Batteries

The saga of the batteries could easily fill a book.  I'll spare you most of the boring details.  Suffice it to say that the ARB fridge/freezer needs a lot more power than most owners will profess.  We found this out on out test trip to Yellowstone when we used the regular car battery and a Walmart deep cycle battery that we borrowed from the 5th wheel.  The ARB situatiuon, combined with the fact that Carol needs a heated bed, caused us to really think about our battery situation when we got back from Yellowstine.  We ended up replacing the car battery with a dual purpose battery.  It is both a starting battery and a deep cycle battery.  Odyssey makes the best dual purpose battery, but it costs nearly $300.  Turns out that Sears sells a Diehard Platinum battery that is the Odyssey battery repackaged for about $200:

Still a lot of money but, because it would be purchased at Sears. I knew I could return it if it wasn't all everyone said it was.  It turned out to be such an amazing battery that I bought another one to replace the auxiliary battery.  So we now have tons of available power.  These batteries have a four year full replacement warranty and a 100 month prorated warranty.  When you do the math and, consider how hard this setup can be on batteries, what appears to be a very expensive setup really isn't as expensive as you might think.  There is a good chance that the warranty will be used on a least one of these batteries in the first four years.  Any other battery might last two years if you are lucky under these circumstances.  So it really isn't as bad as it might sound.  That said, the $700 fridge/freezer is now costing closer to $1200.  That's a lot of money to keep food really cold.  But, then again, it is also keeping us warm at night which is extremely important because, with our health problems, there is no other option.

Levels

There is an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer talks about redoing his apartment with "levels."  As I started putting stuff in the xB, I quickly realized how small it actually is.  While it doesn't look like it, the distance from the front seats to the back hatch is only about four feet.  The reason you don't realize this is because you can easily put 8 foot long lumber in the xB with room to spare.  With some effort, you can get something almost 10 feet long inside.  So when I realized the space behind the seats was only four feet long, I was surprised.  We had a lot of stuff we wanted to put in there because we were now thinking seriously about taking a two month trip to Alaska.  The solution turned out to be levels.  By just putting in one platform, we were able to turn four feet into eight feet.  Eventually, we added some other levels as well making it much easier to organize all the stuff we would be taking.  Things were pretty good for the test trip to Yellowstone but, as expected, we learned a lot about what worked and what didn't.  As I am writing this, we are hoping that all of those changes will make the whole thing work much better for the longer trip to Alaska.  We are not done yet but, so far, things are looking pretty good.

The Command Center

I had this idea of an aluminum box for the back of the xB that would contain just about everything we would use while camping.   It would transfer easily from the car to the truck and would keep us organized while camping.  I couldn't find a box like I wanted and so I decided to design one and build it myself.  I was just about to order the materials at a cost of several hundred dollars when I found this one on ebay for under $200:

It is roughly 36 inches wide, 16 inches high, and fits almost perfectly in the back of the xB.  When you fold down the front door, you have a table that you can cook on or use for other things like washing clothes or even serving food if you have people over.  The Mt. Shasta RTT has an anex room that is big enough for at least four people to sit around in bad weather or when the bugs are bad.  So this "command center" is very versatile.  I'll post other pictures later showing how we modified the inside to make it work for us.

ARB Fridge/Freezer

I had been researching this thing for months when I finally bought one from AutoAnything.  They are expensive, but there is really nothing like them.  Well, I take that back.  There are several manufacturers that make different versions of the same thing.  I liked the features on the ARB version and it has a nice modern look:

It looks like an ice chest, but it has a high tech, very efficient compressor in it and can go from room temp to zero degrees in about an hour.  The online reviews are amazing and IMO misleading.  I think when people spend this much money on something, they are motivated to proclaim that what they bought is better than it actually is.  Don't get me wrong, this is a really neat item.  But it won't run five days off of your regular car battery and a lot of other claims are exaggerated as well. We bought the smallest one they make and that ended up to be a good decision,  It turns out to be bigger than you think it is going to be.  The bigger models are not much more expensive, but they would be way to big for the xB.  I would like to tell you that I was smart enough to figure that out, but I wasn't.  We bought the smallest one because it had the same interior capacity of our ice chest and we knew that would be sufficient for our needs.  That, plus the fact that this model used the least amount of energy, was the reason we bought this one.  But, in the end, the size was the biggest factor because none of the bigger models would have fit.

Air Lift Air Bag Suspension Kit

Forgot to mention that prior to getting the RTT, I bought a kit to strengthen to rear suspension on the xB.  It was fairly inexpensive and somewhat easy to install.  Most important, it was really needed.  The RTT weighs in at 130 lbs and we had plans for a lot of other stuff.  Just sticking a couple hundred pounds in the back of the xB caused it to squat, so I knew I need to beef up the suspension.  I'll describe the installation in some detail later.  It is possible to install this kit in an hour.  Of course, it took me about six times that long, but that is pretty normal.  Here is a picture of the kit:

Those red cylinders are the air bags.  You fold them up and slip them into the rear springs.  Once installed, you can adjust the suspension using compressed air.  Really cool.

This purchase was also my introduction to AutoAnything, a great online vendor that I ended up buying several other things from.

