RV LIFE Podcast
The RV LIFE Podcast, created by one of the premier companies in the RV industry, is for the RV Community with a mission to Educate, Entertain and Explore the RV Lifestyle. The Podcast will explore all things RV Life: living, working, exploring, learning. With host Patti Hunt, full time RVers, content creators, educators and explorers.
RV LIFE Podcast
The RV Chassis: Why The Chassis Is So Important
Wondering what's under your RV? Come join us as we uncover the secrets of the RV Chassis with our esteemed guests Bryan Henke and Jeremy Buckmeier from Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation. Our guest help you understand what you're buying and why the chassis is the most important part of your motorhome.
We recorded the RV LIFE Podcast live from the Freightliner Tent at the Hershey RV Show. Thank you Jeff Sather - CEO, and everyone that welcomed us during the show.
Maintenance, the holy grail of RV ownership, is a topic we tackle head-on with our guests. Benefit from the wealth of knowledge they bring from Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, as they enlighten us about educational programmes such as Camp Freightliner. This course is designed to educate RVers, regardless of their experience level, about their vehicle's various components and necessary maintenance. If you thought your co-pilot was just for company, think again! In the RV world, they're your vital second set of eyes, also learning about the RV chassis.
Have you heard the story of a customer who enjoyed their motorhome for an impressive 21 years due to Freightliner's unwavering customer support and education? It's just one of the many testimonials to their dedication to customer satisfaction. From their innovative DriveTech system to the V-Ride and V-Series suspension systems, they are truly at the forefront of the RV industry. If that's not enough knowing you have Freightliner Customer support 24/7 365 days a year, is the greatest piece of mind if you ever get stuck on the side of the road.
Find out more about FCCC at Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp
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Why is choosing your RV chassis so important? You're listening to the RV Life Podcast. I'm Dan Hut, with my incredible wife, Patty Hut, sitting right next to me. Here we are live from America's largest RV show, the Hershey RV Show, and we are guests in the freight liner Custom Chassis Tent. What a great place to be. I gotta tell you, we're on our bottoms instead of on our feet walking around this huge location. Hundreds and hundreds of RVs here, lots of barbecue sauce. We even have who's that? Chick-fil-a has a truck here. Wow, We've got everything at the Hershey RV Show, which is America's largest RV show. I'm Dan Hut, again with my incredible wife, Patty Hut.
Speaker 2:We have been on the road for over two and a half years and I gotta be really honest, I had no idea how important the chassis is on our motorhome. We have a 2002 Monaco diplomat, so 20 years old time to turn her in for something new and I've learned so much about the importance of an RV chassis, and that's what we're going to share with you today, because I think it's probably the number one thing that people need to know before they buy a motorhome.
Speaker 1:Until I get that horn, and that sound means it's time for today's fun fact, brought to you by Open Road Resorts with four great locations in Montana, utah and Texas.
Speaker 2:And these guys do campgrounds right. I've got to tell you we talked to Chase Becker, who is the owner of Open Road Resorts. The four locations Sound amazing Montana, utah. You probably have to wait until next spring, summer, because they're probably getting ready to close. It's getting cold up there, but we are going to the Texas location, which is in Dallas, and I can't wait to bring you some pictures. Seems like an amazing place. Now let's get to the fun fact. The chassis is essentially the foundation vehicle that your motorhome is built upon. It includes the cab, the engine and all the underpinnings. The home is the living area built onto the chassis. I've got these guys here. Did I get that right? Absolutely. Hey, that's your fun fact.
Speaker 1:Now I have to tell you, as somebody who has owned RVs my entire life, I used to have a fleet of rental RVs. That is something that I did not really know and understand until Tampa last year, the Tampa RV show, when I met Jeff, the president and CEO of Freight Line in Tampa. Now I got to tell you he changed my outlook on RV. I don't even look at an RV we always wanted. We knew we wanted to tip in. We knew that we wanted a certain model of that tip in. Now we know we now want a Monoc.
Speaker 2:No, not a Monoc. That's what we have. We have a Monoc, we have a new Mar.
Speaker 1:We want a new Mar on a Freight Line or chassis with that tag wheel in the back. What a great thing that tag wheel in the back is. It's got to be the steering tag wheel in the back. You're going to drag that correctly, absolutely Right now. That thing is incredible. I drove one of these at the Santa L'Arby show and you know how tight these RVs are out there. Well, I was able the first time getting in this 44-foot RV For the very first time I got in that thing and I was able to move that out with about a foot in the front and a foot in the back. I was able to just take it right outside. What I should have done is just drove out on the road and kept on going, because that was a beautiful, beautiful RV that we were in.
