ENTEGRA ESTEEM 29V REVIEW | 6 Month, 10K Miles | EXTERIOR
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
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Great update, thank you. My wife and I are just starting our research for our first RV. We are still undecided even on class. We are looking at 29'-32' A's and C's. The 29V is on our short list of C's. Thanks again.
Glad we could help!! I'd say the Odyssey and the Esteem are certainly top-notch for the C world. When it comes to a class A, we've looked at a lot, but couldn't justify going for anything less than a diesel pusher, but then we've at LEAST doubled the price and it made me cry a little bit. 😂 Best of luck in your search!!
Thanks for your review of the Esteeem 29V. I'm so glad you're happy with it. As you may remember, I was going to buy one of these, without the paint job, but the deal fell through because the delivery of the unit was delayed past the time I could pick it up. So I ended up with a Forest River Forester 3011 DS with almost the same floor plan. My Forester is lacking some of the features of your Esteem, but it has some features your Esteem doesn't have. The biggest difference is that I don't have that great big wind shield above the bunk over the cab ( :-) ). Instead, I have a small window on each side of the cab. On the plus side, my Forester does not have the frameless windows, so I'm able to slide open all my windows - something I really like. I want to upgrade my solar system. My rig came with just one panel, and I need to add to it and add batteries like you did. I don't have a ladder on the back :-(. Love your bike rack!
I do remember! I'm glad you're enjoying your rig!! I'm definitely jealous of your windows right now. It's too hot to be suffering as we are right now. lol The two small windows in the bunk over cab would probably help with the breeze as well. Oh man...
If you've yet to tackle solar, it's a little intimidating at first, but there are some great videos out there on exactly how to do every little thing you'll need to (which there are only so many items to cross off your list!) and hopefully our solar videos will at least help inspire you and get you going!
The ladder is nice, but our extendable ladder was around $112 on Amazon, solid as a rock. We keep it behind our driver chair and hopefully that may leave you with the peace of mind that nobody crazy is getting up on your roof all willy-nilly!!
Great video and a beautiful rig!
Thanks!
My wife and I are just coming up to our first week in our Odyssey 31F. I had the dealer swap out the fan with a maxxair fan, huge difference! The one fan makes up the issue you have with the lack of air coming in the side windows.
Our rig had the one larger A/C unit and the back just has a manual open and close cover. I had covers get put over top of them so no rain could get in if we leave them open at night.
Our Odyssey came with many of the same functional features as the Esteem, just none of the cosmetics. Driving wise it feels mushy to me but I am used to this type of Ford power steering as it was used in their luxury large sedans like the Crown Victoria. I hate it as it makes the rig feel harder to control. I have driven lots of trucks with the military and to me the unit handles about what I would expect for a heavy loaded vehicle.
It is interesting to see that your water hookups are outside as mine are in a bay so that is where I store the extra hose. In August we’ll be in provincial parks here in BC, Canada and there are no hook ups at all so it will be our taste of boondocking with just the sad two house batteries and that one 190v solar panel. It should be interesting.
We have our fan now, just waiting to install it. Great vote of confidence, thanks!! And with every other rig we've had, we just leave the vents open since we've had those covers over them, and it always worked well, especially keeping moisture at bay. I'm a bit jealous of your setup! And I couldn't agree more, this thing is a heavy beast! I didn't realize that the Odysseys had the water hookups inside. I might have actually preferred that! There are a few cosmetic changes between the two models, but doing it over again I'd probably have gone with the Odyssey given that we've swapped out half of the "upgrades" for the Esteem anyhow!
Good luck with your boondocking experience! I just glanced at our fridge and the "low DC" warning we get when our batteries are low. We just shut the converter off after 12 hours of charging... our built in units are pretty shot, I hope yours are much better!
@@CozyLivingMachine also to access your winegard admin the password should be admin
@@SeanBMT I should have been more specific - we can get in to the regular Wi-Fi settings interface, but to access the luci console (change the firewall settings, TTL, schedule reboots, etc) they’ve locked that down with a separate password entirely and I’ve yet to find a good method of flashing OpenWRT without too much trouble. I’d love to keep the hardware if possible though!
@@CozyLivingMachine yeah I haven’t figured much about it yet as I can’t figure out how the digital tv antenna works on the damn thing yet. I have books on the unit if I find anything useful I‘ll pass it on but I just tinker with this stuff, I think you’d know more than me lol!
@@SeanBMT thank you!!
Looking great guys! Have you thought about adding wind power since you are 100% off grid? I’ve seen a lot of sailboats and some larger cruisers with small wind power units. Might work on a RV🤔
We have thought a lot about it and read reviews, other setups, all that good stuff! I’m not against it, and we’ve even seen a rig in Seattle with wind installed, though the reviews are that the financial investment is too high and the units are too noisy compared to the power input to be worthwhile. They also shut off after certain speeds (50-60mph) and below certain speeds (10-15mph) which would make it unlikely to be useful where we typically live and use our rig. I love the idea though, anything to increase power and I think if we get land, that will be a great option because it won’t be directly mounted on the rig!
