flips805

...except you would not have hit any of the blue barrels right Andy

Exactly how our school drop offs are...my kids are never late

Greetings! I finally have a towing report :) it's been an awesome summer and We've towed roughly 1200 miles to Yosemite and the sequoias. The trip included the Cuesta grade which is a 3 mile 7% grade, the Grapevine (5% for 5 miles and 5% downhill on the other side for another 5 miles), and the Old Priest road which is a 5% grade for 5 miles with crazy switch backs. On the way home and climbing back up the grapevine the weather got ugly and we got hit with a crazy thunderstorm and wind. I didn't weigh before I left but I'm guessing I had about 8200lbs. The NV did awesome! Plenty of power up the grades and I was able to maintain 60ish going up. I calculated that I was around 8.9 MPG. Question regarding downhill towing. Dropping to 1st and 2nd ok to preserve brakes? I screamed the crap out of the engine. I avoided these grades for many years with my Nissan Titan and Weekend a Warrior set up. Finally got brave enough to do it but I was scared to death going down hill. On the windy old priest grade I placed the Van on 1st and just coasted down hill at 30-35 mph and barely touched the brakes. On the other down hill grades I placed the van in 2nd or 3rd to keep it at 50ish. Barley touched brakes. Other than that..awesome awesome awesome Van and towing experience.

Greetings! Here's a pic of our set up. A little distorted cause I needed to take a panoramic picture to capture the long set up :) We're a family of 7 and absolutely love the van. We bought the van last summer and the trailer just a few months ago. We've only taken it out on two weekend trips and a few beach trips but we're gearing up to go out for a full week starting this coming Monday. Can't wait!!!

Update on steering wheel groan/friction for those still having the issue. Ive had the sound develop and I requested the dealership to take a look at it. They traced the noise to a clock spring from inside the steering wheel. They had to order the part so haven't had a chance to test it yet. I'm stoked though cause that's one annoying sound.

I just picked up a Tekonsha Nissan brake control harness with plug and play on both ends. No wiring required. Haven't installed it yet. Amazon says this is not for the 2015 nissans but etrailer.com and the local RV dealer that I got it from says it does. part#3050-P

Update: Rewired a new harness and I was still getting erratic readings from the P2 (goes from C to NC to 0.0 to -.-) Went ahead and bought a new P2 cause I'm impatient and everything looks good. I didn't get a chance to pull the trailer to see if the S.H error message comes on but I'm hopeful that I found the culprit as being the old P2. I can actually hear the brakes actuate when I press the pedal now :) I called Tekonsha and I will need to send them the old one to get a new one. Can't just go to a dealer close by :( Oh well, at least I'll have one for both my Titan and NV.

Thanks everyone. I started troubleshooting again last night and pulled the biggest rookie mistake. I wired a new longer harness to the travel trailer to get rid of the need for an extension. First wiring job ever and it was easy peasy....until I went to plug it into the van. I quickly found out that I bought and affixed the male 7 pin connector onto the trailer instead of the female connector

Thanks for the replies. I used the wiring harness that came with the TV and wired it to the P2 harness. The set up/connections was actually used with my other TV (Nissan Titan) for ~5 years. There was only one time about a year ago where the clicking sound occurred non stop and drained my batteries. I replaced the battery and the issue seemed to correct itself and it never happened again. I took that same harness and brake controller and attached it to the harness in the NV when I bought it. The NV also came with its own harness so during troubleshooting I swapped out the harness and the issue remained. Because of this I'm pretty certain that the wiring is correct. Chris, is there a way to check if the controller is faulty short of buying another or connecting to another trailer? Thanks!

Greetings, Hoping someone has had similar brake issues and can help me trouble shoot. I apologize for the book below :) TT: 2016 heartland north trail 33bkss TV: 2015 Nissan NV3500 tow packag Brake controller: tekonsha prodigy P2 Whats happening: while driving the brake controller cuts out and gives me an S.H error message. Sometimes the error comes on when I turn but goes away when I'm pulling straight and the brakes function just fine. Sometimes, the P2 doesn't read anything at all but stays at 0.0. When parked and pressing on the brakes, sometimes I get readings on the P2 right away and sometimes there's a 3-5 sec delay prior to getting a reading that the brakes are being applied. Sometimes when I press on the brakes there's a clicking sound coming from underneath the steering column. I drove the TT 200 miles from the dealer to home with no issues. The next day I made adjustments to my pro pride hitch and took it for a test drive. Did well for the first 10 miles of back roads. I took a right turn and was about to enter the freeway when I noticed the P2 giving me the S.H signal. luckily I was able to get out of the freeway and limped home with no brakes. I did stop to check the set up and it's possible that my brake harness was riding low and was bouncing on the ground during turns

Finally picked up my Heartland North Trail 33BKSS last Thursday. Towed it 180 miles to get back home and the NV did great! Unfortunately the TT will have to sit for a while :( We missed the window of opportunity to take it out on its maiden voyage. Gonna be busy the next few weekends...but maybe mid May.

