MY HONEST WINNEBAGO MICRO MINNIE 2108 DS FLX Review 🚐 🤔
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 พ.ย. 2023
- Let's talk about the reality in the Winnebago Micro Mini 2108DS FLX. Would I buy again? 🤔
Purchase One of A Kind Photographic Prints now from Us at livingwithrob.com/prints
💚www.amazon.com/shop/livingwit...
Visit us online at livingwithrob.com
Read Rob's Blog livingwithrob.com/blog
Find us on Social Media
Facebook / livingwithrobert
Instagram instagram/livingwithrobert
X / livingwithrob
Connect with us with any business inquiries through our sites contact page
livingwithrob.com/contact
Check out Rob's 2nd Channel on TH-cam @robsreelamerica
You can visit our Amazon store on our website where we have everything neatly sorted and organized by category. Come on over to livingwithrob.com/amazon-store-1 to shop now.
In May of this year, 2023, we purchased a Winnebago Micro Minnie 2108DS FLX model camper to live from while we travel the country full time to do photography and video and build our TH-cam channel.
A subscriber asked recently if this is a purchase we would make again. I thought instead of replying directly to his comment, I would instead build a video detailing my thoughts about making the purchase again as well as detailing some of the things we have done to make the rig more comfortable to live from.
I talk through the FLX electrical off grid system including the Lithonics batter, the Xantrex inverter as well as the GoPower solar products all installed from the factory.
I then will discuss the various upgrades which came to mind in the video including the Renogy DC to DC MPPT charger, the Tochta Mattress, the exhaust fan upgrades along with the water tank issues we found and made a fix for and so on.
Hopefully, my thoughts in this video help to answer various questions that may come up if you are in the market for a new RV from which to travel extensively or even to live from full time as we are doing.
*******************************************
This video is NOT sponsored, however, we may receive small commissions from items bought and sold through our affiliate links and our Amazon store.
#fulltimerv #rvliving #winnebagomicrominnie #winnebagoflx #livingwithrob #robertanthony #rvlife #landscapephotography
#professionalphotography #robandjoelle #robandjoelleanthony
![คุณอาเรียโต๊ะข้างๆ พูดรัสเซียหวานใส่ซะหัวใจจะวาย ตอนที่ 2 [ซับไทย] 【Ani-One Thailand】](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kbbfYakMY8k/mqdefault.jpg)
Our New RV Channel is up and running. All future RV content is now being posted to www.youtube.com/@robthervguy
This video is probably the best capture of the FLX experience I’ve run across. I agree with basically all the comments Rob presents. While we are not Full Time RVers, and therefore don’t have the same needs a Full Timer might have I thought I’d Piggyback in these comments to share our experiences, second most of the ones Rob shared, and add a bit more to some if the FLX curious happen by.
A quick background
In 2021 on a trip to Oregon in our previous trailer a T@B400 we met a couple who had a Winnebago MicroMinnie 2108ds. We had been feeling cramped in the T@B for awhile and were intrigued with the 2108 floor plan. I’ll jump forward to placing a deposit on a 2108ds and the long wait for delivery. During the wait search for every bit of information I could find on the new FLX model. Frankly much of the information was marketing hype but mostly lacking specifics, and as it turned out wrong. An exception to this was the Truma corporate information which was excellent. As units started to get delivered Videos started to show up on TH-cam the typical pattern was gushing fawning over the FLX followed by some electrical system issue that dealers had no Idea how to deal with and great frustration on the part of new owners. Quite a bit of wrong information was being shared by dealers, owners and factory contacts.
We received our 2108ds FLX April 2022 and immediately had these same issues. We had owned trailers previously so we were aware of build quality issues and the need to be a do it yourselfer. But the sheer ignorance of the dealers, and factory was staggering. Knowing that TH-cam offered no, or worse wrong information I ended up on www.winnieowners.com/forums/.