Speaker 2:We're getting really excited here. We're going to jump into all of this. I am grateful for all the people that we meet, being at the Freight Line of Food and all the things that we've learned. That is our purpose in the podcast is to bring you this incredible information. Okay, when traveling in your RV, how do you navigate? Do you use a paper map, a GPS, or do you use Google Maps? Our sponsor, rvtripwizard, has the solution, and it just works.
Speaker 1:It just works. Every time we get in our RV we have a plan, and that plan comes from RVTripWizard. I'm not driving a little Volkswagen out there. I'm not driving a little Fiat out there. I'm driving a 44,000-pound 40-foot RV. You got to know what you're doing. You got to know what bridges you have coming up. You got to know what tunnels you have coming up.
Speaker 1:I show a video in our seminar here, where an RV went under a train trestle and just took the whole top of it off like that. It's really, really, really important. You're listening to the RV Life Podcast.
Speaker 2:Come on in and have a seat.
Speaker 1:This is the RV Life Podcast. I'm Dan Hunt with my incredible wife, patty Hunt, our guest today. Well, this company was established in 1995 and is trusted by the most respected names in the RV, walk-in van and commercial bus, not to mention the school bus industries. Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation is a leading manufacturer of premium vehicle chassis. As part of the Daimler family, Freightliner Custom Chassis shares the heritage and engineering excellence of Freightliner Mercedes-Benz and leveraging the expertise of heavy-duty durability and precision performance to infuse each and every one of their chassis with the best of all worlds. That is a lot Now from Freightliner. Today we have two guests with us. We have Brian Hinkley and Jeremy Hinkie. Hinkie and Jeremy Falkheimer.
Speaker 1:We want to welcome you both to the RV Life Podcast and look over to that side because our social media person is over there taking pictures right now. So everybody's got a smile, that's right.
Speaker 2:Okay, so again, welcome to the RV Life Podcast. We are so grateful to have you on.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you, I'm going to get right into it and I'm going to be one of my listeners that doesn't know a lot about RVs. That's me, okay, her Me, you're talking to me, why you know? And I sat at dinner with your CEO and talked to him about this and I'm like Jeff, why are you even here at an RV show? What are you doing? And I got to tell you. The first question is why is that chassis so important in your decision-making process?
Speaker 5:You know a lot of people don't understand the difference between the body and the chassis the body side. If you have a challenge with the cabinet door or something like that, it's not going to ruin a vacation. You have a problem with the chassis, it's going to impact your vacation that you've. You know your lifestyle, you've saved up all this time You're taking vacation and a chassis can turn that into a bad experience. So a good chassis that has the backing and the serviceability behind it is crucial to a successful trip.
Speaker 2:Okay. So now I'm going to go back. In the beginning I kind of talked about what the chassis covered, but I want you to also explain that for our listeners. I thought the chassis was just this big metal frame. I mean, I'll be honest, I saw it here at the show last year. How many people thought that? Anybody with me on that? You just okay. People are saying yes, it's a podcast. I could say they're saying yes. So what? Talk about what the chassis includes?
Speaker 5:So yeah, when you look at it here at the show, you see frame rails, nothing super sexy, right, but it is really the key foundation. Once the bodybuilder puts some of their structure on it, that is going to create that solid foundation. You know we control at FCC the engine, transmission, wheels, tires, ages, steering wheels all of the key components that you would typically take it, not take advantage of or not think of. You know you buy a car it's all the same manufacturer, right. You buy a Toyota. Everything on the vehicle is a Toyota.
Speaker 5:So customers really need to understand and that's what we're here for is to educate them where does the chassis stop and where does the body side come into play? That way, if you run into a scenario you can educate yourself on. You know, do I call Freightliner Custom Chassis or do I call the bodybuilder? That's very important and you know, at FCCC we've got a call center that's 24 hours, seven days, week 30, 65 days a year. We have great partnerships with all of our bodybuilders and our technicians on that call can help decipher the difference, so we can be that first call in line of defense and we can help navigate that. So that's where we really come into play.
Speaker 6:We don't take that lightly when we talk about the support element of it, because it's expensive, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of effort to actually have factory direct support 24 hours a day. Buy factory trained people who have had an average 18 to 20 years of experience. That's who you want to talk to and that's exactly what this RV experience is all about. They want to make sure there's somebody there. It's not a third party, it's not a call center after hours For the only ones that can actually provide factory direct support 24 hours a day. And that's what a piece of mind is what an RV is looking for and that's for the life of the coach, that's true.
Speaker 5:Okay, for the life of the coach.
Speaker 1:That's not a thousand five years, it's a hundred thousand miles, that's 40.
Speaker 5:No, that's the life of the coach, so anybody that got our first coach in 95 can call this call center.
