13And we kind of looked at that and kind of piqued our interest. But then that had fallen by the wayside. So we hadn't seen one in a long time. And you know, I do recall my thinking man, I don't want a wet bath. And I remember that to be the deal breaker for me back then. But then I also started thinking, okay, with the Airstream myself anyway, I rarely took a shower in there. Because at the campsites that we stayed, the amenities were nice. I would usually take a shower in a bigger stall and use those facilities. And you know, that worked out really well for me. And with that in mind, I thought, you know what, let's give the Oliver another visit. So before we did this, of course, I dove in to the new models on YouTube and refreshed my memory on how they were made. And I also saw something in the new model, the 2026, which we were looking at, the Legacy

6:14Elite 2, that I didn't like. And it really kind of hit me, but I thought, you know what, give it a chance. Go see it in person before I said, you know, that was a complete deal breaker. So I wonder really give it a chance. So as fortune would have it, Oliver was now going through dealerships and a dealer in Orem called Niels RV. They had a 2026 Legacy Elite 2 in stock. I was a very one that I wanted to see. And the thing I'm not keen on, however, and maybe some of you are the same situation, is the sales job that many dealers try and do on you. I don't even like buying a car because of that. So that's a big deal for me. And I did not have, well, let me put it this way, I had a great experience with Airstream

7:17of Utah, really, really good experience there. But I had a terrible experience, prior to buying the Airstream with Camping World and Draper Utah, Paris RV and Salt Lake City, and Blue Compass, here in Hurkin, Utah. Like just, it was kind of like pulling teeth to go back through that route. I'd never been to Niels RV in Orem. So I thought I'd call to see if it was still in stock and schedule a walk through. I got to speak to the owner, Mike Niel. He was great on the phone. I was actually impressed. He had no sell job. Just come by, take your time and browse. You know, let me know when you come and I'll make sure it's open for you that type of thing. So cool. Did we take a drive up to Orem? Stop buying. Mike was true to his work. He opened it up and said, take as long as you want, if you have any questions with you when you're done, come on in. I'll do my very best to answer them, as well as go over the features and benefits with you. He said, but to tell you what, sit in this thing, first decide if you even like it, and

8:21if you do, we'll chat. So I had already done a good deal of investigating those features and benefits on YouTube. But wanted to sit in there and pretend we were camping and really take our time inside the unit. I got to tell you I was really impressed. And actually the wet baths didn't seem to be an issue with me. I liked the placement of the toilet. In fact, I liked it a little better than the air stream. But what I saw on YouTube, that one thing I hated, oh man, being there seeing it in person to stuck out like a sore thumb, I hated the balances, the MCD shades and the windows that only opened a few inches. And the screens that looked like they'd come out of a cheap camper shell to be honest with you. It was a deal breaker for me. I was like, no, no, I'm paying this kind of money. So we informed Mike of what we didn't like. But I'd still give it some thought.

9:23After all, we had to sell our air stream anyway. And we were in a rush to jump into another RV, frankly. It was false comment. I wasn't no hurry. So I did put the air stream up for sale. And to my surprise, our dear friends decided to purchase it from us, like right away, which was wonderful. I was so excited to see our beautiful globe trotter go to a wonderful home and a wonderful people. It's really a joy to sell something when you know you're delivering a perfect product to wonderful people. And the air stream was honestly in much better condition than when we bought it brand new. So now with the air stream gone. It's gone. But all this RV space in my garage, which I enjoyed having. But we decided to take a deep, deep look into the Oliver as well, honestly, as some other

10:27brands. So I was really having a hard time thinking about why would Oliver install these windows with 1970s looking balances and terrible screens and shades? Why would they do that in what seemingly was just to me a great trailer? Really gave it some heavy thinking and honestly, the good of the trailer outweighed the bad of the windows. So I decided to suck up my displeasure with the windows and go with a trailer that had some outstanding features and benefits. So we called Mike up, scheduled another tour. And this time I took a deeper look and a more serious approach. And again, Mike was wonderful. I talked about changing the bulldog front hitch from a two inch to a two and five sixteenths, went through the trailer systems with them. I expressed my dislike of the windows and Mike recommended that I speak to the folks at the factory to see what could be done.