Love that rig ! Body paint is awesome as well as all the mods you’ve done. Great review too Joel, makes me feel more comfortable with our upcoming purchase. Do you use a dehumidifier at all ? I was wondering about that type of window 😞 I hear you have to manually open and close that exterior vent stove vent. Is this true and can you reach it ? We ordered our Odyessey with every option, but I wish full body paint was available, which I don’t get why it isn’t 🤷🏻♂️. Second best so I ordered the partial paint. I also didn’t know about those cool wheels either……🤬 Thank you for the video, very thorough and helpful. 👍👍👍👍👍👍🇺🇸 P.S I don’t like that they don’t have an exterior 110 outlet on the passenger side 🤷🏻♂️
Isn't it gorgeous? We're quite happy with it as well!
We don't use a dehumidifier currently, though surprisingly didn't have any issues being that we leave the fans and a window open as often as possible while parked. Surprisingly, no trouble. With the stove vent, we just leave it open 100% of the time (it just hangs down and the air will push it open when the fan is on!) just because otherwise we WILL forget to open it and the air circulates inside. We can reach it though, no worries there! I would have no issues recommending an Odyssey either, especially if you add just a few minor accessories. The paint job cost Jayco around $5,700 for our build, so I'd bet you could get a custom paint job around $6k,, and maybe a bit less if you do a little prep and sand the surfaces and such. A wrap might be a much faster and less expensive option! They were out of stock during part of the manufacturing window for our rig, so we almost didn't get these rims. I really like them! Glad it was helpful! As for the passenger outlet, I might suggest drilling a hole in the TV bay, and then running an extension cable down the backside from the TV power outlet so you can use that more functionally. Or just hijack that outlet... That'd be my solution, though my solutions are a bit unorthodox. 😂
@@CozyLivingMachine One of the first things I’m going to do is change out that crappy ceiling fan/vent and change out the sway bars and steering stabilizer. I heard if you don’t close the exterior oven vent it will rattle up a storm while driving. 🤷🏻♂️ sounds like yours doesn’t. The other thing that kind of bothers me is the type of knobs and locks for the exterior compartments. I would much prefer the slam latch like yours. I hear too that all these manufacturers use the same numbered lock 🤬 which means other peoples keys will work to unlock peoples stuff, and that’s unbelievable. I hope that’s not the case with the slam latch system.
@@CozyLivingMachine I'm wondering if you didn't need a dehumidifier over the winter because you were living in it full time.
I would say, personally, the stabilizer made the biggest difference, and the bump stops were the second best. The stabilizer doesn't seem to have done much for us overall, and I suspect adjusting our rear hellwig helper springs would do much more! The vent is pretty bad. lol Surprisingly, we never hear that vent flapping, though it's nice and covered from passing air - we may just be lucky though! And I forget if ours are different, though we've talked about swapping out the tumblers to make it slightly more difficult to get in to. That is ridiculous that many rigs share the same lock...
That could be, we try to keep it just warm enough in here, and monitor moisture CONSTANTLY. We learned the hard way one winter in an Airstream... never again. 🤢
I love this RV - could you please answer this concern for me- have you had any issues with how low the black water exit valve is in that have you hit on anything or had any issues when draining the RV black and grey water. Thanks
No issues at all with the black tank valve there. If we are to hit anything going over speed bumps, it is the leveling jacks, though this has not created an issue for us at all! 😊
Do you have a video of when you installed your solars. I have the same rv but there is no videos out there with our type of rv. I have so many random wires in random places and I’m assuming they are for the solars.
Absolutely! This may help, this is the four videos we have on our install overall!
th-cam.com/play/PLKQ7eCbt7812dtYxj6n4G2yAB2ca6kVKp.html
Is the bed usable with the slide in?
Sure is! We go over much more of the inside tomorrow, but fear not on that account :)
This is the rig that I am looking to live in full-time. I see you have massive solar panels on the roof of yours. My question is, is this something you added for does this rig come equipped with this much solar?
The 29V comes with a 190W solar panel, which is okay, and then we added our own 1200W system! We also did one final review video which may help you figure out things to look out for. There are some issues we hadn't mentioned in this, including the fiberboard materials being used instead of wood or plywood, but this may help you to know what to look out for when buying one! th-cam.com/video/ojZofftQPtQ/w-d-xo.html
Thank you, I’m watching it now
Have you found touch up paint? We are having the same problem with our paint chipping
Our unit actually came with touch-up paint and it had two small spots that needed touch up immediately after purchase. If you give Jayco a call, they should be able to give you the codes and you should be able to pick up from Duplicolor or the like!