as most of you know we've been testing the Grech Strada-Ion we're testing the first model the 2022
Grech Strada-Ion for about six months and then we recently dropped that one off and got the
2023 model of the Grech Strada-Ion and now we've been in it about a month I think it is made some
upgrades some things that we really like some things that we liked before but we're going to
go over all that today we're not going to really show everything that we you know where we put
everything inside because that's actually in a previous video that's called returning the class
B so if you want to see how we store everything and how much storage this thing has you can go
back to that video today's video is really just to give you an updated tour of the newer Strada-Ion
the 2023 I think the awning might be a little different but it looks pretty much the same as the
other one all right for starters as you can see it's pretty much the same style the other rims had
these little oh I think call them studs that went all the way around next to the lug nuts [Music]
key for this is different now they got a little bit more secure key that
one key doesn't fit all you got the same latch it's over here you got your city water connection
you got your fresh water feel everything's the same in here your outdoor shower this is
your hose reel your hose is in here you pull it out and it auto retracts back in you got your
waste pump you turn that on and it activates the macerator and empties the tanks you want
your gray tank you do this that light's blinking that tells you that the gray tank is still open
shut and that tells you that it's shut this is your power connection 30 amp power it's
got the same latch there as you can tell I put these quick connects on here so I can
put our hoses on really fast there's your sewer hose that's on the water retracting reel this
here is your exhaust for your diesel burner your Timberline a diesel burner from Elwell same thing
on here they use the same key nice and Sleek having all this hidden then you don't see any
of those connections whatsoever it just looks like a regular tour van very very nice [Music]
so opening up the doors here the storage is still the same they haven't changed anything
back here your lithium ion batteries are still in the same place but the thing is
with this model they have two larger batteries the other model had four
[Music]
I'm coming inside because it's chilly out there again this video we're going to talk mainly just
about what the updates are do we like some of the improvements do we not like them originally
on the 2022 model that we had there was a flip up table uh loose little table but it was very nice
it just stayed put here it was flip up flipped down and Brian used it when he needed to work we
used it obviously for the sink extra dishes and cooking and such and it was easy to just put it
right back down in place going in and out of the door but on this 2023 model they replaced that
with an option for a lagoon table which would hook onto here and it's just like the one that I use in
the back for my work but this was an additional Lagoon table and we just felt that it was kind
of in the way of the pathway in and out of the door so you would need to take it off really a
lot and then store it in the closet the space in the closet were already kind of crunched as it is
so it just took up more room the way they come they come with just the one but you can buy an
extra Lagoon table if you want and have one back here like we have and have another one here then
you got to store that one away the one Michelle uses for her work we just keep it there and just
move it in and out Michelle can still sleep there on that side with that table there we just move
it to the center if you're just gonna use the one like she said it's a pain to keep moving that back
and forth or if you have two you can't leave that other one here or it's always in the way because
it's a bigger table it's bigger than the other one that used to be here that just folded down you had
to put it somewhere and where do you put it there is a little area in the closet that holds it but
that Lagoon table has an arm on it and it sticks out into our clothes in there and we lose a lot
of space for clothes just because of that and when somebody has a lot of clothes you don't have
much room as it is so we actually gave that table back to Grech and told them we're just going to
do without it so we really liked that other little pop-up table it was really handy to just pop it up
and pop it down whenever you need it even though it's smaller than the Lagoon table it was really
handy yeah I know what they were thinking they were thinking that table be nice and handy to
swing outside when you have the door open but I'm not really sure how many people would use it that
way yeah for that you know maybe but then but then you can't even shut this you can't shut the screen
or nothing so it depends on what climate you're in when you're using that if you're in California
yeah it would be fine you're not going to have a bunch of bugs flying in here but if you're
anywhere in the Midwest and the East Coast there are a lot of different places Texas even I suppose
um again you can't use that table outside unless you have the door open
so again we thought that it was better the way they had it before for us right well another
extra feature is we now have an additional shelf in the closet this is your space for
closet but we now have four shelves where we had three before and they are very deep like
that's about as deep as they are so you do go back there quite a ways and you can get
you know quite a bit of stuff in there so we were pleased with the extra shelf we just put
this little uh extra hook on here for a coat hat jacket whatever now the fridge is also different
uh before we had a fridge with the freezer uh which was about the size of a shoe box
all inside and down below it was still part of the refrigerated part that had a pull out drawer
and we would use that for a lot of our water bottles and drinks and stuff like that now the
freezer is down here and it is bigger so we don't have the shoebox freezer anymore yay we actually
have a decent sized freezer we can put more in it so we do like that feature and in the fridge
there's a little bit of shelving difference um I think it's deeper yes which I like that this whole
refrigerator is deeper right and they have these little things that flip up and down so you can put
tall things in there and it holds them still yeah so they don't fall over each one of them have that
they should have alternated this should be the the refrigerator company this isn't Grech's fault it
should have alternated and have this over here so that you can use this one over here and then
again use this one here right but we do like the the change in the fridge another added feature is
this little drawer down here we didn't have that before and it's just tiny but hey you know extra
drawers you can put more things in on the 2022 model we asked for them to put a bigger mirror
on on the door here so that when you're getting dressed you can kind of see what you look like
and Michelle uses it for like doing her makeup sometimes too they sent us a mirror and we ended
up putting it on the outside of the door which was it was nice that we can put the door here we could
put this drawer out and the door would stop here and we could use it looking at ourselves and stand