Wohooo! Just signed the docs for a 2016 Heartland North Trail 33BKSS. My hitch comes in this Monday and I'll probably pick it up on Friday. Super excited! Thank you all again for chiming in. I'll post pictures soon.

Haha. I know right! My wife says the same thing. She's ready to have her husband back and participate in family activities instead of looking at specs and trailers 24/7. We found the floor plan we like. Just can't find any close to us. Getting there though. I'll have a tow report soon enough

Greetings! Ran across these numbers while looking at Nissan NV specs (See attached). Does this mean that if its dead weight the max tongue wt is 870lbs however if you have a weight distribution hitch you can have up to 1305lbs of tongue weight? Please say yes please say yes :)

Andy, I will admit that when I had severe sway it was mostly because of the way I loaded the bikes in the toy hauler. Once I got that dialed in towing was a lot better. However, there was still a significant improvement when I switched to the equalizer hitch. I can't say I can technically explain the reason but the same truck, toy hauler, and load had no sway with the equalizer. Even when getting passed big trucks or experiencing heavy wind.

Holy Smokes! NoEffinMini4me...dry tongue weight of that thing is 860lbs. I feel silly for being too concerned over weights. Have you gotten actual weights when you're all loaded up? BTW, the keystone passport didn't work out. My dealing with RVwholesalers went sour and I backed out. Not sure if I'm going to lose my deposit but I feel good about not continuing with them. I'm back on the hunt. Trying to find a Heartland Wilderness 3250BS but after seeing NoMini's set up I might go for the Heartland Northtrail 33bkss. Identical floor plan as the Wilderness but Northtrail has slightly better features.

Thanks for chiming in Tatunka and Andy. Well....I ordered the trailer. Should be here 6-8 weeks :) Cant wait to take it out and give my first towing report. Tatunka, I used to pull my weekend warrior with my nissan titan equiped with the equalizer and it towed great.This time around I plan on getting the propride. Its a ton more expensive but I'm so paranoid with trailer sway that it will be worth it to me. To make a long story short I almost flipped the weekend warrior prior to getting the equalizer. Thanks again for all the comments/advice.

Hi Andy, I've been meaning to ask. What WD hitch do you have and what pick up was your brother using to pull is 36 footer? Thank you!

Thanks for the towing report Andy! Glad your fam's able to go on the trip. Hopefully the lil ones are feeling better. I'm 99% sure I'm going to pull the trigger on the 3320BH. There's 2 coming in to a dealership close by and I cant wait to check it out. Thanks again for everyone's comments and advice. Stay tuned....

Thanks for your comments and advice MC2. We're Southern California and for the most part travel on flat grounds. The most challenging towing conditions I've encountered are the winds of Mohave desert. There's the potential to go up and down a 5 mile 6% grade , grapevine grade, but I've always avoided it. Hate to have this guys experience...

bummer about the ticket Rick. I have the NVP so my towing capacity is only 8700. GCWV is also lower since I have a ton of seats. I do plan on removing as many seats as I can when I towing to help out a lil.

Thanks for your replies Andy and Chris. Sorry about the lil ones Andy. I hope they get to feeling better and that you guys get to go on your trip. Chris, I agree with the need for a good WDH and brake control. I still have a lot to learn about towing but one thing I do know is that the weight and length of a trailer play a factor on overall towing experience and safety. The longer the trailer the bigger the sail which increases the potential for trailer sway. A tow vehicle with a certain wheel base should only tow a trailer within a certain length (although I havent found that magic number combination yet). Thanks again for your input :)

Hi All, I bought my 3500SL last summer and absolutely love it. My wife and I are now thinking about getting a travel trailer and really dig the keystone 3320BH. From the keystone web site it seems like fully loaded it will be close to the max of NV tow ratings but my bigger concern is the length. Overall length is 36'. I use to tow a weekend warrior fs2300 so I'm not new to towing. The 10' difference in length does worry me though. Any thoughts? Thank you!