Speaker 2:And I will say that from my standpoint. Whether it's something on a coach now Monica is not around anymore so we can't call them but when you buy something, when people buy anything, they want to be able to talk to somebody, and that happens less and less. So to know. I just want to reiterate you said 365 days a year, 24, seven, because we know our major problems happen at nine o'clock on a Sunday, on a holiday, in the rain, on the side of the road. So that is something that people absolutely have to take into consideration when they're making a purchase, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Now I do want to say to our listeners right now that we, the RV Life Podcast and Dan and Patty Hunt personally, are not affiliated with Freightliner.
Speaker 1:But I got to tell you these are the guys and we only would affiliate with customers and companies that have the structure that we see at Freightliner. Now, I sat at dinner about seven months ago at Tampa with Jeff, the CEO of Freightliner, and Casey, the CEO of Newmar, and we were talking about this exact issue about who do you call, and Casey said almost 80% of our calls originate from Freightliner. So if you've got a problem, if I've got a problem, we did something. You can go to our YouTube channel. Look at this if you want to laugh at Patty and April Wealth.
Speaker 1:We were boondocking on a farm here in Pennsylvania and it rained six inches in two days. That's a lot of water on a farm and we sunk. We sunk right down to the actions. So we were all the way down and Jeff's like well, you should have called us. Well, we're not afraid of that. We had a moniker and moniker was building their own chassis at the time that that happened. But I will say that when we finally did, we tried to fix it ourselves and just made it worse when we finally did call somebody for some help to come in and you'll see it in the video. If you go over to the YouTube channel, we'll put a link to it in the show notes as well below.
Speaker 1:But we burnt up the first tow truck that came out to pull us out. I mean a 44,000 pound RV, a 40 foot RV. They sent us out in the F-350 with a tow thing on the back and that didn't work out for him very well, so he burnt up his clutch completely trying to tow us out. And then they sent us one of these big boys that really just kind of pulled us out like butter. But Jeff made it very clear to me that if something like that ever happened and we have, our next coach was going to be a new Mar honor freight liner chassis with that third tow wheel, because I love that thing.
Speaker 1:Jeff made it very clear that you're the first call, absolutely. And then on top of that I want to get into something. I'm going off of the script a little bit here, but I see it over on the side. I sat in on your fireside chat. You're here to educate. You have these fireside chats every afternoon while we're at this show and at some of the other shows as well. But you're here to educate.
Speaker 6:We're here to answer questions, obviously from a product standpoint, but education on understanding your RV to the extent that you want.
Speaker 3:If you're not a mechanic.
Speaker 6:You need to know everything, but you might need to know at least the basics. Right, because we buy an RV to enjoy the RV lifestyle. You don't need to be Definitely get frustrated when someone says well, I read every manual and I highlighted stuff. It's like you're doing it wrong. You know what I mean. Just fully understand we're here to support you, give a little education, but enjoy the RIV lifestyle is exactly why you purchase your motorbike.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and again, we're not here selling.
Speaker 3:We're not. We're not.
Speaker 5:We're here to support the retail consumer. That has the questions. Brian and his team on the marketing side, yes, we do the fireside chat, which is, you know, kind of walks you through some maintenance type stuff, but they also do a seminar that's known, before you buy. It has nothing to do with chassis. We are here to educate consumers what's the right product for you as a consumer. It might be a class B, we don't sell those. It might be a class C, we don't sell those. We're really here to truly educate the consumer to make the best purchase decision, to make the best educated decision on whatever it is they're here to acquire.
Speaker 6:We truly believe that. I mean, Jerry and I have 50 years of part of the experience sitting right here and we're a steward of the industry, Not only, obviously, building a product, but we're stewards of this industry. We're invested in this industry and that's obviously why we do the education side of it, informing people when they come to these shows.
Speaker 2:And I love that. I was an educator for 20 years, so to me that's the most important thing. We talk to a lot of people that are just getting started. They don't know where to start. They don't know what we want. I've had people come up and say what's the best RV for me? I have no idea. We have a class A for family. It might be a fifth wheel. So education is incredibly, incredibly important. And you brought up maintenance. So how important is that? I mean you said people sit down. They either read all the manuals they spend so much time doing that, trying to figure it all out for themselves or you have people on the other side that get on the road. They don't do anything and it's confusing. It's a confusing spot. So do you talk to people? Somebody buys an RV with a freight line or chassis. Do you talk about maintenance? Absolutely.
Speaker 5:So that is the other key point that we tried to do at these shows and Brian does a lot online try to make sure consumers are educated. It is so important because diesel pusher over at home or a rescue product a lot of consumers aren't familiar with diesel products or air ride, air brake systems and air systems themselves. So this morning I actually had a conversation with a gentleman who was mechanical and familiar with vehicles he actually had a friend of his come to him with the problem with his coaches coaches 20 years old.