back a ways so that we can see ourselves now they put it on the inside of the door which is a good
idea that works well because Michelle uses it on the inside so that she has more Lighting in there
for like doing makeup and then we bought these lights to put here on the side I think we showed
that in that previous video also when we returned the other class B the 2022 they're magnetized and
they go here and here and you can turn them on with a little switch and it really shows up good
for doing makeup she can do it standing here but she likes to be inside a little bit better and
close the door well when she's in there for five hours it's really hard for me okay maybe three
two okay anyway when she's in there I can't use the mirror or anything so I could you know I
can we have a little fold up mirror I can sit here and kind of you know do my thing there but I don't
have a bigger mirror and the thing about when you have a class B it's all about space we don't want
to get another mirror that we have to put away somewhere because there's something else that
has to be stored away we could get another mirror to put on the outside of this too but you could do
that if you wanted to that person's inside using that one not only are they taking up the mirror
but you don't have access to go into the bathroom so it's you're better off if you can use it out
here so those little lights helps her she can do her makeup out here but she still likes to do her
makeup in the bathroom better you need to schedule in your time in the bathroom now everything back
here is pretty much the same we always leave this bedding down so it's kind of access to twins when
you put these two in the Ottomans in I think it's like two inches short of a king-sized bed but to
us that doesn't make a difference really we it reminds us too much of the Airstream where it's
hard to get in and out of the bed we didn't have much room in that Airstream to get it in
and out through the side so I always crawled in crawled off and crawled on you kind of I went out
so we leave it like this because we always thought that we wish we had the twin in that Airstream and
this kind of resembles that leaving this open in here so we leave our bedding on here most of the
time if we know we're going to have somebody come over we roll these things up real quick they're
the "Disc-o-bed" by Duvolet we've mentioned those before we've got them on our Amazon store if you
go to livinrvision.com click on Amazon store up above and you can go to our store and find them
there they're really handy they're really nice the cover comes on top comes all the way over to here
so you can like tuck yourself in and everything with them this is a segue to get to what what they
did here since we leave these up all the time they we used to have to reach underneath and sometimes
I have to lay on the floor to get to the plug-in to plug something in unplug something both sides
yeah so they moved them up top here so it's easy to have all our phone charging cords and also
USB to the two different kinds of USB that you can use them and they have them on both sides here
one other thing that they took away there used to be these little handles
here that would come down and it was you could pull them down to hang clothes on
um I think they actually went sideways here but they took them out we really didn't use them
we did not I can't even think of what we did use them the only thing we used because there was one
on each side but the only thing we used on your side was to hang our little fan oh yeah at night
we had a little portable fan that had a little hook on the bottom of it that you could hang it
there and so yeah but that was it that was that's all we ever used there's nowhere to really hang it
there now but that's what we used that for one other update that they did is they changed the
material that they used all along here and it is easier to wipe up any kind of splatter or stain
or anything than the previous material like when Brian's like really messy when he cooks and goes borka borka borka whatever
really have any issue is with the previous material in the other van so
they're both good in other words but it is a different material so again this video is just
on the updates there hasn't been a lot of updates with this but they are trying you know their newer
company in the RV industry and they're trying to perfect this as much as possible that's kind of
what they have us out there testing this for is so that we can tell them what we like and don't
like we're not out here to sail this is great this everything's great you've got to buy one because
we're not going to do that we've been loving it and we like the size it's a little bit bigger
it's not you know again this is a 24 foot if you go out there and look at Vans and you're like
how in the world do they live in that if you're looking at a 17 foot or a 20 foot depending on
the floor plan and everything a few feet make a difference big difference you know even the what
was it the Terreno that we had a similar floor plan but since it was shorter you lost a whole bunch of
space up here and you don't have the storage back here it's still a great great unit we've
still how long have we been in this since the end of March so no well in the 2022. now this new one
we've been in here for a little over a month I can't remember when it was but anyway again the
table we wish they'd bring that back we liked it better in fact I would think there would be a way
that you could actually make both of them work so you could still have the other table maybe put a
little extender on that bracket so it sticks out so it goes past that table that pops up
um but um but yeah that's the only thing that we miss we really love we're so glad they put
these outlets up here especially for us since we leave this this couch down all the time and
um that comes in handy for us we don't have to I don't know how many times they've been on the
floor and crawl down there and reach for it um uh we could put the couch up to get it but when you
got your bedding here it's in the way as you've noticed this is the darker interior also we like
it we think it's pretty but we liked personally we like the lighter interior better especially
when you're in a smaller space right yeah to feel bigger kind of it's just dark color perfect
it does have a little bit different suspension to it than the 2022 model the engine on the Mercedes
is the same the uh the transmissions the same everything as far as the Mercedes itself is the
same except for the different suspension that was added to this by Grech the tv is the same the appliances
are the same except for the refrigerator like Michelle said convection oven same drawers all the
storage is the same except for the extra storage that we had down there and the extra shelf in the
closet closet and again if you want to see how we stored everything in throughout here you'll
be surprised how much storage there is in this go back to our returning the class B video it's
just a few videos back and there's also another video prior to that one that's our tour of women
two model that was back in March of 2022 if it was somewhere around there okay all right all right
okay okay okay are we ret-ta-go you guys ret-ta-go? let's go let's go see you next week bye
[Music]
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