Bought the tent

As it turned out, the local Sportsman's show was happening about the same time I discovered CVT.  I heard they would be there, so we just went.  We were looking at the model like what I had seen pictured on the other xB.  It sets up and packs up in less than a minute.  I had no intereste in the models that looked like regular tents on your roof.  But Carol climbed up in one of them and said, "You need to come up here."  I went.  It was so much roomier than the model we had in mind.  We started thinking about the bad weather we sometimes get for days on end in the Fall and it soon became clear that we would be better off with one of the other RTT's  We eventually settled on the Mt. Shasta and that is what we bought.  Bobby not only gave us a great price on the tent, he also saved us some money on the Yakima roof rack.  Unfortunately, that rack didn't work out because you couldn't get the tent back far enough to open the hatch without hitting the ladder half way up.  I figured out that I needed a permanent rack, what Yakima calls "tracks."  No one wants to install those because you have to drill holes in the roof.  So I had to install it myself.  That took me several days, but the results were great.  I also made a small basket for carrying chairs, gasoline, and propane on top of the car.  The fairing is ridiculously expensive, but I broke down and bought one when REI had them on sale for 20 percent off.  The mounting of the fairing went through a couple of attempts that were not so great.  But I like the way it is set up now, well ahead of the basket and, hopefully, directing most of the air over everything that is behind it.

I have pictures of the installation of the Yakima tracks that I will eventually include in this post along with a description of how it was installed.  If you want to check out the CVT tents, here is their website: http://cascadiatents.com/   Last I heard, they are having the grand opening of their new showroom this month (August 9th I think).  They'll have other vendors and are giving away prizes and possibly a RTT.  Live music too.  Sounds like a great event.  Hopefully, we'll have to miss it because we will be on the road.  But we will definitely be there if we get delayed.

Now What Do We Do?

Because this car is so boxy, it appears to have a lot of interior room.  Our first thought was that we might be able to set it up to sleep inside.  If it was just Carol and I, it might have been doable but still difficult.  But then there is Striker with his litter box, cat condo, and other stuff.  With the three of us, that space fills up fast.  Then I got the idea for a rear tent that would extend the space by about six feet.  I found a tent made by Grand Trunk that they call the Dunny Tent.  It looked like it would fit the back of the Scion almost perfectly, so I bought one.  I couldn't have been more right. With just a couple of minor exceptions, it fit like it was made to go on the back of this car.  But as we were making plans to go with the Dunny Tent, I ran across a picture of an xB with a Magiolina Roof Top Tent (RTT) on it.

These things are really cool and really expensive.  With import fees and shipping from Italy, one of these tents will easily run you over $3,000.  After much debate, we decided to bite the bullet and buy one sight unseen based only on pictures we had seen on the internet and stellar reviews by owners.  Then I found out that it could take eight months or more to get the model we wanted.  I told the salesperson that we couldn't wait that long.  He then told me that he thought there was a company in Oregon that was making similar RTTs, but he knew nothing about them.  I doubted it was true because I had searched for hours for a U.S. company that made RTTs like these and had found only one company in Colorado that didn't offer a very good warranty and was charging as much as Magiolina.  But I went and searched again just to make sure.  Well, as luck would have it, I found the company and they were about one mile from where we were staying.  That company is Cascadia Vehicle Tents.  It was purchased by Bobby Culpepper about two years ago.  Bobby is driven to keep improving his tents and eventually eclipse Magiolina's market both here and abroad.  His tents are outstanding both in quality and design.  They are also much less expensive than the Magiolinas and they have design features that make them more desirable.  You guessed it, we bought a tent from him and that set this whole process into motion.

ScanGauge

Our plans were always to fix this car up for short trips.  We wanted to be able to get away for a few days without towing the house (i.e., our 5th wheel).  But before we got going with those mods, we wanted to max out our gas mileage.  The ScanGauge is a neat device that plugs into the OB-II port and gives you access to a wealth of information from the car's computer.

The main thing I wanted it for was the instantaneous gas mileage and the promise of improved fuel economy by learning to improve your driving habits.  That promise was kept.  I was getting about 25 mpg combined before getting the ScanGauge and, just two weeks later, I was getting 35.  Since then, I've seen even better results.  On one 70 mile trip in Yellowstone, we got just over 50 mpg.  The device cost about $85 and it paid for itself in about four months (two months earlier than I thought it would).

Car Purchase (aka, The Ride)

We bought our 2005 Scion xB last November from Lithia Honda in Bend, Oregon.  What started off as a great experience turned sour just after the sale.  Part of the deal was they were supposed to detail the exterior of the car to remove hard water spots from the windows and paint.  I didn't know how to do it, so we worked that into the deal.  Turns out is isn't hard to do and even harder to mess up.  Well they messed it up big time.  Instead of following the standard method, they went to Ace Hardware and bought a bottle of Whink Rust and Stain Remover for about $4.

This product is mostly highly concentrated hydroflouric acid (HF) and it is approved for use only on white toilets and carpeting.  Our car may look like a toaster, but it doesn't look like a toilet.  Anyway, it turns out that HF has been known since the 1600's to melt glass.  They melted three of the windows and then tried to act as if nothing was wrong.  After much difficulty, those windows were replaced.  The issue now is the paint.  It looks great right now, but HF also affects paint by destroying the resin system in it.  That means the paint will eventually peal.  It also means that the paint job it will need will be more difficult because it will need to sanded down to bare metal.  So the saga continues ...

Other than that mess, this is a great car.  It gets great gas mileage (the main thing we were looking for), is fun and comfortable to drive, has lots of extra room inside, and has a reputation for being very sound mechanically.  This one had one owner who took really good care of it.  Our mechanic gave it two thumbs up.  With the exception of the after-the-sale problems, we got a great vehicle.