It's going to be a little tight. Like it's a
narrow sight. A little bit more driver side. Perfect. Keep that
a little bit more. Perfect. I'm going to look at
this other side here just to make sure. Oh, it's good. Yeah.
Yup. Come back more.
Okay, I guess stop right there and see... Yeah, I just want to
see where we're at. Yeah. The issue is going to be the steps again on
a place, on a pavement like this. What did we do before?
I mean we had to get, it's... We won't get far enough on that
side to avoid the steps, I mean let's see how much clearance is
on the other side, I guess. So, even if you got like closer
over here, maybe. Let's see what happens when the steps go down.
So the thing is, is like over here when the actual trailer
drops here it's going to create less of a gap here so when these
come down the door won't be able to shut because this will
be shifted up like so. Right. So, I don't care for these steps
all that much because of this. We've run into this a lot. A
lot, we do. Campgrounds always have like this... Raised
pavement. Yeah, raised pavement and it's just like you can't
put your steps down all the way so. So as you can see from the
get go of this video not all campsites are created equal. I
know this is a weird topic for most of y'all out there. You're
like it's an RV step, what gives? But trust us, this is pretty
important because we ran into a lot of cons along the way ever
since owning this specific camper. And we're not saying
that these steps are awful and you shouldn't get them. We just
want to like prepare you if you're going to have a rig with
these fold-down steps that touch the ground like what to,
I don't know, look out for. Now, before going any deeper
into this video, we are not working with anybody. So, what
you're hearing is just strictly Carl Ney Ney's opinions. Take
it for what it's worth and the reason I say is because later
on in this video, we're going to be asking more of your opinions
because we personally need some help with this. Yeah, like what
would you do in this situation? Now that you have a little
context of to what exactly is going on. We're going to watch
it together. Yes, I forewarned you. You're with us. We're
going to evaluate. Hold on. Let me get my tea from my Bucee's
mug. And do you have your glasses on by the way? I do
not. Here we go. We need to come over a foot but even
then, I wonder. Oh, that will hit then, yeah. Yeah, this will
hit right here. Yeah, but even if this could rest against it
and lay on this part like... 15 inches. Let's just see. Yeah.
We just measured to see if we can get that far over on that
side. It's close. I mean, I'd have to get like super close
with tires and stuff. But we also could be forward a little
bit more. Yeah. Like you could just back up to the sewer.
Yeah, okay. Let's just do that. Let me just add also because I
know you're just about to add something. Yeah. We looked like
total newbies. Yeah, we did. In this RV park because I think
people just, I don't know, they, it took us forever to
unhook and they, they weren't sure why. It happens. No matter
how long you're doing this. Yup. You have situations where
you just look like a total noob. Ya do. So, you could
see right here the campsite's super narrow. We don't have
much room to over any further before intruding on our
neighbor's campsite. Yeah. So we had to be really careful
with this situation where we need to get that gap and that
spacing so that it could clear the raised pavement but at the
same time not intrude on our neighbors which is kind of
frustrating so. Yeah. This goes back to like RV etiquette like
how much can you intrude like on that left side and our thing
is and I don't know if this is like the real etiquette. Our
thing is like your slide that comes out should not go pass
that electrical Yeah. I think. Absolutely. From the electrical
box in is your site and use it how you want. That's a good one.
And there's a lot of different pros and cons that we want to
talk more on but hold on, let's get to the real nitty gritty
here. Well, will you be too close to the box? No, I guess
we'll be fine. Shouldn't be.
Okay, if you just follow that,
Cuz you have enough room up there to park your truck, I
believe. Yeah. Okay. Go back just straight. Don't turn it
anymore. Okay. Cuz now you're like too far over. Like you
might have to push it the other way. Yeah, push it a little bit
passenger. You're like too far. Can I just come straight back?
Yes. Oh yeah, that jack is going to hit too. Can I add
something? Okay. Yeah. What do you got? Little side note, to
communicate back and forth, we do use our cellphones and we
did a whole video where we had issues backing up and caused
like dents in the truck and you guys commented like walkie
talkies or hand signals. Yeah. We've done it all. We have had
walkie talkies before and we just didn't like the fact that
there wasn't like two-way communication because I could
be keying up the walkie talkie for too long and he could be
trying to say something. Yeah. So, we like the cellphones but
what you gotta take into account with cellphones is there's a delay
so I always tell him way ahead of time to stop. Stop. Stop.
Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. That's a good point. Cuz
we've had that. Mm. Yep. We won't go into that now. Cuz
you have enough room up front, right? Yeah. Okay.
