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sorry for the delay - just finished a six day drive from Berkeley to NC. Whew ... I may have confused you about carrying the dometic in the jetta. The fridge is only in the TV when we're driving from campsite to campsite. In other words, it's only running off the jetta when the car is running...

the dometic doesn't seem to strain our 4 banger diesel jetta electrical system at all. At a reasonable inside ambient temp the fridge probably isn't running over 15% of the time. The 550 will also run the dometic just fine even on hot days. We were in Death Valley last October and had no...

we've used a dometic with our 550 for more than three years. I really like this unit. It's proved to be tough and reliable. I keep it at 35-37 degrees. After killing a battery by discharging it too deeply too often and not frequent enough full charging, I now carry the dometic in the TV. When...

nice job, looks good. The weight of the galley hatch does seem to increase over time :-o. There have been many times I've wished I could raise the hatch with one hand. it does look to me like these struts might inhibit the use of the galley windscreens, depending on how much space there is...

these batteries are a bit more expensive but they're known quality and NAWS is an excellent supplier. And the concorde ships for free ... Sun Xtender PVX-840T AGM Sealed Battery Trojan 24-AGM 12 Volt, 76 AH Deep Cycle AGM Battery

you might consider obtaining a trailer dolly. I had one I used for a boat trailer and found that it's pretty handy for controlling the 550 on unlevel surfaces. Gives great control while handling the trailer.

I really don't know the answer to your question. We paid for the AGM battery upgrade in 2014 and it came with the C&D dynasty, which is described as a UPS battery. I thought that was a curious choice but I expect if I'd known how to properly charge it that it would have lasted just fine. I'm...

thanks for posting this. I have had this exact problem for the three years we've owned our 550. I have also installed the new-style drain covers and have had them leak in exactly the same conditions you describe, even down to more leakage on the street side than the curb side. I'll have to...

our 2014 550 came with a C&D battery. When it went bad early, primarily due to poor charging (documented elsewhere in these forums), I replaced it with a Trojan AGM 24 deep cycle battery. Fits perfectly. My less-than-fully-informed opinion is that any group 24 battery would fit well. The trojan...

here are a couple of charts from the Trojan (battery) user guide. I'm pretty sure there's no vehicle out there that doesn't come with an AGM battery that can match the needed charging profile. I think this is a pretty typical AGM battery charging profile. This is why our AGM batteries don't...

I just measured the voltage at the TV battery while the vehicle was running. I also checked the voltage at the trailer battery while plugged into the TV and vehicle running. There was a little voltage drop but not much. If you have a battery isolator it takes a certain amount of voltage just to...

Alan - I'm the one who wrote that, and since I installed the trimetric battery monitor last summer I've got observational data that has convinced me that it's true, at least for my VW tow vehicle. Trojan recommends (for deep cycle AGM batteries) 14.4 volts for bulk charging, 14.1-14.7 for...

after purchasing the 550 I quickly put aspherical mirrors on my VW sportwagen. These have an outboard section that shows anything in the blind spot without having to turn your head. They work greta. These are direct replacements for the standard mirrors. I don't know if other vehicles have this...

while traveling in the southwest last fall I started contemplating mounting flexible PV panels on the trailer. We'd drive hours through bright sun and get to the campsite with less than a fully charged battery. If I could charge the battery from solar panels while driving that would solve most...

this brings up another issue that I had to deal with, which is that my TV (VW cheater diesel Jetta wagon) doesn't put out high enough voltage to fully charge an AGM battery. These batteries need a specific charging profile to get *fully* charged. This includes a voltage of 14.6 or so. I doubt...

I also have the engineer disease so my solution was to get more data. To that end I installed a Trimetric battery monitor so I always know the battery state-of-charge. I keep the dometic plugged into the trailer. On a month-long trip last October through some hot areas we had no problem with...

we've stored our 550 for the past two winters (and summers) in an unheated, very drafty airplane hangar in central North Carolina. I'd say conditions in that space pretty much mirror what's outside, just no precipitation. Real humid and hot in the summer, alternately humid and dry in the winter...

if it's too windy on the beach you should consider Goose Island State Park near Rockport. Nice park with water-side sites but also with wooded sites in the live oaks. Close to Corpus Christi.

I've used 1/2 gallon of cheap vodka colored with food coloring for the last two winters and have had no issues. Much easier it seems to get the taste out of the tank than the RV antifreeze. Of course we're in NC not Minnesota or wisconsin. It has gotten substantially below freezing but not below...