This blog is to discuss my experiences and travels with my new Winnebago Fuse 23A motorhome. Think of it as a long term review of the Fuse and a compilation of our travels in our new coach. Since I am new to RVs, I am sure I will be somewhat confused and amused by what happens as we go down this path.
The August/September 2019 Ford Frontline magazine has a great article on the 2020 Ford Transit. I can not find it online so I am posting it here.
A huge number of changes and there are some interesting new features. 4x4, Ecoboost Engine, rotating drivers seat, increased GRVW and towing capacity, bigger fuel tank and many other things that would be great additions to the Winnebago Fuse or any other motorhome built on a van chassis. Not sure what features will be included on a new Fuse or other motorhome since the cutaway chassis that the RV manufacturers use can be ordered with in all sorts of configurations.
We had a great visit with my son in Pittsburgh. We spent the whole day with him chauffeuring us around Greene county Penn. looking at old family historical sites. We left the Fuse at the campground for this adventure. We should have used a jeep to get to some of the places we went to but, his car made it fine.
We parted ways Tuesday night after dinner. On Wed morning we did a little cleaning, dumped tanks and then headed for our next stop, Pipestem State Park in West Virginia. So down I-77 and then on to US-19 heading back to Beckley, WV.
The weather turned out to be much better than on Monday and Tuesday. The rain stopped and the temperatures stayed in the low 70s. The perfect weather and it made Sonya and myself believe that Fall was on the way. To celebrate, we made lunch at the West Virginia Welcome station and ate with the big rigs.
We have been listening to Siri on the apple phone for directions. I think I am going to have to stop blindly following the directions. I am going to be breaking out a map before we start out from now on. The instructions from Apple Maps brought us on the most curvy, up and down narrow roads I have been on in a long time. 60+ miles of them. Looking back at the map afterwards I could have stayed on Interstates and US highways and probably only been 10 minutes slower. Of course I lost way more than that on my lifespan and the few hairs I have left would have been much happier.
On our trip we did get a scare going up and down the mountains. I got a alert from the engine. It was complaining about a Fuel Filter issue. We did a quick search and found a Ford Dealer about 10 minutes away. We headed that way, parked in the service area and shut down. Out of curiosity I started back up to see what happened and the message was gone. Talked to the friendly folks at Mid-State Ford in Summerville, WV and after a short discussion with the service folks we agreed that since the message went away we would be good going on. Also there were two good dealers where we were heading that could help if the message came back (so far, no more messages). I know some dealers have not been able to help us, but just having Ford be there to give a word of advice made me feel soo much better. Try and find a Mercedes dealer in the middle of rural West Virginia to do that.
But the drive up to Pipestem was glorious. Though it was via small winding roads, the views of the New River Gorge were unbelievable. It lived up to the scenic drive hype.
Now a little on the mileage. One tank got 17mpg. Mostly driving around into and out of Pittsburgh on Interstates averaging 60mph. The next tank had me driving little bit faster following the speed limit at 70mph. The milage dropped to 15.6mpg
I recently had SuperSprings Sumo Springs installed on my 2017 Winnebago Fuse 23a. It has been so far one of the best upgrades to the Fuse I have had done. I recommend it to everyone.
Lets start at the beginning. I have scraped the rear of my Fuse once. This was going from a driveway on to a crowned road. I have scraped the stairs once. This was going over a speed bump when I bounced because I was going a little faster going out than when I was going in. In both cases I was not being careful but in each case if I had had 1/4" more clearance or less bounce I would not have had a problem.
So what to do. I had read on several other sites about Sumo Springs and I have talked about them here as an option to raise the Fuse. They were recommended unofficially by the Winnebago engineering team. It appeared with a small amount of modification to the unit you would get a large payoff. So I decided to give it a shot.
I had the local RV dealer do it. It appeared I could have done it if I had the right jacks and stands but I just did not have the time and had been putting it of for a while. I should have brought it to a local suspension shop to do the work. I could have saved a good amount of money (30%). But I had the Fuse in the shop for a recall and time is what I am short supply of so I just said make it happen.
So before I had the Sumo installed the fuse stood at 12" at the rear bumper. After they were installed it was at 13.5". An increase of an inch and a half. Good.
Before I had the Sumo installed the stairs on the fuse were just under 7.5". After they were just over 8". An increase of a little over 1/2 inch. Again - A good change that would have saved me in the past
So the real proof is in the pudding. Did doing this modification change how well the Fuse rides and drives? It did and it did for the better. I have always thought that the Fuse rode like a nice SUV. Now it rides like a luxury car. All of the little bumps and cracks in the road have disappeared. And so did the noise and rattles in the Fuse when you went over them. I have never noticed any real sway in the Fuse but I could tell on our first little drive (650 miles) that that there was even less now. It now rides like a Cadillac.
I even rode on the back bed for a little bit. Before the Sumo Springs it was pretty bumpy riding back there. Way more noticeable than in the front. Now with the Sumo Springs installed the ride has calmed way down in back.
How do the Sumos do this. I posted an earlier article and the Sumo Springs act like airbags would in a traditional motor home. You can't adjust them but they absorb the bumps and provide a better foundation for the coach to ride on.
The next question is did I do anything to the front suspension? The Sumo folks sell something for the front springs as well. I did not do anything to the front. The Travato group members who have done this don't seem to think that the Sumo product for the front do much or anything to help in an RV configuration. They are probably right since all of our weight is in the rear.
