Not a FANBOY, but maybe?

by Jeff · November 2, 2023

I am not your typical, jump on the band wagon/rave from the hilltops about things, kinda guy. Normally. Under regular circumstances.

Do you travel or live in an RV? Are you a weekend warrior, a part timer, or a full on full time traveler? Are you in your ideal RV or looking for it? Did you buy a “lemon”, get screwed over by your dealer, hate your unit? Did you buy your best ever unit and absolutely love everything about it?

We started travelling in our starter fifth wheel in 2015. It was 30 feet long and a 2007 Forest River Sandpiper 295 RG model. It wasn’t even close to perfect but it was perfect for us at the time. We spent many long summer trips and short excursions in our Piper and visited many new places and old familiar haunts. Check out our stay at the Buffalo Bill State Park in Piper here https://bigfokkerdog.com/buffalo-bill-state-park/

We prefer not to dwell on our time in our second rig, named Bebop. We bought it specifically to retire into while living full time on the road. It was a Vanleigh Beacon 41flb, which, in theory, is a beautiful luxury RV with the full time couple in mind. The problem with the RV is that it is not really designed to travel as much as we want. It was also a big fat Lemon. See https://bigfokkerdog.com/tiffin-service-at-its-best-bebop-gets-fixed/.

We traded Bebop in on our third RV. This is a Grand Design 310GK named after the battle cry of the poker player in a flip situation, “One Time”. By doing so, we lost a ton of outside storage, 10 feet off the total length, gained indoor storage and lost 3,00 pounds of GVWR. These are trade offs I can live with. Really, how many copies of the same tool in different sizes do I while going down the road?

The following is my evaluation of the Solitude 310GK since we bought it:

Our rig was born in March of 2023, so it was well into the model year production. We purchased it from the dealer, Campers Inn of Madison, Alabama, on July 17th of 2023. We drove almost directly from the Tiffin Service center to the dealer and traded in our Beacon. The dealership gave us a fair trade in and moved our generator and lithium batteries over as part of our deal. They also gave up two stalls in their service bays to facilitate us moving all our belongings over from the Beacon.

The specs, taken directly from my build sheet:

Solitude 310GK with all the packages, linen interior, king bed, and slide toppers.
Double the solar panels with 50watt mppt controller, 2k inverter, my 5500k generator and 200ah of Battle Born lithium batteries,
Fresh water 81 gallons, Grey (2 tanks)106 gallons, black 53 gallons, 2X 30 pound LP tanks
GVWR 15,000, UVW 12,762, Hitch weight 2422.
All 120vac outlets routed through the inverter (except microwave).

So, let’s get into the nuts and bolts. We picked up One Time, moved all our stuff in in a day and spent the first night hooked up to power at the dealership. We got stuff stowed and then moved on to one of the great Alabama State Parks where we got to do some organizing and explore more stowage options. The rig has a ton of varied stowage options inside, but less than a third of what I had on the outside of the Beacon. This equated to more stuff stored in the bed of the truck to accommodate all the stuff we had under the Beacon.

We visited family and explored some great sites like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and even saw a Dolly show. We turned the rig west to go back to our home park in California and enjoyed some great adventures along the way.

We endured 100 degree temperatures with 95 percent humidity in the southeast, we boondocked, we were at full hookup parks, and we maneuvered easily in small rural towns. We travelled 4,500 miles on our return and drove some pretty terrible roads/highways. We did not pamper One Time during the trip, we drove dirt roads, bad secondaries and some of the worst stretches of Interstate 40 along the way. See https://bigfokkerdog.com/westward-ho/.

When we got to our home park I made a list of things we had to do to make One Time work. We had to level the fridge, as the compressor was making some noise. I had to move one wire (after consulting with the great folks at Battle Born while we were in Reno, NV) on my battery system that had been installed wrong by the dealer. That’s it…I found no loose screw, screws on the floor, my hydraulics worked the entire trip, we had no breakers blow, and all the water systems work without leaking.

Everything Works!

As of this writing, we have travelled to the Albuquerque balloon Fiesta and back. We boondocked at the fiesta and had no problems. The batteries and solar handled my CPAP, the lights, the fridge, and all the parasitic draws easily. We have had the temps drop here in the Sierras and our furnace works flawlessly. I had one piece of interior trim tape come loose and glued it back in place.

As I sit here writing this, I am considering modifications to make our home more livable but none of them are because of a failure or design flaw perpetrated by the manufacturer or messed up by the dealer. What a difference from our last experience with a “luxury” unit.

Am I a fanboy of my Grand Design Solitude 310GK? You bet! I know there are folks out there with complaints and problems and I get that. There are people out there that love their Vanleigh units even as we were ready to cry over ours.

I would like to say thank you to the design and build team of my particular unit. Are there things they could or should change? Certainly. Hopefully the build teams at the factory can get some inherent flaws removed, like using Pex crimps on flex hose. See the 310gk here; https://www.granddesignrv.com/fifth-wheels/solitude/310gk

Anyway, I have rambled enough about my inanimate affair. I promise more travel soon.

Jeff