Speaker 5:He's like well, have you ever had your air dryer service? And the guy's like what are you talking about? I've never had his air dryer service, which should be serviced every three years, and the guy's air system is not working. So you don't have brakes, you don't have any of that. So that's what we want, wait, wait wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:You mean that his air horn didn't work? That's my favorite part of the whole dark coaches that air horn up on top.
Speaker 6:And we do education. Obviously we do it in steps right. So when we're here at the Hershey show or any other show, we do obviously a little fireside chat. So there's a reason why we call it a fireside chat, because it's just a short little educational thing. But one thing I do want to talk about is at the factory or virtual is our camp freight liner. Our camp freight liner is a very in depth two day course for someone who really wants to understand everything and we actually do it virtually if you can't come to the factory, but when you're at the factory get the full, the full immersion of freight liner and getting in. Our trainer waste rugs is is leading the class. But the camp freight liner is probably the most popular training session out there and it's been like that for 20 years. So highly recommend if somebody wants to deep dive into it. Camp freight learners.
Speaker 2:Okay, I want to hear more about that Because and again, I've been here for days I didn't hear. I heard a little bit about that. But explain to people. You know what camp freight liner I love the name. If freight liner is, you got a T T there, yeah, whatever. For exposing me Because it offers so much. You can't possibly.
Speaker 6:Obviously, camp freight liner. We do about 18 to 20 classes per year and they're in person. We do four in person per year. We do four virtuals, but we're also. We go to rallies. So if you go to an FCOC or freight liner customer chassis owners clubs, we do camp freight learners here New Mark, country Coach Rally, thor rallies and from a main step standpoint it's huge. We go literally step by steps through everything in care and understanding everything from the air system to electrical to tire care, to engine to transmission, really understanding that. And we actually recommend that your co pilot comes with you, typically your wife. Why? Because we want to understand. We want to make sure that they both fully understand what's going on and, believe me, the guys love it right and but the women really are. The co pilot really does understand it a lot and they do a good job of helping the husband out and things of that sort. So it's extremely in depth and highly recommended.
Speaker 2:So, brian, I'm just going to say before, there is a lot to it. You do need those because there's a lot of information. We were just invited and until Dan, yet by Jeff to go to the freight liner corporation. We were invited to go there. So I hope we'll be there while there is camp freight liner, because I think it's such a great idea.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the big thing about that class is we try we we limit it to a certain number of coaches and Wayne does research on your specific. Then when you sign up and he will create a four year specific then. So when he's talking to the group he's not going to be talking about stuff that doesn't pertain to anybody in the group. It's very specific and he gets applause all the time from both pilot and co pilot because he puts it in terms that even a stupid sales guy like myself understand. So just it's phenomenal. I've never heard a bad thing about it and the price is right, so it's good.
Speaker 1:Exactly, he's not even hearing, he's getting applause today.
Speaker 2:That's great. Again, we buy these great big RVs. Most of us, in both states, don't even need a license A 40 to drive a motorcycle you need a license. We're doing a 40 foot with a tow car, no license, any, I won't say it, anybody could do it. It's kind of scary. And then you have maintenance and we were talking about we won't mention names, but somebody that you know, not once, but twice. Or lithium batteries caught fire because people are getting out there and they want to do it, they want to let the lifestyle but don't necessarily have the knowledge. So you guys are doing that in a way that people could actually go in and handle. When I think of going and learning about an engine and the electricity, I'm a little worried, but but he sounded like I could go in and really learn something.
Speaker 6:So also to align with that, if you go through the class, you have that knowledge, but many, many times someone needs a reminder or I want quick reference type things. And eight years ago we launched the 24 seven direct app. But just the last couple years we launched my 24 seven direct app son, Apple and Android that actually has a feature called my maintenance. You put your coach information in everyone here in the audience, put your coach information into it and actually tells you when you need to make this done. And that's the my 24 seven app, along with understanding where great dealer's are quick tip little videos.
Speaker 6:So that's great because it was like I need to call 24, I need to call the factory 24 seven direct factory. Everything's done with your phone. It's a one push. You're looking through books for numbers. So I highly recommend that. And again, you notice something that what it is it's not a sales app, it's my 24 seven direct support and we've just went to the next iteration helping you with your maintenance and letting it, letting the app, tell you when you made this done. So highly recommend everyone dollar event.
Speaker 1:You're listening to the RV life podcast. We've got to take a break right now, but after the break we're going to come back. We're going to talk about service, we're going to talk about education, we're going to talk about innovation. We could be here all day. We are at the Freightliner booth in Hershey, pennsylvania, at America's largest RV show, the Hershey RV show, and we'll be back right after this.
