Family of 4 looking for Sportsmobile (found one!)

[sdwindansea]

Here is my 2 cents (probably worth less). If you are looking to save money on the SMB and are unsure if you will be doing any serious off roading, do not purchase some of the options you mentioned initially. These can always easily be added on later if you feel you need them. This especially is true with the front/rear bumpers. This is over $4k in extra costs, not to mention the extra weight and you may never need them. However, they do look great. Funny thing about them though, we have a "neighbor" who just purchased their 2nd SMB. They had the bumbers on the first SMB and opted to not get them on the 2nd one. Besided the cost, the main reason they decided against them is the attention they drew. They said they couldn't go anywhere without spending time talking to onlookers .

Personally, we also decided against the upgraded wheels/tires. We will be changing these later, but I wanted to get some value out of the current setup since they barely give you any credit on the exchange.

As mentioned earlier, definitely at least go with the solar pre-wire so panels can easily be added on later if needed. It is a relatively inexpensive option (the pre-wire) and it also gives you better battery monitoring.

[jage]

I've found the counter space far outweighs having a built in stove and I cook *all* the time on the road.

[BroncoHauler]

Originally Posted by oldgoat

Herb - elaborate on the value with the solar panels. How are they saving and when? What is the value - $$ or time in the wilderness?

Primarily, the knowledge that my batteries are lways (nearly) fully charged. On a recent roadtrip to Arizon and New Mexico, we had the fridge running all the time, even for a couple of days without running the engine. Without the soalr system, I'd have concerns about running the batteries low doing this.


Herb

[jage]

When my A/C was going bad I got down to 10 volts with no solar, driving every day. Not sure how much drag on the alternator vs. not having solar panels was a factor. I'd been driving every day (5 days) an not topped off the system for a month or more.

Now I plug in at home and I've got a camping trip coming up so I'll give the system another run without solar support.