Carriage 40RE

[dem1an]

I'm about to put down my money for a Crossroads Carriage 40RE. We love the design and the looks and think we are getting a good value. We will be going full time here in January. I'm curious if anyone has any experience with the new Carriage warranty? I know they have only been building again for a couple of years, but am hoping it is similar to the RW reputation. Also, any experience with the King iCool Memory Foam mattress option? Any other words of wisdom for new owners?

[Lloyd]

Welcome to the forum John. That is a beautiful unit for sure. There are a few other Carriage owners on the forum. Hopefully they will chime in here with their comments.

I see Carriage has a two year warranty, plus they advertise them as a full time rig.

[DavisK]

Welcome to the forum.

[LeBo]

X2 Welcome to the forum.

[mark5w]

Welcome to a great forum. Questions?? Just ask and I'm sure you'll get answers.

[dem1an]

Thanks everyone!

I put down our non-refundable deposit today and we will get our 5th Wheel on the 8th! Very excited. We are trying to get rid of all our stuff for our transition.

I've started to make a shopping list at Amazon. If you have any ideas or suggestions please let me know.

Do you guys use Bio-pak and regular toilet paper with success? I really like Kirkland TP. I can't imagine changing. =)

Here's my list so far.

Homasy® Portable Mini Dehumidifier 22w Whisper Quiet Air Dryer for 20 Square Meters Area by Homasy
AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor by AcuRite
Walex BIO-11550 Bio-Pak Natural Holding Tank Deodorizer and Waste Digester, (Pack of 50) by Walex
Camco 22505 90 Degree Hose Elbow by Camco
Camco 39847 RhinoFLEX Clear 45 Degree Sewer Hose Swivel Fitting by CamcoCamco 43051 20' Sidewinder Plastic Sewer Hose Support by Camco
Camco 39741 RhinoFLEX 20' Sewer Hose Kit with Swivel Fitting by Camco
Camco 40055 Brass Water Pressure Regulator by Camco
Camco 22853 Premium Drinking Water Hose (5/8"ID x 50') by Camco
Camco 40043 TastePURE Water Filter with Flexible Hose Protector by Camco
Progressive Industries PT50C 50 Amp Portable Electrical Management System by Progressive Industries
Tablo DVR for HDTV Antennas, 4-Tuner with Wi-Fi by Tablo

[Lloyd]

Originally Posted by dem1an

Thanks everyone!

I put down our non-refundable deposit today and we will get our 5th Wheel on the 8th! Very excited. We are trying to get rid of all our stuff for our transition.

I've started to make a shopping list at Amazon. If you have any ideas or suggestions please let me know.

Do you guys use Bio-pak and regular toilet paper with success? I really like Kirkland TP. I can't imagine changing. =)


We use Scott tissue. Have for years, and it seems to be as good or better then the more expense RV paper.
Here's my list so far.

Homasy® Portable Mini Dehumidifier 22w Whisper Quiet Air Dryer for 20 Square Meters Area by Homasy
AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor by AcuRite
Walex BIO-11550 Bio-Pak Natural Holding Tank Deodorizer and Waste Digester, (Pack of 50) by Walex
Camco 22505 90 Degree Hose Elbow by Camco
Camco 39847 RhinoFLEX Clear 45 Degree Sewer Hose Swivel Fitting by CamcoCamco 43051 20' Sidewinder Plastic Sewer Hose Support by Camco
Camco 39741 RhinoFLEX 20' Sewer Hose Kit with Swivel Fitting by Camco
Camco 40055 Brass Water Pressure Regulator by Camco
Camco 22853 Premium Drinking Water Hose (5/8"ID x 50') by Camco
Camco 40043 TastePURE Water Filter with Flexible Hose Protector by Camco

Have you checked to see if they don't already have an onboard whole house water filter?
Progressive Industries PT50C 50 Amp Portable Electrical Management System by Progressive Industries
Tablo DVR for HDTV Antennas, 4-Tuner with Wi-Fi by Tablo

Congrats on the Carriage! Like I stated before, they're a beautiful unit.

[dem1an]

Thanks for the response Loyd! I don't think it does have a central filtration. I don't see anything about it on the options.

Standards & Options - CrossRoads RV

Here is the unit we purchased today and where (if anyone cares to know!). It has a swanky MyRV Android system that I'm sure will appear outdated in a few years.

New 2016 CrossRoads RV Carriage CG40RE Fifth Wheel at General RV | Dover, FL | #128764

[dem1an]

The biggest thing right now is the planning on what to sell or donate or purge from our home to downsize to an RV. What an emotional roller coaster! I do feel like as the world accumulates things it feels right the "better way" for me at least is to simplify. We are looking forward to the painful but necessary process to shed tons and tons of "things".

I was excited to hear from our salesperson that our RV has an Winegard RVW-395. It doesn't advertise that on the website. That's a plus. We'll be able to get OTA signals and it has good reviews on Amazon.

Oh, and we're having them put a king size bed in our unit. We are planning to have someone build us custom headboard. I'll post photos when we get that installed.

[cowboy_71]

Welcome to the forum, congrats on the unit! Curious if you tried to camp long time before or if you know someone who full times?

[dem1an]

We know some people, but didn't have personal experience. It wasn't an overnight decision though. We had been sitting on it for months if not years. One family I know, our sons knew each other, sold their home in 3 days and took off in an Airstream. I loved and respected this family and it did give the notion some validity, I think. Knowing they had done it, made it more "reasonable". I also came to terms with the fact that nothing cannot be undone if we hate it. We tried to buy smart. Also at some point it became something I felt we were supposed to do. I don't know if that makes enough sense to convince anyone it wasn't foolish.