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Speaker 1:I will tell you what. Being a part of the National Indoor RV Centers family is incredible. Their team is just one of the best teams I've ever seen. Now they are the number one New Mar dealer in the country. They're also the number one Integra dealer in the country. They sell a lot of Freightliner chassis, but what I really like about them it's almost the same thing that I like about Freightliner. From the CEO down, there is a feeling amongst their employees that Freightliner isn't just who I work for, it's who we are. It's part of my life. I am a part of this family and that is so important to Patty and I as we forge relationships within this RV industry.
Speaker 2:So before we went to break, jeremy, you wanted to respond, so we talked a little bit about Freightliner.
Speaker 5:I just wanted to reiterate. You know, sometimes people think, oh well, I'm not going to do my own service, right? I'm deluded to this People that take this class. Some of them do want to do their own service, but most of them don't. And the benefit of this class is when you do go to a service center to get it done, you have a good idea of what they're doing or what they're not doing, and you can recommend what they need to do because you've been educated. So this class is designed for all.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go with. The knowledge is power because, well, I'm not going into the engine and fixing it. You know, knowing something about an engine on my car. If I walk in and they say it's you need a new transmission, and I have some knowledge, I might be able to say, well, wait a minute, especially as a female, in all honesty. So knowledge is definitely power in that and I think that's great. The more we know, the better we're going to be able to, whether we fix it or not. We try and fix a lot, although not the diesel engine. We don't do that.
Speaker 1:You know, Brian I want to get back into this at your service app, that app actually talks to my RV and tells you for the app, how many miles I've driven, how my oil is doing. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 6:That's the 3.0 version, this is the 2.0 version. But you actually what you need to do is, when you do the app, you can put in simple information of your chassis and it is algorithms that actually start and the algorithms then tell you when you need service being done. But obviously the next generation to that, you know, looking into the future, is truly having your RV connect from maintenance standpoint I real time to a mobile device and I'm that's something that's down the road, but right now this is information and kids hit, go and it'll tell you when you need service.
Speaker 1:Where's Jeff? I'm going to take credit for bringing that one in. Wow, okay, jeremy, let's talk a little bit about service. You have service centers all over this country. When we there's a map over there that it looks like a campground map of the United States, there is service centers everywhere.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, so it's. You know we've got the top notch service network. We've got more service network throughout the country than anybody else in this industry. You know, while we realize some of them do a phenomenal job, love RVs, there are some in the country that aren't People back for a 24 seven call center. Call us, get us involved and we can help direct those, those situations. But there is nobody that can service the network of RVs that great later came out. The other huge bandages are parts distribution centers. So there's not another partner in the industry that has what we got 10, 11 parts distribution centers throughout the country. What that means is we go to a freight liner dealer.
Speaker 6:You can get that part sometimes within the same day, if not the next day, and get your coach and ring up and running as quickly as possible Huge investment in the in the experience of an RV or obviously we use it for our nationwide time with trucks is the largest producer of commercial vehicles in the world as part of that. But just imagine being in and we know nothing's worse is when you're down you're like, ah, it's going to take two weeks to get that part. These parts distribution centers literally can get parts same day or next day, which is really critical if it's not in stock.
Speaker 1:Okay, Jeremy, I'm going to talk to you on this one. Brian yesterday was doing an education session and I'm going to say he had half the room walk out. And today we had one walk out, but I got a walk in at the same time, so I'm at a zero right now.
Speaker 2:Again, brian's being thrown under the bus.
Speaker 1:That's right, I will say, though, it was probably 90 degrees in the sand yesterday when we were doing it. It was warm so. But let's talk about education, and watch is going to be his question anyway. Let's talk about education. What are the things that Freightliner does to educate not only the customer but the potential customer as well?
Speaker 5:I'm going to throw that in Brian. It's really Brian's realm, but we covered a ton of it already.
Speaker 1:Jeremy, you're killing me, man, you're killing her.
Speaker 6:So when we're going through the RV experience or actually I want to get into the RV world, right, it's a little bit overwhelming. But if you actually our goal is to give you steps throughout the whole process and we love helping out customers on educating what you want to do with your motorhome. If you just want to be a weekend or a full-timer, we kind of help you through that experience, educate you what do you want to do with your motorhome and actually help you decide on the type of motorhome that you want. And once you actually get that motorhome, it's all about the training and we really don't want you to be frustrated with, oh, I don't know what's going on. There's so much availability of understanding, training, understanding your chassis and things of that sort that we have after the purchase.