11:27And it was one screen that was bad that didn't sit inside the window. We actually kept popping off and we discussed that as well. And Mike was awesome just all the way through the process. I've purchased trailers before. This wasn't my first rodeo. But I will tell you that Mike and his wife made this purchase so easy and fast. I was blown away. He swapped out the bulldog hitch for me, saved me money on the deal. And I'm happy to say Mike and I are still friends and his wife is absolutely wonderful. So Neils RV and Orm great, great, great people. The one disappointing factor was less than a month after my purchase was that Oliver did away with their dealer network. Literally, I mean, I called Mike up a little later, says, man, I'm no longer a dealer for Oliver Pete. You know, I know that some folks like working directly with the factory and I totally

12:28get that. I will say though that we would not have driven all the way back to Tennessee to see an Oliver or even an air stream for that matter. And I'm a business owner and I don't have the time to do that, especially not knowing if I'd like it or not. I can't imagine traveling all that way and going, that's not the one. You know, that would be my vacation time, honestly, that I'd have to take to doing that. And I also like having an advocate to work in my behalf. And an air stream of Utah was wonderful in doing that and working with the air stream corporate. They really were. I became really good folks with air stream of Utah and was looking forward to that great relationship, honestly, with Mike and his wife, they're at Neils. I'm sure Oliver felt it was best. And as a new owner of an Oliver, I too hope it was the right decision for them to go factory direct. And as well as for all of us that own Oliver's. So so far, the Oliver has worked out well for us.

13:31It fits our style of camping. Matt from Matt's RV reviews says no matter what the price of your rig from a thousand to five hundred thousand. He says you always have three things that you like in three things that you don't like. So I thought, you know, I thought, okay, we've been in the thing for a while. Let's talk about those things. Let's see what what are those things? Well number one, you know what it is, the thing I don't like about the Oliver. And that's the windows. Someone in the design department at Oliver, honestly, wasn't thinking. That's for sure. Those windows just pitiful. Sewer host, it's located in the back of the bumper to small issue. But more often than not, it requires me to use an extension simply because of going from the back of the bumper over to the sewer. Smart plugs instead of the old twist style plugs.

14:32I did love the smart plugs in the air stream. I thought they were really efficient. I liked them. But again, some small things. Three things I like about the Oliver. I could go way more of the three, but I'll keep to three. Build quality is exceptional. This thing is done right. All in plumbing, the layout is done to perfection. I mean, you just take a look in there and you go, someone really cared when they did the installation. Someone thought this out. The 30 amp plug in front on the passenger side, as well as there's another one on the driver's side. That's genius. Especially if you're using a generator. I mean, anyway, that was really well. Well thought out. The layout is simple. It's clean. Everything makes sense. It really does. The Oliver has turned out to be the perfect adventure vehicle for us.

15:34It really has. The 23 foot size is perfect. It's easy to maneuver. It's easy to pull. The boondocking capability is amazing. I especially love not having to spend thousands of dollars to get what Oliver already includes. That's solar, lithium batteries, and a four season build. I mean, they really do it right. I got to tell you, Oliver is manufactured by a group of individuals that are less concerned about pumping out trailers to dealers and more concerned about quality. I got to tell you it really shows. It really does. Before purchasing, I looked at Oliver's customer service ratings. I looked at online forums. Yeah, I even joined the Oliver group on Facebook just to read what was going on. I did that really early on. I wanted to look at the reviews. This is why in the end, the windows became not the deal breaker.

16:39You know what? In kudos to Oliver, I reached out to them and guess what? I have scheduled a retrofit for Oliver's new and improved 2027 windows. Great folks. To do that, I'm excited about getting that done. In fact, I've been able to have many discussions with them right there at the factory. It feels wonderful to have that dealer direct experience. So yeah, I believe now that going dealer direct really might be a win for Oliver. I think it's certainly a win for those of us when we have issues to go right to the people that built this rig. So we loved our air stream and love that it has a new home with people that love it. But thank you.

17:41Thank you, Oliver. You know, beat belar, whole number 1670, that's what we go by our whole number. Whole number 1670. We're looking forward to many great years in our Oliver twist as we call it. So thanks for listening friends and remember campers. Flush the stinky slinky. Hit jump. Pull out the shocks and get ready to roll because the best adventures are always the ones. We never expected to take. I'll see you next time on Root to Adventure.