Pretty good like 6 feet. Okay. 3 feet. 2 feet. One foot. Okay,
right there. Let's just see. Will the electric
reach. I don't know. It's from here to here. So, equal distance.
Um, I don't know if they give us enough to work with so. That's
fine. I mean, you can get even closer if you want. This heater
here will this be okay? I don't want heater closer here so if
anything happens. Well, we're not going to use heat, I don't
think. It seems like it's going to be good. Moment of truth.
Oh wow. You could even get closer I guess if you want but...
We're good like that. Yeah. Perfect.I don't really care
for these steps. I'll be honest. Like honestly I mean
they're more stable but when you run the situations like
this you don't have very many options to go with so. Alright
quit your yapping. How does this apply to you guys? Well if
you don't own steps already we're going to point out some
pros and cons like mentioned before of these steps
specifically and if you do own these steps well maybe you
haven't run into some of the situations we're about to talk
about as well. But now you'll be prepared thanks to the
Hanks. Yeah. Oh wow. Rocking it. I love that. Nice job
today. Ooh. Let's start it off with some pros of the steps. I
like to give the goods first because they are good steps.
Yeah, let's take steps in that right direction. I like what
you did there. Initially, our first trailer, we had the fold
down steps like you would see on a normal trailer. With these
actual step above steps, they're a lot more stable and
they can handle a lot more weight it seems. Very durable,
would you say? Oh, yeah. In the mornings in your robe, you
could stay on that bottom step and dance and wave like do I do
that? Maybe. Maybe. I'm just saying they're very solid. And
another part is, is they are a heavier step but it is spring
assisted. So when you go to lift up the steps you can
actually just like use your pinky and it will like help
lift the step up there for you so you're not breaking your
back. Which is really cool. Right. I like that and it is
really nice to have steps that are sturdy so you don't feel
like you're going to die every time you walk up and down. But
getting more into the cons of the situation because there's
quite a few we want to touch on and we have a lot of experience
with all of these. So these are all personal cons you get to
laugh at all of our faults and mistakes that we made along the
way. The first one being is the gouging of the door itself. Not
quite related to the situation but if you are unlevel with
your steps and you bring them down and they make good contact
on the ground but then you just assume it's good contact and go
slam your door, it might hit and it hits hard and it can really
gouge the crud out of the bottom of your door. We've
done that before. I've misjudged and I was like,
they're good and it just like, is it like screeches across
like... It's the worst sound ever and it could damage your door.
I could put extra like pressure on your hinges of your door. It
can really kind of screw some things up. So, I don't like
that it's completely, you have to like double triple check to
make sure the door closes before you actually shut it
like a normal door. It does make setting up take a little
bit more time than those regular fold-out steps. No
doubt. Because after we're done auto leveling which will get
into another issue. Yes. After auto leveling, I have to really
get down and make sure the steps are equal on both sides
because I don't like when one side of the steps is like ever
so slightly uneven and makes that slamming sound when you
walk on it. Oh yeah because if they're not down equally
touching the ground it will kind of like, when you step on
it, it will shift weight and it's like ding ding ding, it's,
it's super annoying but... Well we had a lot of you guys reach out and
say shims, get shims. And we did. Another thing that we've
been having a lot of problems with is the actual, when the
step is fully retracted into the doorway is actually making
a good contact with the screen door and the door itself. We
were driving one time along the road and then all of a sudden
looked in the rear view mirror and the door was flopping back
there. It had opened during transport so that really stunk.
We're like whoa door's open. And we pulled over immediately.
And the reason why is because we were like really slamming on
the door to make sure it like got seated within the like the
deadbolt there, the slam latch and it just wasn't enough, no
matter what we did. We would put the handle over the door to
kind of help ensure it and that made some wear and tear on our
RV lock. Right. Well, when we were at the Myrtle Beach Grand
Design Rally, one of the Lippert techs came over. Oh,
that's right. And helped us like realign our screen door
and it seems like it's fine now. Yeah, it seems like it's
okay. But. But yeah if your door is not perfectly perfectly
put on the hinges correctly and you put those steps up it will
like maybe open while driving. Heck you guys know how it is in
the RV life. I mean it's hard enough to get those doors to
shut properly without any steps in the way. So now when you add
that extra width of the steps it's just like ugh. It's just
something to look out for. You're going to laugh. This has
happened so many times. We get in such a rush when we get to
the campsite. We put the steps down and then we find that it's
not good enough or later on we figure out we need to re auto
level. Mmm. And then you take shortcuts and you forget that
the steps are still down when those steps are down and the
door is shut and you go to reauto level and the trailer
starts dropping more and putting more pressure on those
steps you're going to jack your door up so hardcore it's, it's
not even funny. It's not funny. So that's a problem, you really
have to ensure that the steps are fully retracted before you
do any maneuverability or any changes with the auto level, all
that. You can't just, it's just one more thing to remember. We did talk
about this in our setup video and that video goes over many
things of how to like set up in order to prevent incidents like
this happening. Oh we'll throw that one up there as well.
