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I'm surprised they actually used canvas.

I had a Coleman Williamsburg tent trailer about 25 years ago-  they had switched to a synthetic material that would not mildew or rot.

If I was to have to buy a new tent set I'd sure ask if they could make them out of that type of stuff.

[The one I listed is sat]

Hi,

Many of the gps trackers do not rely on just cellular and use satellite as well. Cell mode is lower power.
I have one called pet tracker for my dogs that is the size of a fat watch that goes on their collars when I backpack in the Colorado wilderness. no cell service for many miles.
My wife tracks us on the the app on her iPhone. The pet tracker is a 6 year old model and will use the battery up in 24 hrs on sat tracking us real-time.  so I only turn it on when we get to camp for the night for a few hrs. It uses cellular when available and sat when not.

The one I listed is sat and is more a once a day located instead of real-time. There are many real-time ones built for cars that use cell and sat with better battery or use car battery. Note, they use very little power.

The info you linked says right there in it-  "Trailer GPS tracking device with a 5 year battery life. Reliable 3G/CDMA service."
3G/CDMA is cellular- not satellite.
Further down in their spec's is states "The Cal-Amp trailer tracking unit utilized the incredible coverage of the Verizon 3G Network. "    Again- that is cellular.

No doubt satellite based units are available but that isn't one.

Another approach to adding alarm system (simple motion sensor), using better locks etc. is to use a GPS tracker there are many on the market at many different prices. Here is one I,m looking at getting.

http://gpsandtrack.com/trailer-track-gps/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIp5vIsvao2QIVxGB-Ch241AeFEAQYAiABEgLrRPD_BwE

Trying not to be a wet blanket- but I've camped places in the west where I was 20+ miles from ANY cell coverage.
The unit depends on that to let you know when the trailer has left and where it is...

If it is the same as the 16TBS it is heated by the furnace.
You can't turn off the underbelly heat without also losing cabin heat.
There is about a 2" hose from a side port on the heater directed through a hole in the floor.
Personally I plan on finding a way to block mine off as much of our camping it is cold enough for the heater to run but freeze protection is not needed.   IOW a lot of wasted heat.

Funny you mention that- when I first tried to turn A/C on in our 16TBS the knobs were extremely difficult to turn- so much so I feared breaking something.
I took the inner shroud off and what a poor design- the knobs are not inline with the controls they are supposed to operate.
They have a crude "ball and socket" type joint to attempt to remedy the misalignment.
Further the knobs actually have the "bearing" surface as plastic on plastic on the front panel and are a very tight fit.

After messing with them quite awhile I tried some silicone dielectric grease on the knob bearing surfaces.

What a difference!   Must have reduced the effort 10 fold.

Added in edit-  you really can't get the grease in where it is needed on the "fingers" that hold it in the hole while the knobs are installed.   You have to get the knobs out to do a proper job-  you might be able to pop them out without pulling the air shroud.

No- they are in the AC outlets- therefore they work off AC.
Near useless IMO since I rarely camp with AC power

I don't really think newer Camplites ARE all that light.  We bought a 2018 16TBS to replace a 2014 179 Rpod.   The CL is a little smaller actually but weighs a little more than the Rpod.
We went for it to mainly get away from wood and it's eventual problems and I thought the quality would be better.   
Turns out the quality is not much better.  We've actually have more issues and harder to repair issues than the Rpod had.

By 2017 they all had the plastic floor and the move to fiberglass walls.

Some 2018's were built with aluminum walls.  I looked at one, a 16TBS- still shown as available at southlandrv.com

I have mixed feelings on the change to a steel frame.  Pre Thor, Livinlite did this with their fifth wheel for structural reasons.  I'm wondering how many weld issues they've had with the aluminum frames, both from the factory and with any repairs.  Big difference between welding steel and aluminum.

I'd have no issues with a steel frame, especially if it was galvanized to hold down corrosion.  I have seen very few campers that have that though.  The only one I can recall is a lightweight TT a some years ago with a stamped sheet metal frame that did.

I'm a hobby welder and am not too bad at it on steel- I did buy a spoolgun to convert my Hobart 220 Handler to aluminum, but never bought the gas.
Guess I need to gear up and start practicing!      I doubt there are very many service places that can handle aluminum welding or for that matter even do a decent job on steel.

Makes no sense at all to me.   Why would you ditch a known name with a pretty good reputation, better than most I'd say?

It appears so- I don't do facebook but the wife does- she was showing me the Owner's Group last night- at least 2 dealers had chimed in and confirmed it.

As I live not too far from some of Dan's children, he emailed me a while ago to ask some questions related to his retirement planning.  I don't know what his final decisions are, but based on what he was considering, I think this was a decision that was his to make; not forced on him.  I certainly hope that is the case.

As a retiree of a VERY large company, that every American is familiar with,  I can say many "voluntary" retirements may technically be that but in reality they are anything but.
I retired at 60 rather than my desired 65 simply because the pressure and stress had got to the point I was truly afraid I would not live to 65!
Best move I ever made- it is difficult forcing myself to live on about half of what I was making, but worth the sacrifices.
BTW it has been 4 years and I'm still convinced I made the right decision.

Yep found that space next to the furnace too-  they do have a flexiduct hose coming out of the heater going through the floor to heat the tanks...
I'm going to remove the hose, plug the hole in the floor and the heater and take advantage of that space.
I will retain the ability to quickly switch back to the hose in the event we camp where tank heat is needed.

I created all kinds of hidden storage on our Rpod...they had some really large areas blocked off for really no good reason.
There was a huge area behind the radio that I cut an opening into- lots of extra storage.
They had panels in the back of cabinets blocking off an extra foot of space- took them out.
The built in microwave died- it was mounted on a panel with about a foot of inaccessible space behind it- bought a new one and put it at the back with now a large area in front of it to put bread and chips etc...

I'll be pulling that panel up if I get the CL and see what type of storage I can free up in there.   Even if a little hard to get to it is useful for seldom used stuff/spare parts you hope you never need etc.

Thanks!

The 2018 the water heater is on the driver/left/street side...don't know where the water pump is at the moment.
So are you saying one side has nothing under it and cannot be accessed?

Digging further today it appears the XL package has Vortex fans and maybe the option is for the 2 Fantastic fans instead?

I'm not really interested in the off road package and frankly if it raises the height above that of our Transit high roof van that will be a problem.  But the trailer we are looking at already has it, so....

Regarding that- I was very disappointed to see the newer CL's have gone to a leaf spring axle, I much prefer the Torflex type.   Will look at what it would take to swap it out if we buy the CL.