[gford10480]

dem1an: Did you buy from General RV in Dover? We bought our CG38SB just a few months ago: New 2016 CrossRoads RV Carriage CG38SB Fifth Wheel at General RV | Dover, FL | #128768


Be sure to have the MyRV Android tablet demoed both in the dock and outside wireless (ours became a warranty item). If you have a safe, be sure they give you the keys and manuals to open it (another warranty item).


Nick Harrington was our salesperson, a great guy. 2nd 5th wheel we purchased from him.


All in all, our Carriage is an excellent 5th wheel, we love our split bath plan with two sliding doors to separate the bedroom and living room.

[dem1an]

Hi gford10480!

Yes! We purchased our's from Patrick at General RV. He's worked hard for us and so far the experience has been great.

That is excellent information about the safe keys and the MyRV functionality. I'll be asking Patrick to lay eyes on those things right now before we go do the demo.

Curious, how many batteries on the inverter? Is it just a single battery?

How do you like your king bed? Was it worthwhile? It's a little late for us to change now, but I'm curious if we'll be upgrading it.

[gford10480]

My wife loves the king bed mattress (and would like to have it at home); I would have preferred queen, just to save on room (the king is a tight fit). They usually come with one battery; there is room for two (we went with two, especially for the residential refrigerator).

The Tampa RV Super Show is just two weeks away.

[dem1an]

That's great news about your wife's opinion, because we love our current residential bed. It is over 10 years old and we still love it. Family (son, nieces, etc.) that have slept it in it all love it. They were kind of hoping they would inherit it. LOL.

I heard that about the RV show. They were weighing the value of that when they were negotiating with us. Do we take this unit to the RV show and try to sell or sell it before the new year. I guess they do pretty well there.

[dem1an]

Finally found the product for keeping the water from freezing. I'm getting the 25'. I'm guessing that this is typically enough length for most lots?

Camco 22904 TastePURE 1/2" ID x 25' Heated Drinking Water Hose by Camco

[gossamar]

Congrats and welcome to the family. Looks like you have the electrical covered...I also use a voltage regulator to help even out the power. You will love the auto leveling on these units and yes, they are great looking rig....

[dem1an]

Running into some issues with the 40RE. 😂 What are your thoughts (anyone) on a Landmark Maddison? Quality, etc.

[gford10480]

What kind of issues are you having with your 40RE. I've found our 2016 38SB has been pretty good.

[dem1an]

Originally Posted by gford10480

What kind of issues are you having with your 40RE. I've found our 2016 38SB has been pretty good.

All of them?

One of our chief complaints was we discovered the W/D prep was in the closet at the back of the bedroom. The orientation of the W/D is such that when you open the door of the W/D you actually block the loading path of the clothes. You end up cannibalizing even more closet space unnecessarily. On top of that, Carriage left the louvered doors on the hall closet making you incorrectly assume that this should be where the W/D would go AND sadly they also do not mark the W/D on the plans which could have avoided the confusion. We also saw a 2015 RE40 with the W/D prep in the slide, so that also contributed. Also, the W/D was installed such that the door rubbed along it and the opposing doors did not align easily when you closed them. You'd have to kind of bend them together to get them to connect.

We were also not satisfied with the sectional sofa. Due to one side being on a carpeted slide and the other half being on linoleum, the L-part of sofa sat askew from the part in the slide. It looked and felt really bad. They were going to install longer feet on the one side. I'm not sure how that would have turned out, but thought that there should have been a plan for that from the factory. Also, the sectional did not seem to interlock tightly or at all on one side, so the fit and finish didn't feel high end all to us.

We were also noticed that the ceiling material was bunching up around the length of plastic battens that run along the seams. We were told this was due to heat and moisture and the glue breaking down. The fix was to order wider strips to cover it. I wasn't totally crazy about this might end up looking and was concerned it could get worse.

We were also not too happy with the service department. They changed out the Queen to a King, but evidently didn't measure the width of mattress or a factory platform. It was wider than the mattress and it also looked like a 5th grader cut the corners with a hack saw. They also reused the bracing and it was splintered and could snag clothes and whatnot. They did eventually fix this after two more tries!

We also noticed that the 2nd step had a lot of give and squeaked loudly. The service team reinforced the step and mostly removed the noise. Also the dishwasher was installed with a bit of an exaggerated slope from other units we inspected. The AC was also making a rattling noise, but they managed to get that fixed. Finally, we didn't like that the roof and slides had a lot of that black fungus from the Banyan Trees. I'm not sure it would affect the integrity of the roof, but it didn't look great cosmetically and I thought it might affect a resale. This was an early 2016, so I guess it had been sitting for a while, hence the good price. They thought they might be able to clean it better. I don't know. ***Oh and like you said, the Linc did not work if it was disconnected from the dock.

This is our first RV, so perhaps this is all quite common, but we were pretty overwhelmed by the end of it. There are a lot of really great things about this RV, but we decided to keep looking for a better floor plan for us. Laundry will be a fairly big deal for my wife as a full-timer.

They have a Landmark 365 FL floorplan (Madison) that we are giving consideration. It was more expensive, but it only has one heat pump on the main A/C. This may be fine for Florida, but I think we may like to have it on 2 A/C's living up here in Georgia. We are hoping a gently used trade-in will show up this week. There is a big show this week in Tampa.

Our search continues!