Speaker 6:But honestly, I love our job when it comes to and I've had customers like this. I had one customer that was in Florida that I helped him buy a motorhome 21 years ago and it actually makes me feel when I literally helped it to the whole process, to the point where him buying it, owning it, to the point where he actually retired the motorhome 21 years, and it was fantastic. I wish I had more of those, you know. But that's we really. I feel that's really close to us. We really want to help a customer through that whole experience.
Speaker 1:Okay, wait, wait, wait. How long have you been? You personally been 27 years, 27 years, so you started with Freightliner when you were 12 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was going to say. You said 21 years. You have to make up for something here again as an educator, and the fact that we're full timers. We I feel like, okay, I'm full time if my coach is out for two weeks because somebody can't get a part, that's my home. But for the people who are part-time when most people are if they have that week vacation, the last thing they need is something going wrong and having to wait for the part figuring out what it is, and the other to the other thing we do, to a lot of the maintenance and the repairs. It can't get back on the road and having that education, it's just priceless.
Speaker 6:I know we've talked about it but it's and even though that we and I actually had a great conversation here earlier about a customer that he's six months in storage and six months out and he's had his coach for five years or something, that's what but I literally went okay, when you bring it out of storage, in storage, are you doing A, b, c and D?
Speaker 6:And he's not doing half of it. He's like, wow, just to make sure that when you do pull it out of storage it's ready to go, or the tips when you bring it out of storage, what to check it over before you go out on the road. That's not a part of can't free letter also. So, when you're storage, when you put it into storage how to put it into storage take it out of storage and then always, when you're out, operating it, things you should do when you're not operating it, but actually understanding that this heavy duty piece of equipment which it really is when it's in storage, there's things you need to check and prep before you get it out of storage and you just can't put the key in and drive.
Speaker 2:So that's all part of that education. The mice, get in there and chew the brake lines, you're in trouble.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I have talked to Jeff Patty and I have a good relationship with Jeff, so we have traded you for two unnamed players. You're going to be coming with us for the next three months to tell Patty how to take care and maintain. I have to be my wife, though she wants to road trip, so we can work on that.
Speaker 2:Picture is all left.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Brian. Now let's go to the last part that I promised before the break. We're going to talk about innovation and, I think, something that we, or you guys introduced yesterday here at America's Largest Star V show. We had a press event here and it was really exciting and a lot of I was talking to a lot of the press people that were really interested in what you guys put out. Patty walked away and said I want that because I do not want to have those bumps when you throw on the brakes or when we hit that pothole. She said I want that and I want that tag wheel steering. So who's the best at tag wheel steering? You did the intro, but okay.
Speaker 5:We're going to take it to Jeremy. So that's probably. We love the education, we love working these shows and the education part of it. This is part of what we really enjoy. The other part that we really enjoy and Brian and I are both involved in is the innovation part of it. We've been innovating things for years. We introduced DriveTech, which puts all the controls on the steering wheel, the Allison shifter and everything's at your fingertips, out of you. What's been fun about what we're able to do and have trouble seeing because we're part of the Dying Learn Network is bring innovations that are specific to this industry and to our product. So we're competitors. What they have to do is they have to buy off the shelf things so they might have something that's a supplier that works well in the RV industry, but they're still just buying that. They're not developing that. We are developing things that are benefiting our products and ultimately benefiting the retail consumer, because that's why we do it.
Speaker 6:So the launch yesterday or the other day, which was five year labor of love, we fully understood that I'll alter, share our tag acts on which, dan, you love, love, love, love, love. That was back in 2013, or 24, or 24, 13. And then when we brought V-Ride, which was the drive act, so we developed that it has a 10 year anniversary. It was time that when we fully understand that customers want the same ride and handling as a 45 foot coach all the way down to a 30 foot coach and typically it's difficult, really it's difficult. So over the past five years we've literally said we can't make this thing a million dollars or things are tight, and things of that sort. So we launched V-Series. V-series is literally a front and drive axle suspension system that work together and acts and drives like an independent front suspension. It's actually a brand new category. We love it and that's what we launched this the other day.
Speaker 1:So this is going to be something that Patty's going to want to drive there, because she's not driving our.
Speaker 2:RV? No, I don't, but what I'd like better is what you've created and, again, the fact that you're listening to people and what you know. We're driving around in an RV. What do I want? I have? We have a class A RV, because I like being able to go to the back, you know, using the restroom making our sandwiches and drinks and getting that car full in it, not jerking the coach is huge. It's really important.
Speaker 6:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I'm very happy for that intervention.
Speaker 6:But it's literally two days, two days old. But if anybody wants to know more about V-Series, just go out there and search V-Series. There's coaches actually here at Hershey that have them on it and, quite frankly, during the development work. Our engineers did a fantastic job because when I first got in it and I started driving, I said so, this is the independent front suspension. You know they're like no, this is the V-Series. I'm like we did it.
