crennpage
Member
We just got back today from a 1,300 mile round trip with the MPG from Houston to the Davis Mountains in west Texas. This was our first long distance excursion as all our prior trips have been within a 75 mile radius of Houston. All went well except for two things.
1) While on the road we ran the refrigerator on DC current (the night before we left I got the refrigerator fully cranked up via AC current). Unfortunately when we arrived at our destination I noticed that our batteries (two 6 volt golf cart AGMs) were close to 50% depleted. My initial guess was that perhaps my truck’s alternator just couldn’t properly charge a valve regulated AGM battery (I suppose that’s still a possibility), but then I thought about checking the voltage output with a digital meter and confirmed that there was no juice on the #4 pin. I then thought about the potential of a blown fuse in my TV (a Ford Expedition) and found upon examination that not only the fuse for the battery tow charge was missing, but so was the battery tow charge relay!
The dealership installed the seven pin connector on my truck, and if the pin wasn’t set up to provide a battery tow charge one would think they would have said something to that effect. My prior trips were never all that long to have much of an impact on any battery drainage problem (and I never had ran the refrigerator on DC before). Still I’m a little concerned that the refrigerator could run down my batteries so much over the course of a 10 hour trip. Anyway, I’m calling the dealership tomorrow to see what they have to say.
2) Although my wife thinks the MPG is "very cute" she is having trouble with the size of the TT and would like us to move up to a larger unit now. I'm thinking of looking for a used Heartland Edge and see if that will work for her. I'm sticking with Heartland but the Edge seems to be the only other model they made that I'm confident my TV can handle. It's supposed to handle a 6,000 lbs max load but I'll tell ya that 5.4 liter V8 still had to work hard with just an MPG behind it going up some of those west Texas mountains. The Heartland Wilderness has a floorplan very similar to the M22 Edge but it's also is about 1,000 lbs heaver. Too bad Heartland doesn't make the Edge anymore either.
1) While on the road we ran the refrigerator on DC current (the night before we left I got the refrigerator fully cranked up via AC current). Unfortunately when we arrived at our destination I noticed that our batteries (two 6 volt golf cart AGMs) were close to 50% depleted. My initial guess was that perhaps my truck’s alternator just couldn’t properly charge a valve regulated AGM battery (I suppose that’s still a possibility), but then I thought about checking the voltage output with a digital meter and confirmed that there was no juice on the #4 pin. I then thought about the potential of a blown fuse in my TV (a Ford Expedition) and found upon examination that not only the fuse for the battery tow charge was missing, but so was the battery tow charge relay!
The dealership installed the seven pin connector on my truck, and if the pin wasn’t set up to provide a battery tow charge one would think they would have said something to that effect. My prior trips were never all that long to have much of an impact on any battery drainage problem (and I never had ran the refrigerator on DC before). Still I’m a little concerned that the refrigerator could run down my batteries so much over the course of a 10 hour trip. Anyway, I’m calling the dealership tomorrow to see what they have to say.
2) Although my wife thinks the MPG is "very cute" she is having trouble with the size of the TT and would like us to move up to a larger unit now. I'm thinking of looking for a used Heartland Edge and see if that will work for her. I'm sticking with Heartland but the Edge seems to be the only other model they made that I'm confident my TV can handle. It's supposed to handle a 6,000 lbs max load but I'll tell ya that 5.4 liter V8 still had to work hard with just an MPG behind it going up some of those west Texas mountains. The Heartland Wilderness has a floorplan very similar to the M22 Edge but it's also is about 1,000 lbs heaver. Too bad Heartland doesn't make the Edge anymore either.