I’ll leave my trials and tribulations story at this point but if interested it can be found here www.winnieowners.com/forums/f267/new-member-with-2022-2108fbs-flx-363777.html#post3916623 and here www.winnieowners.com/forums/...rs-363804.html
FLX Electrical System Overview and Configuration
Bottom line several of us with new FLXs on the winnieowners forum began sharing experiences (frustrations with Dealers and Winnebago) and ultimately valid information gleaned from Lithionics, GoPower and Xantrex all of whom were extremely helpful! As we arrived at an understanding of how the system worked, and what configurations were necessary I began to capture the information and posted a summary on the Winnie Owners forums www.winnieowners.com/forums/f267/micro-minnie-flx-xantrex-go-power-parameters-363804-8.html#post3929376 This primarily focused on understanding the system and especially what the GoPower and Xantrax configuration settings should be.
There are some additional quirks, like the mysterious electrical breaker on the frame tongue, mentioned
Many folks are interested in extending the off-grid capability of the FLX. Plugging a “solar on the side” panel isn’t gonna do it. The factory “solar on the side” plug is not designed to be compatible with the factory FLX implementation. Extending the off-grid capability is certainly do-able, as Rob shows, and isn’t “rocket science’ but you do need to know what you are doing.
Slide Out Failures
Lubrication is absolutely essential for proper operation of the Schwintech/Lippert slide out mechanism. The procedure described in Rob’s video is correct and the CRC product is absolutely the correct one to use. The Lippert factory videos are very helpful in illustrating how to perform the lubrication.
There are several types of slide out mechanisms and many wrong videos explaining what to do even when they claim to apply to the Microminnie FLX Slideout, and many recommend incorrect lubricants to use.
However,
The cluster of failures that some of the early FLX units had, seem to be related to a factory problem detailed in a TSB from Lippert. www.winnieowners.com/forums/f267/2022-micro-minnie-2108ds-slideout-broken-364847.html#post3937363
Proper Slideroom use
There are some tips beyond lubrication to help avoid problems. The slide room is stable when fully extended, not as much when fully retracted. Don’t overload the massive storage cabinets of the slide room, and don’t use (sit in) the slide room when fully retracted.
Don’t stop and start when extending or retracting the room, this help the sides stay in sync. Hold the switch ON for a few (3-ish) seconds after reaching fully extended and fully retracted position. This is how the electronics “learns” the fully extended and fully retracted position and stays in sync.
An Off-Road Trailer?
It takes more than raised ground clearance and beefy tires to make a trail worthy unit! Don’t expect it from a Micro minnie.
Winnebago’s (indeed the whole towable industry’s) build quality can barely hold up to paved roads. Mostly minor cabinetry and trim issues but yes you do need to be handy with basic tools and construction.
Positives!
The floorpan is, in our opinion, perfection for a “couple’s camper”.
Roominess with the slide room extended amazingly spacious. Of course we were coming from a T@B400 ;-)
We found the OEM lighting too bright, easy replacement with dimable LEDs the same size.
The fridge is huge, but use common sense some items may shift in transit. Ant that latch my keep the door closed, but that's all.
Nice kitchen layout and lots of usable cabinets.Cabinet doors may work themselves open, things on the counters won’t stay there - this is just common sense, many option to address, some more elegant than others.
The bathroom is beyond spacious for this size trailer. Personally I’d take a smaller shower to get a bit more floor space in the bathroom.
Truma; Water heater, Room heater and AC. All awesome! Nothing at all to complain about. The Winnebago fans are another story, we replaced the main fan (non bathroom) with a Fantastic Fan, vast improvement Highly recommended.
-Steve
I really appreciate this detailed comment. You have hit on a number of matters that I tried to address here as well as in subsequent videos. Better still, you got my curiosity up on the dimmable LED replacements. I have since ordered a set of 8 to replace all of them in this rig. I am really jazzed about this as the light in these things is pretty bad. Happy to have your input here. Thank you. 🤠
Extremely well done and thorough video!
