OUR 61-DAY ADVENTURE CARAVAN TO ALASKA

Dale and I very much enjoyed our trip to Alaska in our PC 2350.  We met our Adventure Caravan Group in Great Falls, Montana, on July the 7th, but we visited Glacier National Park before meeting up with the Caravan on July 7th. 

We departed St. Louis on June 28th and we returned home on September 12th. We put 11,380 miles on our "Baby Beast" (she was the smallest rig in the Caravan so we call her Baby Beast).

We love our 2015 PC 2350 (Mercedes Sprinter), and she did very well traveling the "Top Of The World Highway", which is a pothole-infested highway.  She also did very well on the many steep grades that we encountered. We really challenged her, but she accelerated impressively on steep grades, and she shifted to lower gears with ease on the downgrades.  Our average MPG was right at 16mpg.  We did not tow. 

We blew out two tires on our trip, and we have a crack in the windshield, and we have some chips in the paint that I would like to get fixed.  When we arrived home we had an all wheel alignment on our Baby Beast.

Last week we traveled to Phoenix Cruiser in Elkhart, Indiana, because we had a laundry list of things that were under manufacture warranty that we wanted to get fixed.  We took delivery of our brand new PC 2350 on Oct 2014, and we had a lot of questions, as well as some things that needed attention.  Wow, we received excellent attention and great service from Bobby.  Every question and every issue that we had was resolved. 

But I need some help.  . . . . Our 2350 Mercedes Sprinter has a very sloppy rear end.  She waddles and sways a lot; I hate that. Our Mercedes dealer here in St. Louis is no help at all.  They see a motorhome on top of their Mercedes Sprinter and they don't even want to talk to you, except if you want an oil change or scheduled normal maintenance. Are there any PC Mercedes chassis people out there who have done improvements to the suspension?  Would love to hear from you.  I'm not sure where to take her?

The following is a link to our website for our Alaskan adventure (Dale is the webmaster). . . . . Dale is still working on the website and he is not yet finished. . . . . but he keeps working at it.

http://gentry-stl.com/Canadian-AlaskanTrip2015/index.html

Best wishes. . . . . Travel On. . . .

Cindy & Dale Gentry

Holy cow!  What beautiful pictures and a wonderful trip you had, Cindy & Dale.  Thanks for sharing that.  Your website is beautifully done.  If you would like to share it with a wider audience, shoot Aimee an email and see about getting your site put onto Phoenix's blog page.  They put mine up there and it is all alone.  It would be nice to see more people sharing!
I have no idea about your rear end issue, especially on a Sprinter, but hopefully someone here will pipe up to help you out with that.  Meanwhile, welcome home!

Dale and Cindy:

Sure looks like a great trip!  I very much enjoyed your images.  While I have RV'ed in every state in the continental US I have yet to drive to Alaska but hope to do just that in the next 3 years.  I owned a Monaco Covina  (2010) on a Dodge Sprinter chassis for a short period of time and know exactly what you are referencing in regards to the rear wiggle/waggle.  I am sure the usual beefing up of the shocks, rear sway bar and installing a trak bar would help tremendously to stiffen everything up.  My Sprinter came OE with the Kuhmo tires I always felt they were under rated for the chassis.  I would consider putting some higher rated Michelins on regardless of what it came out of the factory with. A good truck garage I am sure could easily install all of the above mentioned even if you were to order everything yourself and bring it in to them.  Please post your trip up to PC's blog since I am sure you have many more great images.   Best of luck, Ron G.

Thank you Carol & Ron.  Good suggestions, Ron.  When we had the alignment done it was at a big rig truck shop and we were very happy with their service.  As you suggested, we will be contacting them for help with the rear end issue. 

Cindy

Look up The Sprinter Store on the internet. They have a lot of experience with these issues.