Little Guy review after 6000 mile maiden voyage.

[airrj]

Well it has been almost 6 months since the end of our madden voyage with our Little Guy 5x8 TD and so I thought I had better finally get to writing this review before I forgot all of the information.

My wife and I bought a 5x8 Little Guy from Keith at Little Guy Worldwide in North Canton, OH last November (2005). Unfortunately it sat for its first six months because we didn't have time to take it out for a madden voyage. Well we both quit our jobs in early 2006 and our very first trip with the TD was from Buffalo, NY to Yosemite, CA. And once we got to Yosemite, we lived out of our TD for a month in Lower Pines Campground before returning to NY.

Some stats. We drove a total of 5980 miles with the TD and we averaged right at 20 mpg. We pulled it with a 2002 Honda CR-V with a manual 5-speed that normally gets 25 mpg. We stayed in the TD on the road a total of 10 nights plus the month in Yosemite. Our TD stays on the road were everything from friend’s front yards to Wal-Mart parking lots to National Forests to truck stops.

The Little Guy traveled perfectly behind the CR-V. Most of our driving was interstates and we would run up to 72mph with it. On rough sections of road you could hear the trailer back there but it was never a problem. Our LG came with a tri fold mattress when we got it and it held up well. We are both used to a firm mattress and so the thin (about 3”) mattress was fine for us. We did notice that it would start to sag a little bit after sleeping on it for 10 days or so, to solve that problem we would take the mattress out every week when we would change the sheets and rotate it around and it solved the problem.

The only two real problems that we had with the LG were with the doors sealing and the interior shelf loosening. Our LG has a nice little bookshelf below the interior cabinets. This shelf started to loosen up on our return trip to NY, and I must say that we were likely to blame for that since we left some moderately heavy items on the shelf while we were driving. The door sealing problems didn’t start to occur until later in the trip. I noticed that the mattress just inside the door was damp after driving in a rain storm. So I looked at the door and notice that it wasn’t closing tightly on the seal. Out came my handy #2 Phillips screwdriver and I adjusted the door latches on the door frame to tighten up the door. Problem solved? The next stop I checked the door and noticed that it was not very tight on the seal again. Did my trusty #2 fail me? No, actually it was the way the latch is secured to the door frame. The latch just has two sheetmetal screws that engage the aluminum door frame. These screws easily strip the thin aluminum frame, thus allowing the latch to slide out and loosening the door on the seal. I have not taken the time to fix this problem. I am thinking that I will have to take the door frame out and place a screw in it with a nut on the back side to keep the latch tightened up properly.

Now I must say that the seal on the rear hatch sealed up perfectly and all of the other hardware on the LG worked very nicely. Also I did not contact the LG dealer about these problems because by the time that I returned home the trailer was already 10 months old and I expect no warranty service at that point in time. Also 6 days after we returned from the trip we left the country for 7 months. So I haven’t seen the trailer to work on it at all. Look at my location up top if you want to know where we went to.

One other observation that I have about the LG is that I am not happy with the size of the rear lights. They are much smaller than any new automobile tail/brake lights. And I would like much more brake light illumination. Once we return home I will be working on a third brake light for the back of the trailer.

Overall we are very happy with the TD and we would recommend to anyone that was interested in one. And as I said before that we dealt with Keith at LG and he was very helpful at the time of sale.

We will be home in two months and we have a trip planned from Buffalo to Orlando in March/April. And we are planning to spend another month volunteering in Yosemite this July and we will be taking an extended trip across the US with the TD.

Thanks for listening to our story.

[48Rob]

RJ.

Thanks for the review.

You have an interesting job, and one that appears to pay well considering the long vacations you are able to take.

One COULD consider your Antarctic employment to be a vacation as well...

Good to see folks enjoying life for what it is

Rob

[Gerdo]

It is always good to see people USING their TDs. Glad your having fun.

[Ron]

A month in Yosemite.......WOW...That would be awsome. I only got to spend a few days there when I went, I would love to spend a month there.
Thanks for the update.

Best Regards,
Ron

[Gage]

Aw, nice report there RJ. Say on your trip back to Yosemite in July, you'll have to stop by Minden June 14th thru 17th. Meet up with TDer's from all over that will be attending the 2nd ITG. To travel the States with a Teardrop is the simple life.

Say Ron, I'll be coming to Justin, TX in early July on our way back from Minden. Maybe we can meet up somewhere.

[dwgriff1]

Second to Gerdo!

Good to see people who really use these little jewels. There should be some sort of recognition for well used trailers.

There are some that may be too beautiful to use, that is a shame.

dave

[Nic]

Volunteering in Yosemite? That would be cool! Tell me more about that. How did that work?

[airrj]

We were long term volunteers for the Yosemite Association. http://www.yosemite.org/helpus/volunteer.html#longterm

We will be in the valley again this July with the TD for another month. It is mostly giving out information to visitors. We worked 3 or 4 days and then would have 2 days off. And we worked about 5 hours a day. So we had lots of time to hike, backpack and rock climb.

Great experience.
R.J.

[Nic]

Maybe after school is out i will look into that for a month. That would be just so cool to do!! Thanks for the info!

[retiredcamper]

I enjoyed reading your travel story and the review of your Little Guy. I've pulled mine about 10,000 miles and have had no problems either. I had to go through the trailer and tighten some screws but thats it.

I did modify mine some as I found the rear galley wasn't designed right. I cut the fold up platform about four inches from the back and made the split there. The platform can now rest against the back without me having to hold it up.

happy travels
Gene

[airrj]

Nice Gene. I am about to get mine out for our trip back to Yosemite again in June. Since I was in a hurry when I got home last year I pretty much parked it as is last year. So I will take a close look at everything before we take off for the west.

[drjonesin]

Hey airrj....

I'm curious of you ever took the door frame out of your LG? I am thinking about taking out the cabinets but the LG folks said I would need to take the door out to fit the cabinets out. I'm wondering if that's a nice easy job or not..



cheers.

--Kris