Thanks Dogman
I found your channel when searching for fan upgrade for my 2108 flx, excellent video and i am going to do the upgrade, thanks to you. I was wondering if you could post the settings that should be for the factory xantrex and solar. I have gleaned some information from the forums and such but am not sure if they are even correct. I feel like I could trust your advice much better. Maybe just a short video where you show the settings written down so people could stop the video and copy them. Also would love to see a video on how to do the lubrication of the slide and what lube you used. Well i just found your channel and have to go watch some of the other videos now. Keep up the good work, look forward to seeing more great content. Wish you the best in all you do.
Thanks Rob. Been lurking on some of your FB posts. Now subscribed! Love your vibe. We like our 2023 2108DS FLX and several successful trips but have yet to go off grid. We planned for a trip a we weeks ago but the black tank valve would not close. Bent the cable, which is another known problem… now in week three in warranty repair for a couple of hours of work. I’m very interested in learning more on your solar mods as the off grid camping is what turned us on to this unit. Hopefully a “how to” will be forthcoming.
Hey Mark. Thanks for watching. I had my handle break too. I did some research and actually took the underbelly off and replaced both cables. The factory did a poor job on the installs. Funny. They left the instruction manuals (along with a bunch of other trash) in the underbelly and according to the installation instructions, they installed them totally against the manufacturer instructions. I unbolted and turned both valves on both tanks TOWARD the handle side (driver side). They were facing the passenger side. Gave me a cable run of about 2 feet (and totally straight) compared to nearly 7 feet of a giant loop. It's no wonder they quit working and ceased up. I have a video in the hopper that I'm working on finishing addressing the off grid capability of my unit with the upgraded solar. While I don't specifically get into the nuts and bolts of it, I do address some of the particulars. I will, however, take you up on your offer and make a video of the way in which I installed the Solar on my roof, step by step. I believe it will be helpful and useful. I will provide all of my thoughts and ideas related to the project and how it all came together for me. Be on the lookout for it. (I do have like 4 to finish editing before that...but it will come within the next month or less.) 🙂
Extremely interesting and I can imagine “incredibly helpful” to anyone who has or is considering this unit. Well done! Excellent video!
Appreciate your watching and input. "Incredibly" funny! Love you man. We are, by blood, most certainly, kings of smart assedness. I love that about our family. I was smart assing mom yesterday when filling a 30 yard dumpster at the old flower shop. It took her a long time to catch on...but when she did...it was great. We laughed heartily about it. That dead pan smart ass skill is one I do not regret having been passed down from Dad.
@@livingwithrob hahahaha so true. Love you too man!
I didn’t realize it didn’t charge while towing. Agreed Winnebago and the dealers have no clue about the FLX. We totally regret ours. Bought it in May, went into the dealership vortex in June and is still there. I have to go back and look at pictures of my trailer to remind myself of what it looks like.
Sorry for your loss, I’m 7 years clear of prostate cancer now, devastating cancer.
I am sorry you are having these issues. I was at a dealer yesterday for some parts. They tried once to work on one of these and now, exercise more caution. They made some costly mistakes when trying to fix one. They learned. The service tech, however, was highly complimentary of the units and the build quality. He said they are building a great product and Winnebago for years has been and remains at or near the top of the list for quality products in their dealership. Thank you for your well wishes and I wish you good health moving forward. Glad you're here and watching.
This video was “incredibly” helpful! 😆 Thank you! I really appreciated all the info. My husband and I are thinking of living in the micro Minnie full time but neither of us is mechanical 🤦🏾♀️
Thank you. I laughed. I'm here to help if I can. Reach out if we can assist you guys.
Just watched the video. We have had our Micro Mini 2225RL for a couple years now and love it as well. Last year spent about 90 nights in it. This year, we will spend 120 or more nights in it. People need to own the camper rather than just complaining about it.