Speaker 1:It was a fantastic experience and you gave us a really cool pin. Yeah, we liked that. We liked the cool pin. You know, one of the things that we look forward to do with the RV Lighted Podcast is to educate, entertain and inform the RV audience, and a conversation like we're having today to me says all of these consumers are walking and some people are stopping and looking outside the booth. We, as consumers, have a choice, and you want to do business with people that are reputable, people that want to do business with you, people that really care about their product, and that is something that I can say unequivocally.
Speaker 1:I talked for a little bit. I can't say that word Unequivocally straight-liner custom Chassis Corporation. They really do. From the guy that sweeps the floor to the guy that puts up this tent and comes out to this event, to your social media person cares about everything and every single customer or potential customer. That is so impressive to me. To have the CEO out here getting drinks for people while they're sitting out in other companies. That just doesn't happen. This is the kind of company that you want to do business with and that's what I feel very, very strongly.
Speaker 6:And I love the fact that just keep that going. Anybody that's actually in South Carolina, in the Gaffney area, we welcome every day. We do plant tours every day. We were just invited to one of the. Here you go.
Speaker 1:I'm coming to your office and sitting at your desk.
Speaker 6:But when you go out to our team members that are out on the line, these are people that we've known for 25 some years and you have no idea that when you, you see what they're doing, they're not just building a chassis, they're building somebody's dream. Every single one of them is somebody's dream. They're just not putting nuts and bolts together and that resonates and and when a customer is coming through, they'll talk. They want to. They want to talk to you because they know that this is your dream.
Speaker 6:We're not building, just regular old stuff.
Speaker 1:Not just your dream, it's your life-saving exactly. It's the biggest investment that most people make besides their house, but if they've got one of these, that most of those people have gotten rid of their house.
Speaker 6:That's why we always ask if you're in the area, please stop in. We want to show you, show your home.
Speaker 2:So it's great, I can't wait. We are looking forward to that. We're as we speak because we were invited to come down. I'm redoing my travel plans to swing by there.
Speaker 1:Now that is my favorite thing on the RV, other than that tag wheel that I don't have on. But on my RV I do have that air horn, so I use it every time I cross a straight line. Every time I leave a campground, I let everybody in the campground know that I'm leaving, so I hit that. It doesn't matter. It's 5 am In the morning, I still hit that air horn. But that air hardly on our show means it's time for the RV. Life pro tip.
Speaker 2:And we're gonna hear that pro tip from Patrick you can.
Speaker 7:Once you have your basic route picked out in RV life trip wizard and have secured your campgrounds, it's time to add all those other stops you want to make. At this point you don't need those campground icons, filling up your map and getting in the way. You can easily toggle the campgrounds off by clicking the small tent icon in the upper right hand corner. This makes it easier to focus on adding fuel stops, rest stops, places to eat or things to see anything you wish to add to your trip. Just don't forget to click it again if you need to see more campgrounds for RV life. I'm Pat Buchanan.
Speaker 2:Thank you, patrick Buchanan. Another great tip we use RV trip wizard, we use the RV life suite of products because it really just works. We do not move RV without RV trip wizard to make sure where we're going is where we should be going, right, we don't want to go off on those roads. We should not be on.
Speaker 1:Now, if you are here at the RV show the America's largest RV show if you're here, you want to stop by at 10 am.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, 10 am For our fireside chat, fireside chat, where you can come in and sit down, listen to Brian for a little while, get too hot and then leave. It doesn't bother Brian at all. He loves to have people standing up and talking in front of him, but you're welcome to come in it. I'll tell you what. I came in an hour early to get set up. You can see there's a lot of stuff that we have to set up. Well, I came in and sat and listened to his whole fireside chat. I learned more in that one hour than I've learned in the last two years Our being and actually going out there and doing.
Speaker 6:I mean honestly, when you actually around great people and you have Well over 50 years of experience between Our teams right here, you want to share that information with everybody. You want to, and there's things that we've learned over the years and and things that sort. You just want to share that with them and that's the reason why we're full of knowledge.
Speaker 1:You know, and I just can't thank you guys enough for Coming in. Yeah, I saw this setup last year. I said, wow, that would be a great place to do a podcast. Now, last year we didn't have the rv life podcast. We actually cut the deal here at the Hershey show to make the rv life podcast. The thing did our first one Down in Tampa and I will tell you we are in the top 5% of all podcasts in the world. This podcast is so.
Speaker 1:We really really, really are having a great time with it and we appreciate all of you listening to the rv life podcast.
Speaker 2:And we're going to keep Brian and Jeremy with us as we Do our clothes, but we are going to go out. You're going to go out and get a question from the audience. Where's the horn? I don't push buttons.