Another question is did it change the level and do I need blocks now? The answer is no. The Fuse seems to be as level as it always has been. I don't have exact enough equipment but in my driveway and a the campsite we stayed at everything was still in the center of the bubble level. The extra inch over the length of the vehicle did not seem to throw anything off much.
What about the warrantee? Per Ford it will not void the warrantee if it did not cause the problem.
From a overall perspective, just the improvement in the ride would justify adding the Sumos to me. If you have a 17.5 or 18 you already have some additional clearance but you will get a little more. Not as much as if you added an additional leaf spring but every little bit helps.
From a technical perspective the shop replaced the original bump stops with Sumo Spring bump stops model SSR-121-54. They used a 1" spacer .
Last question - How much? This seems to always come up. You can buy the SumoSprings on sale for as little as $223 but they retail for around $300. Installation takes 1-2 hours.
Don Moody did a great video for anyone who want to do it themselves or just see what this involves:
There is a Ford publication with a huge amount of information about the 3.2l turbocharged diesel engine in our Fuses. Found on the forddoctorsdts site and part of a series called the "Coffee Table Books"
Here is a link in case you can not find it on the original site: Link
When I was a child I remember lots of endurance races. The 24 hours at Seebring is one that sticks in my mind. Well now the Fuse has something on those races. I think I will call it the 29 hours to Colorado test.
It was not planned to be that, but I never said I was sane. Our original plan was to leave at 7:00am and make it to just past Little Rock. A 11-12 hour drive. And then on Thursday go from Little Rock to Ft. Collins another 12 hour day. Long runs, at our normal limits but doable.
Well we got off late, very late from Tallahassee on Wednesday afternoon. (A subject for a different article). How are we going to do this and make it to the get together on Friday. Well we thought we would drive as far as we could go, get a nap and go again and repeat as necessary. Not really any other choices.
Then we had another dumb idea. Why not try and do it straight through. One of us could sleep in the back while the other drove. We could always fall back to plan B if we needed to.
I got the Fuse back from the Ford dealership at 6:30PM and went home and loaded up. Forgot a couple of things (including my coat and the bike) and we left. Lets call it Wednesday at 7:15PM to be exact. And then we drove.
Not many pictures because we drove through the middle of the night. Did you know it is easy driving at 0200? You and just a few others on the road. Even most of the 18 wheelers are pulled off in rest stops at that time of the night.
By 0600 on Thursday morning we had caught back up to our first schedule and passed the campground we were planning to stop at. We made real good time. Both Sonya and myself got a several hour nap and Lily slept through the whole thing.
Then for the trip through the Great Plains. Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. Long and boring drives. Speed limits at 75mph and tolls. We averaged 80mph down this part of the trip and the accompanying 12mpg milage. Not my normal 68mph and 16mpg on the east coast.
I did have to perform one maintenance item while we were on the road. I noticed we were at 1/2 tank of DEF and I stopped at a Walmart in the middle of Kansas and added 2.5 gallons. We probably burned 15 minutes on that task.
We pulled in to the Ft. Collins Lakeside KOA just before midnight eastern time.
In the first 24 hours we had 21 hours and 20 minutes of running time. Traveled 1419 miles. From doorstep to campsite was 1700 miles and took us 28 hours 30 minutes. That means we averaged almost 60mph including bio breaks and 79mph during movement.
If anyone questions the toughness of the Ford Transit or the Winnebago Fuse, have them talk to me. I have a story.
OBD-II - On-Board Diagnostic 2 is a diagnostic bus on all modern cars used by technicians to diagnose any errors and interface with the computer in your vehicle. It provides an interface to your cars computer to see what is going on and read the diagnostic logs that are kept. All of the measurements that are on your dashboard and many more are available to see by interrogating the cars computer.
Your Winnebago Fuse has a OBD-II interface located below the steering wheel on the left. It is accessed by opening a panel that exposes the interface.
I purchased a diagnostics adapter so I could see what was going on. If the check engine light ever comes on I thought it would be nice to be able to see the error as opposed to just taking it on faith what the repair people told me.
The adapter I purchased was a KOBRA Wireless OBD2 Car Code Reader Scan Tool OBD Scanner. This one works with IOS and Android devices. In the past, these devices were expensive pieces of test equipment. They are now, very inexpensive. Some cost as little at $10.00.
To do anything with the device you need some software as well. I purchased "Dash Command". another $10.00 purchase. There is free software, but after trying several, I decided to buy this app since it got high reviews. It was the right decision.
How do you get it started? With an iPhone/IOS device you connect to the Kobra scanner using WiFi. Open your wifi settings and connect to the WIFI_ODBII SSID.
Then you start the software on the iPhone. I had to input some settings for the Transit 350HD the first time. Every other time, you just pressed go. You start to app and then tell it to connect to the scanner. There are a huge number of screens to get information from and they are customizable. You can even download templates others have created. I have stuck with the default screens.
I was very interested in several things. For example, I can now get an idea on the Fuses current fuel utilization. I really wanted to know how many gallons/hour the Fuse uses when at idle. I now know. 0.3 gph.
Another question I wanted to know was if I had any diagnostic logs. The important ones cause a check engine light. I have not had this happen, but some of the minor ones are recorded so the Ford techs can see if anything out of the ordinary has happened since they were last cleared. I looked and there were none. Oh, and if you need to, you can clear the codes as well.
I purchased this for the Fuse, but I can use it on any car built since 1996. For a total investment $10.00-$30.00 it is a great investment for those who are interested in some of the details of the automotive portion of the Fuse.