Thanks for watching Bruce
Great info. I’m glad I was directed to your channel. I was told by our dealer that our 2108 FLX TB charged while towing. We were also told that the Truma heater was ducted to heat the tanks. Our first visit to the dealer after a single night of use was from May till September. The leaks in the shower wall and at the hot water bypass are still leaking. I wanted to take it to the Winnebago factory for repairs. They said they won’t repair towables. I look forward to watching the rest of your videos
Technically...it "charges" but per my conversation with the Winnebago Rep via email, it's only a "trickle" charge. Certainly not enough to get the job done. Further, it's a total lie, unless it's changed, that the furnace blows heat into the underbelly. It does not. This is why I added the Renogy DC to DC MPPT charger. Works wonderfully!
Single duct into the living space...that's it. Bad call and design in my view from WB.
You're probably better off...if you want to use your RV, to do the repairs on your own. That's been my experience. IE...the spare tire carrier recall. Good freakin' luck getting that done with any level of expediency (again, in my experience). WB requires it going to a dealer for this. The same carrier on Amazon is 40 bucks.
Given we live on the road full time...the $40 was well spent in a Cost/Benefit analyses as compared to trying to get a dealer to handle the issue for me. I'm glad you're here and appreciate you watching. Much success as you work through your various troubleshooting and solutions! 😎
Hi Rob. I'm sorry for your loss of your Dad. Thank you for the information about the Minnie. Sounds like with the upgrades you have done it is a good full time unit for a solo or couple. I consider myself simi-mechanical but not sure I would be able to do al the electric upgrades you did on my own?? Hope everything goes well for you and Joelle and I look forward to your next videos. Thanks again.
Brian, you certainly could. I do not doubt it. I am always only an email or phone call away. Happy to walk you through anything you might want to discuss. Feel free to reach out through the website and we can talk from there. Thanks for watching, as always.
Took a different route with our 2108DS, bought the standard trailer and put the extra money into the tow rig. We pull with an F150 powerboost with the onboard 7.2kw generator. With 2x100 amp gelcells batteries we do pretty good. The truck doesn't know it has a trailer behind it.
That's great. We are actually going to be selling our unit to upsize to something a little larger. This is a tad too small to be full timing in. 🙂
Sorry I never answered you but as far as I’m concerned none of the off road trailers are worth the money. We owned the FLX 2022 and had major issues with it. The slide was the main issue. Broke once had it fixed on the road. Broke again on our way to Alaska came open on the road and blew the exterior wall out. Had to turn around and take to nearest dealer with the slide braced shut 200 miles away. They could not fix so headed home to dealer. They could do nothing so I ended up dealing directly myself with Winnebago
6 months later and over 20 phone calls 41 emails and a 10 page letter sent directly to Winnebago they finally bought it back. I loved the truma system as well. The solar system I never felt was worth the money they charge extra for. But I bought another Winnebago but just the micro Minnie with minimal solar. I upgraded it myself for 3000 dollars. The only thing I recommend you do as you seem to know what you’re talking about and a capable person. Get two of the small short screw jacks off of Amazon and the rubber pads and when you pull your slide in put them under on each side to stop the slide from bouncing when going down the road. It will save your slide because the cantilever is too much. Enjoy
@@glenludwig5135 What a nightmare? I have received differing input on supporting the slide. On one hand, those who talk about supporting it (most suggest Yoga Blocks) make perfect sense. Yet, those who say to not support because it's made in such a way that to stop the flexing of it will in fact cause damage. I can't determine the right course of action!
Absolutely support it. If anyone says it’s not supposed to not true. Only the one side sits an a 8” wheel well. The other side cantilevers out over the floor. So two much stress on the outside wall and gear drives. Slides in bigger units slide along the floor so same idea support to floor
Just bumped into your channel. Looks like my cup of tea. I subbed and will be watching. Thank you brother 👍
Thank you.
