Introduce Yourself!

Thanks for the welcome.  I will check with the factory about my questions.  We did meet with Stuart, and he showed us some units.  I just hated to bother him if some of you knew the answer to the questions. 

Thanks again.
Beverly and Buddy

We ordered our new 2013 Phoenix Cruiser 2551 last month and we are really excited.  We have never seen one in person but after six months of internet looking we think that we have made the right decision.
 
Five years ago we sold our 38' Monaco Dynasty Diesel Pusher.  Not wanting to be RVless we bought a 20' PleasureWay Ford Excel TD which has the two beds in the rear.  Great unit with a Ford 350 Triton V-10 motor.  It is great for travelling from Point A to B but the refrigerator is too small (no ice for my scotch if I want to keep the rest of the stuff frozen).  We have never had a shower in the rig since it reminds us of our old sailboat shower. Difficult. And when one person goes to bed early and the other stays up 3 hours later and the TV is right over his bunk.  Now you have the picture.  So we bought a PC 2551.  It is like someone watered our PleasureWay and it grew 6 feet.
 
We looked at a LOT of rigs and they were either too tall or wide body or had a corner bed.  We almost ordered the PC with the corner bed but when I said "Who gets to sleep on the outside?" since we both get up in the middle of the night we quickly decided on the 2551.  We watched videos and looked at pictures and scratched Stuart's brain and think we have made the right decision.  Even ordered the window covers. Of course it will have HWH hydraulic levellers.  We have  had the leveling blocks to go under the low wheel and what a pain (in the rain usually) and then remembered our Dynasty and how easy it was to level.
 
We live in the Pacific Northwest and Arizona so we ordered the thermal windows.  Can't wait to go drycamping in the desert again in comfort.  It has been fun reading about everyone's adventures.  We are having our rig delivered so won't get to see the factory but are still excited.

Just sold our Pleasure Way yesterday.  Sold it for what Stuart said we would get.  Yeah Stuart!!  Now we are boat-less and RV-less.  Hurry Hurry.

Anne & Bob

    .  Welcome.  I am sure you have made a great decision.

David

Welcome to the Forum!! You made the right decision. We went from a 22'B, 23' PC on the Sprinter chassis to a 2551. We just got home (from Elkhart) with our 2013 PC 2910. We love it!!!

You will love the 2551! Now the fun begins*************

Judi and George

B&B---
You sound like a carbon copy of Dee & I. We also went from a class A to a Pleasureway
Which we enjoyed tremendusly but with the same problem, she kept taking out the ice
for food. Couldn't handle both.
You will enjoy your Pc as much as we have. We just took delivery of our second 2551
with a full size refer, but now with the levelers. Blocking wheels got just too old!
Best traveling!
Frank

Sorry, my post was meant for Anne & Bob.
Frank

Thanks everyone.  We are sure excited to see our new rig.  Especially since we have never seen a PC.  We are taking our little Norcold freezer with us this fall filled with fish, crab and oysters.  Seafood in Arizona is not great.  We can get fresh sockeye pretty cheap, vacuum pack it and freeze for later eating.  I had thought of putting the freezer in that drawer on the passenger side.  It would fit but would need a dc outlet and a vent.  Suppose if we were going to carry it all the time we could get the factory to install an outlet back there and some kind of vent under the bed.  Thanks to G. Garrett who measured the drawer space for me and also the space behind the drivers seat.  Bob has decided we can just set it behind the seat since there is ample room between the slide when it is in and the back of the chair.  I'll just put a potted plant on it or something.  I am one of those "everything in its place" people and the middle of the living area is not the place for a freezer but it is only for our trip south (and north).

We ordered the thermal windows after a desert drycamp experience in October where it was 90 degrees outside and 120 degrees inside the Pleasure Way.  Our generator would not handle the Air Conditioner.  Needed a tuneup.  We had never had a problem in our Dynasty with the heat because it was well insulated.

I am learning all about the inverter reading all the messages.  Will probably run it on manual like we did on our boat.

Thanks again everyone.

Anne & Bob

Forget going to AZ with all that good seafood. Come to Florida!

i always thought that Florida had lots of seafood.  Not like Port Townsend though.  We are surrounded by water and the local fish store has fresh Black Cod, Sockeye salmon, live crab and oysters and clams.  I will have to pack carefully.  The oysters freeze quite well for fried oysters or oyster stew but they don't taste good raw after they have been frozen.  You must have gulf shrimp?  We sold our boat (45' Puget Trawler) last spring so we need our PC like yesterday.  Used to catch our own fish etc.  Now relegated to the fish store which is better than Arizona. 

Do you know what kind of Inverter they are putting on the 2551?  It's not mentioned anywhere, just that it is an 1800 watt.  We had a 2000 Trace Inverter on the boat and we left it off unless we wanted to use AC for something.  That way it didn't drain the batteries.

The inverter is a Xantrex. We found that it was very noisy at night. I am a light sleeper and the unit is under the passenger side bed. To solve that problem of the fan coming on and off all night, George installed an on/off switch that we turn off at night. That was done in the 2551 which we just traded in on the 2910 with one slide and twin beds. That is a project to come. Even though the inverter in the 2910 is under the fridge, it is still noisy.

The older 2000 watt Tripp-Lite we have can be just as noisey with the fan turning on and off.  And the floorplan of our 2350, the LEDs on it along with the control panel like to flash which adds to the sleep interruption.  Like you, we turn the inverter off at night.  The Tripp-Lite has an on/off switch on it.  Actually it's a 3 position switch.
- off
- auto invert
- line charge only

Two of the 3 positions duplicate the control panel.  Too bad the control panel didn't include the "Off" position.  That would have been perfect.

I am hearing that the inverter is noisy even when it is not on charge only mode.  Sounds like I need to have an on/off switch installed unless there is another way to do it on the Xantrex.  We have always had a converter on our motorhomes and our boat inverter just turned off or on.  Lots of new stuff to learn.  Thanks.

Hello to all!  We just returned a couple of weeks ago from Elkhart after picking up our "new to us"  2008 Cruisers 2551.  Been RV owners for four years with a Pleasure-Way Excel after boating for about 10 years, now moving up to the Phoenix 2551.  We looked at a lot of Class B's, B+'s, and C's before realizing that the Phoenix was the ideal size coupled with the quality that is top among the competition.  Although we had never actually seen one in person when we finally made the decision, the minute we stepped inside this one, we knew our choice was right on!  Looking forward to reading and learning from all you experienced owners and possibly one day soon making it to an owners group outing.   

Welcome to the Forum. We can guarantee that you will love your 2551. You will find tons of info on this forum. Have a questions, just ask and you will be helped out quickly.

Congrats on your 2551!

Judi and George

Thanks for the welcome.  I have already learned a lot just reading the forum topics before we joined.  One thing I'm still trying to figure out is how to make the backup camera monitor default to "camera 1" when it powers up.  It now comes on with "camera 2"  then I have to cycle through to 3 and then finally to 1 before the picture shows.  If any one has a solution I would appreciate it!