Go back and check that one out after you're done with this
video because we got a lot of good information in that one
too. Another issue which is actually the opposite of this
whole video. Yeah. Is that when the steps come down and they
will never hit the ground. They're just like high as
Timbuktu. Is Timbuktu a mountain or it a far away
location? It's pretty up there. Basically, you extend those
legs as far as you can go and they still don't touch the
ground but then you run into a situation where the Hanks are
like, it's fine. We'll throw rocks under there. Putting this,
these RVs to their full potential. Oh. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. That's great. And the door shuts. Where was that? Where
did we do that? Where did we throw rocks under? Um, we were at
like a city park in South Carolina. Yes. Yeah. And had we
not had those rocks? We would have been. We would have found,
we would eventually found rocks. I don't know what would
happen because the steps were still that far off the ground
fully extended. So, we would of had to like run and jump into
the door basically. Well, we would have used our orange
blocks but we already like used up all of our orange blocks to
like... Yeah, the site was so unlevel already. So...
And that's, that happened because our right side of the
trailer had to come up so high to make it level. We had to
actually use our Beech Lane levelers and the auto level
like double whammy. Yeah. I kind of miss that about our old
trailer with steps that just kind of folded down real fast. I
mean, it didn't matter how far you are off the ground. But in
that situation, you still have to leap up to get to the steps.
That's true. So, either situation, you're at an
increased risk for a tripping hazard. Yeah. Which I want to
talk about those steps later on that I heard about but we'll
get into that in a second. There's a frequent accident
that does happen to people when they RV and a lot of it is falling
down the steps. We've seen it a lot in the ER. People have
fallen broken hips, broken legs, ankles, so... Like coming out of
their RV because they didn't grab the handle, always grab the
handle. I don't care if you're 18 or 105, grab the handle on
the way up and down. Here's a crummy situation. Let's say
you're taking down your campsite and it's pouring rain
out and you're trying to stay dry and you're just doing
things quickly when you go to raise the step above steps back
into the rig all that water is going to run off into the
inside of your camper, it's happened so much to us. So now
we have to keep an extra towel there and like to accommodate
for all water going back into the RV. Not only does this
apply to rain but this is also applicable to like dirt and
bugs and any other junk that you accumulate. If you don't
sweep off your steps every single time you pack up your
campground. All that junk's going to go right into your
trailer and it's going to be waiting for you when you get
home. Which is why I like to clean when we get to our
destination because if I clean before, you're just putting the
steps up you're like well dang it. Yeah. RV life baby. That's
all I'm talking about. Hashtag RV life. This next one also hits
home. There's been instances where we are pulled over or we
just got a quick go inside the RV and we try to put the steps
down and they hit something. We were at a rest stop on our way
to Mount Rushmore and we had to do like a hardcore rock
climbing session to get into the RV. Even then, even if we
were in that situation, we've run in situations where being
at truck stops or rest areas, you're really in there tight
sometimes and dropping those steps, I even heard of people that put
their RVs in storage units with other RVers, they say that is
the most likely place that this is going to happen. Yes.
Because when you back in, they back in so tight in those areas
to make the most use of all the storage area. And what people
do to fix that situation, I've read on forums, is they'll
actually like unscrew those steps completely when they go
in storage. Like they'll take those steps off and then
they'll just put like a regular step ladder up there. That
kind of sounds like a hassle. It is a hassle, I guess, but if
you really like the steps then that's your option. So obviously in
all these scenarios one size does not fit all. Everyone's
going to have different circumstances. Different
opinions which is fine. One thing we heard about that we're
not paid for whatsoever but we might look into later is the
torque lift, Glow steps I believe is what they are. Yeah.
Our buddy Nic has some. Yeah. And they're really nice because
they are like a step above only they retract underneath your
doorway. Right. So they pull you can customize them like
it's really super nice but I heard they have come with a
heavy price on them as well so. There's no perfect step out
there. Don't unhook until you look. I like that. You
said that one before? Maybe. Nice.