Similar experience here. Another thing to watch out for is those Lego looking “Short stop breakers” up on the frame near the propane. They work all the jacks/stabilizers and slide. One of them has a little reset button on it that is finicky. I swapped that one out with an “auto-reset” type of breaker. I keep spares on hand now cause I still don’t know how to get the slide in manually. I hope there’s a manual screw up underneath the belly plastic just in case but I haven’t pulled it off yet.
I've been in the Underbelly. There's not. Mind sharing a link for the replacement breakers?
Don't forget to clean and reseal your roof.
Great video. Our 2022 1800bh has the forced air in the underbelly plus the tank heaters.
Our roof has the rubber membrane. Not sure that requires resealing? Also, none of the FLX models blow heat into the belly. 🤨
Ours has the rubber roof membrane as well. The roof needs to be cleaned and conditioned the same as the rubber seals on the windows, doors and storage doors. We use the Dicor the roof products.
The lap sealant around all roof fixtures needs to be inspected and resealed with self leveling Dicor. @@livingwithrob
@@snowbaordguru excellent advice
@@snowbaordguru Thank you! I'll be doing so this coming week.
@livingwithrob You're welcome, happy camping. It's already 89 degrees where we are.
Thanks. Lots of good info. Anything to do to the single pane windows??
Honestly...no. I tried the shrink film and it failed to stay put. Other than new windows...nothing.
Excellent video....thank you.
Thank you for watching.
Great info sir! Can you share the brand and how to lubricate the slide please? Or even better if this tech has a video that you can point us to please? Thank you!
Check out this video and the description. Links for everything you've asked are in it's description. th-cam.com/video/YisIxR861fI/w-d-xo.html
Wow, tons of information. I’m realizing I’m not smart enough to be a camper.
Thanks for watching!
2020 2108FBS, 37K MILES
No, I will never buy another!
NOT an offroad trailer, barely survives highway.
Slide side wall failed due to unsupported "live load" design. But, when the wall failed from bouncing slide, Winnebago voided warranty claiming my bike rack mount on rear bumper was "unapproved modification" 😮
That's terrible! I've read a number of folks support their slide with modified Yoga blocks when traveling and have heard others state this is not a good idea. Was your rack mounted to your bumper or in the 2" reciever put on at the factory? What are your thoughts on supporting the slide in transit?
We will be looking into Bigfoot RV, Oliver RV and Ember RV in the future.
I built a rigid parallelogram, folding rigid support for traveling. I tried air bags and wedged foam, they bounced on bumps. The rigid support does not bounce at all. Bouncing is "live load", which is the problem to start with.
I put one of those reciver bracket s on tube bumper for bike rack. Those tube bumpers are notoriously weak, but I added the supports from Amazon
There was no Winnebago reciever.
I see. We have the factory 2" installed. Not impressed by the WB customer support one bit.
what year is your camper?
2022
Joined!
Glad you're on board.
All your complaints are because there is zero thought put into building this unit. Winnebago or not. All they did was make it look off road/off grid because people jump at it for the price compared to a real off road/off grill trailer. I owned one.
Thanks for watching. In your view, what brand(s) do you think make an adequate off grid/off road rig?
Hey Rob… looks like you have a lump on your neck. You may want to get it checked out.
-Regards
I do. You are correct. Lipoma per CT scan.
what I've discerned is one needs to be a master mechanic to buy one of these. The quality control is crap.
That's not far off. One would do well to know how to do most maintenance and/or repairs as well as travel with a decent array of tools.
Disappointing that you can’t charge your batteries while driving, without installing additional equipment.
Agree. All of my RV future content is moving to youtube.com/@robthervguy on TH-cam
Not trying to be rude but, it looks like you have a lump under your neck that looks kinda concerning. Might wanna get that checked out out if you haven’t already. Best regards and great video :)
Hey there. Thanks. What you are seeing is a Lipoma. I have had it reviewed by specialists. I can't have it removed for fear of nerve damage in that area. I have, however, found a natural oil combination remedy that seems to be shrinking it slowly. Thank you for your concern. 🥰