Fifth Wheel, Rear Kitchen, Dish Breaker

[DonTX]

My wife just HAD to have a rear kitchen 5th wheel. We finally found one we loved, and just completed out first trip in it.

When we stopped the first night, the new set of dishes were almost all broken, as well as other glassware, and the cabinet contents looked very much like I had rolled the trailer a couple of times. She, as a very experienced RV gal, had put rubber in the bottom of the cabinets, and between each dish. Things were certainly well placed in the cabinets.

NOW she wants to sell it and get a center kitchen model, since she hears that they don't break dishes and stir the cabinet contents.

I say get plastic dishes, she says get a new fifth wheel. Has anyone had any experiences to share along these lines?

 

[PWitteveen]

I have heard of similiar experiences with the rear-kitchen models. My brother has a mid-kitchen fifth wheel and has never had a problem. I know that we need to be careful with anything we put in the bathroom that is in the rear of our trailer. It must bounce around quite back there, because we have cupboard doors coming open all the time and the towels on the top shelf end up on the floor quite often.



We use plastic dishes in our trailer. We also have china coffee mugs and have had a couple of them break. Our kitchen is mid-trailer.

 

[klenger]

My AF has a semi-rear kitchen and we've never had any problems. IMHO, glass anything (other than beer bottles) in an RV is dumb.

 

[Grizzly]

If your wife won't have plastic dishes, Install shocks on the 5er.

 

[DonTX]

It HAS shocks on it! I am going to pull one end and see if they are really shocks, or old things that just LOOK like shocks. Heck, all we ever use on the road anyway are plastic foam plates, bowls, etc.

If your wife won't have plastic dishes, Install shocks on the 5er.

 

[jam1on1]

don if you have a littl extra money you should try trail air hitch i had a wilderness with a rear fireplace that always fell apart until i added the trail air good luck jeff

 

[ScottLewis]

I can attest that the rear of a 5th wheel gets a lot of action. A few years ago in Alaska our group caught some fish that wouldn't fit in our freezers so I bought a small chest freezer and we filled it up. It sat at the rear of the trailer. At our first stop on the way home, I discovered that the bouncing had crushed the metal shell of the freezer near the compressor. I beat it out and braced it with lumber, then moved it to the center of the rig. We made it the rest of the way home OK.



My wife has Corian dishes and even wine glasses in the cabinets in our center kitchen model and a glass candle bowl rides unsecured on the counter. The only bowls we ever broke fell out of an upper cabinet that was left unlatched.



The trailer has been towed close to 65K miles in 8 1/2 years.



Dan

 

[Alton]

We have been RVing for over 12 years, had 3 rear kitchen, 29 footers and would not have anything else. We broke the first dish about 3 weeks ago while towing through the Badlands. My wife does the same as yours, using rubber matting underneath the dishes. She also uses bubble wrap between casserole dishes, etc, as an added precaution. The bounce at the rear of the rig is determined by a number of things, short box or long box= wheel base of your truck, air pressure(I'm @80psi, all the way), length of the fiver(30'8" for us), mph that you normally tow,I have a self imposed 60mph top limit because I know how far it takes to stop in a panic situation when towing 12,000 pounds. That being said, I wil tell you that we use Corelle dishes because it is light-weight and very durable. Additionally, I don't like eating off plastic ware. One other thing that might help---we use plastic containers to store some items, spices, coffee cups, etc.

Don't know if this helps but I wish you good luck for your future travels.



2007. 5 Dodge, 6. 7L, quad cab, 4x4 with a 6 speed manual & I love it.

 

[georgej]

Every so often even with the rubber stuff between the plates we'll break one on our 5er. You just have to hit a swail or longish bump that loads the suspension sets things in flight. I have shocks and Dexter axles rubber cushion added to our trailer and it all helps but I think plastic dishes our in our future

 

[PToombs]

You could move the dishes to a "mid-" cupboard.

 

[Larry Willard]

This is our 1st and last rear kitchen. We don't have glass but the wife regularly finds her silverware in the bottom of the cabinet, as well as having the shelves in the pantry actually break off the wall where they are attached. You also can't leave the under counter coffee maker under the counter, she sets it on the floor to travel. The next one will be a center kitchen.

 

[Slow Six]

I think it depends a lot on the trailer suspension, length of overhang etc. We have used our rear kitchen for almost 8 years and only a few minor incidents, all of them errors on my part (to fast over texas gates), but I feel that the combination we have rides exceptionally well. We are in the process of looking at new rigs and will probably go to a mid kitchen as we like a lot of the rear living rooms. A big disadvantage of ther mid kitchen is the cupboard height.

 

[SnoKing]

We had a 26 foot Terry 5er with a rear kitchen and had a lot of problems including a bottle of red wine. We now have a rear livingroom Cardinal 29' and not issues at all. SNOKING

 

[AMink]

We dry camp more than plug in, so we mainly use disposable plates. I like the kind you can actually reuse if you want. Dry camping there is more trash space than available water to do the dishes. You might try Corelle dishes. You could buy a lot of dishes for the hit you'd take selling your rig!

 

[Scottyg1]

I have a Crossroards Crusier rear kitchen 5er, no shocks, and have never broken a thing. I do make sure everything in the rear cabinets is packed fairly tight. I use dish towels and rolls of paper towels to take up space. I had a center kitchen prior to this and things moved around just as much. We do not use glass plates, but we do have a set of glass bowls that we seperate with dish towels while travleing.

My wife just HAD to have a rear kitchen 5th wheel. We finally found one we loved, and just completed out first trip in it.

When we stopped the first night, the new set of dishes were almost all broken, as well as other glassware, and the cabinet contents looked very much like I had rolled the trailer a couple of times. She, as a very experienced RV gal, had put rubber in the bottom of the cabinets, and between each dish. Things were certainly well placed in the cabinets.

NOW she wants to sell it and get a center kitchen model, since she hears that they don't break dishes and stir the cabinet contents.

I say get plastic dishes, she says get a new fifth wheel. Has anyone had any experiences to share along these lines?

 

[LRundberget]

Rear kitchens in an RV is just a bad idea. I guess the designers never rode in the back of a school bus. We used to want to ride in the back because you would be bounced out of your seat over bumps. Shocks won't help other than limiting you to only one bounce per bump. Oo.

 

[TRLRTRSH]

Make her happy

Sing along... . IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE OBEY YOUR WIFE... . :-laf:-lafShe has had a bad experience with the rear kitchen, I bet she'll never be happy with it, no matter what you do:{

Our 31RL is of course a Rear Living Room, we once took off in the morning and drove about 3 miles down the road before the boss said " Oh my God I left the coffee pot on the stove!:{:{ Pulled over, went in the RV and the pot was still on the stove,

 

[ScottLewis]

Ditto on the Corelle. As usual I wasn't paying attention to what my wife calls our dishes. My bad, again.



Dan

 

[DonTX]

I just thought you were establishing bragging rights with Corian dishes, since the rest of us can't afford them. #@$%!

Ditto on the Corelle. As usual I wasn't paying attention to what my wife calls our dishes. My bad, again.



Dan

 

[T Peterson]

I don't have a fifith wheel but I don't see why you couldn't put some kind of primo air bag/soft springs/dual shock setup? Am I just being ignorant? Sounds cheaper than a new trailer.



Tom