Speaker 1:There it is, and that's how means it's time for Our question of the week. We don't have a sponsor for the question of the week, so we will say that it is brought to you this week by freight liner custom chassis At the rv life podcast.
Speaker 2:So as he goes out to the audience to get the question. We'll just, we'll just talk amongst ourselves, right? How? How did these guys do? For those of you've been here for this, jeremy and Brian, let's give them a round of applause. These guys are great.
Speaker 1:Okay, you got a question, so I am out in the audience and I have an absolute random we did not set it up at all Couple in the audience. Where are you guys from? From Pennsylvania? Where are you from? Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Woo love me, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.
Speaker 6:Pennsylvania Boy raised.
Speaker 1:Really. They got that tram that goes up the side of the mountain and climb the end climb. Yeah, that was kind of cool I. I did that, yes, okay. So what is your guys rv question of the week.
Speaker 4:Well, my question is the way, since you guys have been timing for a while to arving, you find it beneficial to join organizations like thousand thousand Do doctors, and does that help pretty much?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm going to take that. So when Dan and I first started out we didn't necessarily we thought we'd be those kinds of memberships I'll be honest just total, transparent. But as we got out on the road and we saw the cost of campgrounds, we started looking at harvest hose boondockers welcome they're they're similar Um, and we found that for us harvest hose and bootdockers welcome worked really well. As we leave here, we head to albuquerque, our first four stops are harvest hose. They're places, unique, places you could go overnight. Usually they don't charge, sometimes they have hookup, sometimes is just pull in and park, but they're very unique, often really cool places to go. If you have specific questions, we could take those.
Speaker 2:After the podcast for thousand trails, again we said we probably don't need it. Our biggest mistake with thousand trails is we waited so long to get our membership over. Yeah, because we didn't have it at first. We started at the lowest membership again. Thousand trails has Keep grounds across the country for us being full-time, it works Um, and again we could talk more about it. The. The big answer here is Finding what works for you. How much are you traveling? Where are you traveling? What type of camping do you want? Somebody wants a boondock. Most of the time those two things, those memberships probably aren't necessary. So that's the overall answer. What can a camper? What types of things are you looking for?
Speaker 1:I'm also going to give a plug to our friends over the skate beads. So a skate piece is where we get our mail, your mail, and they scan it and look at it, but I'm not gonna forward it to me if I need it. So escapees RV Club. Very, very helpful for those people getting out there. We also did our domicile through escapees as well, that church back there.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll get them, but one of you.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm gonna go to the back of the tent here and I have another question for gentlemen when are you from?
Speaker 5:That's too bad.
Speaker 2:He said New Jersey.
Speaker 1:Exit 10 in Cape May, new Jersey. Okay, okay, my question is, I've been.
Speaker 5:Uh, how do I make it work as a?
Speaker 2:Here's how I'm going to answer that. There is a booth down on the floor because they can specifically stop and help you with that. They're not down there trying to sell. They're not salespeople. The tech guy is down there, customer support is down there, the head of partnerships is down there. So if you go down there and you pull your phone out, they will show you how to do that. It's right down the steps. It's on that first row big red booth and they're there to help you. So that's it. He was. Thank you so much. For those of you couldn't hear yes, we love it. For those of you couldn't hear it, he said that RV church wizard is fantastic.
Speaker 4:So tell them when you go down to that booth down.
Speaker 1:It's on the floor down there. You get out of the booth, tell them that you are on the RV life podcast To ask me a question, and Dan said that you should get a shirt. Okay, I don't have any here either, even though you sleep around. Okay, we, I will give you guys a shirt too. So I, if you just guys, just hang around, that's probably one of the greatest shirts that I've ever, ever seen, and it's from uh.
Speaker 1:RV easy right, the RV is who that church is. Patty got that shirt, I'm gonna say two years ago at a show. And when she wears it an RV event, nobody cares. But when she wears it going to the local wall or a little league game, the moms all get pissed off at her.
Speaker 2:It's not the right shirt. So here on the RV life podcast, I've left Dan get up and walk around. Okay, so I'm gonna give him back to his seat so we could do the final wrap up. And again, I want to thank Brian and Jeremy so much for, and Jeff and Jeff oh and Jeff, yes, because Jeff, the CEO, did invite us to come in and I just want to thank Everybody here so much for having us, your support and what you're doing now, but that's plus six. And what you're doing for the RV community.
Speaker 1:So you're listening. You're listening to the RV live podcast, where our audience continues to grow throughout the show, each and every day. This is the RV live podcast. I'm dan hunt with my incredible wife, patty hunt, reminding all of you to have a great rest of today and an even better day tomorrow.