Buyer's Guide: Keystone Cougar vs. Grand Design Reflection

hi I'm Jake bowling bowling RV's in Ottumwa Iowa and today we're going to do a side-by-side comparison of the Keystone Cougar in the grand design reflection now these are two of the best-selling travel trailers in America today and a lot of our customers ask us what are the advantages of a cougar over our reflection so today we're going to show you some of the finer points in the Cougar why it's the better travel trailer and why it has been the number one selling lightweight laminate travel trailer in America for about 17 years let's go take a look anyone that's in sales knows that selling the story is just as if not more important than selling the actual RV itself now let me tell you the guys at Grant assign there's no one that does a better job than those guys it's selling the actual story their company was started a little over five years ago by the three same men that started Keystone RV now when they came to market they promised their dealers three things we won't sell a Camping World we won't sell to online wholesalers and you have to advertise at MSRP this was music to dealers years it wouldn't have to compete with Camping World wouldn't have to compete with wholesalers and everything would be at MSRP so our customers are not gonna be able to shop us to death and find the lowest possible price it was a great thing for dealers but it might not have been the best thing for customers because the market wasn't as competitive now the rest of the story that goes along with that story is that they got dealers to believe that their product was better than anyone elses the dealers were already bought in because they knew they could make more money on it they just had to sell the kool-aid that their product was great so what I want to do today is shoot some holes in the story of gran designer V I think the biggest difference between Keystone and gran design is what I'm about to talk to you about and it's the registers that Keystone cuts in their floor now gran is ice story about what they tell their dealers and what their dealers tell their customers is this we don't cut holes in our floor we don't want to compromise our flooring and we don't want debris and gunk and stuff getting down into our vents when in reality is they found a way to actually cut cost by using one of these they run this from their furnace under their floor right here to their Island the only heat duct you will see in a grand design be that and imagine a reflection a solitude of momentum is in their island and there's usually only one in the camper whereas this cougar that we're sitting in there's one here there's one here in the back one in front of the island and one in the actual hallway so you're actually heating up your camper with four vents instead of just one now this is not what the French would say is punctual functional there's no way that a 35 foot travel trailer or a 40 foot fifth wheel or a 44 foot toy hauler can be heated by just one vent but they sell the story so well that we don't want to compromise our floor we don't want to cut into it the dealers believe it and then the customer believes it but it's not the best thing if keystone who's been building rvs since 2000 cuts holes in their floor one two three four if it wasn't the best way to do it they'd probably go to this maybe they'd go to one hole in their island but they know that's not the best way to do it look they're not in the business of cutting corners and they want to do it right without failed no exceptions every single time so one of the next big differences between this reflection and our cougar is the way they do the awning now Keystone uses a brand-new patent-pending technology on their awning and that's right here so you can control the awning from the outside bring it in or out right here you can also control the LED awning lights right here and you can also install a wind sensor on the awning so if the wind picks up too much the awning will actually roll back in it's something that's exclusive to Keystone and it's a really neat feature so the next neat piece of technology that you're not gonna find on the grand design you're gonna only find here in the Keystone is right here and that's the fury on Wi-Fi access panel now the way that this works is you take this off and then you buy a router the slide in here now you can do one of a few things with this router first of all you can get a hold of your wireless provider AT&T Verizon US sailor and get a data plan every month so no matter where you're at you can get Wi-Fi to this camper the next thing you can do is you can actually use this as a repeater and make it into a hotspot through your phone so no matter where you're at and basically a 10 to 20 foot bubble around your camper you're gonna get great service pass through password protect it through your phone so the next thing I want to talk to you about is something that gran design and Keystone both do however we've had customers that come in our store and say that's not the way Keystone does that well I want to put it on the record that they do this just like grand design does and it's way they frame up their windows you see every window on the inside and outside of RVs or circular however the studs are square so it looks like this and the windows rounded right here in Ally's little area that's called a gusset now what they both do is they weld an aluminum piece in there to keep the window from moving around now Forest River is notorious for putting a little plastic piece in that area glue in a tan or stapling it in and as the camper beats down the road that plastic piece cracks and a big bubble of delamination happens on the outside when water gets in the wall keystone doesn't cut a corner here and I want to put it on the record that they build it the same way the guys that started grin design RV they got this from Keystone so one thing that you're gonna find here in the kitchen of the cougar it that there's a ton of full extension ball bearing drawer glides you have four right here in the front there's another one right underneath your step and then there's another four right here this is something that you are not going to find in a grand design reflection another awesome feature of this cougar is they do a vaulted ceiling from side to side now this gives you an additional five inches in the center your camper so if you're a tall person or your fear claustrophobic you're not gonna feel boxed in in this camper like you are with that straight roof that's in the reflection although you can see my reflection in this 50-inch TV you won't see a 50-inch TV in that reflection the 50-inch TV is standard in every cougar where a 42 inch TV is standard in the reflection well that's a tongue twister a king bed is a standard feature in every single cougar travel trailer now the reflection doesn't even offer a king bed so if you want the functionality just like your house then the Cougar in the camper for you the more ride patent-pending stair is another feature that you're gonna find standard on this cougar whereas the reflection you're gonna get a regular hanging stair that hangs off the camper now it isn't aluminum and it is easy to fold in and out but it's not like this it's not gonna have the stability of this and you can't adjust it like this stair here so right inside the pass-through storage right here you're gonna find a few little red buttons now what those red buttons are or pink pad heaters they are standard on this cougar you have them on your black fresh and gray tanks as this cougar is zero Degree rated that's not even an option on the reflection so not only are your tank pad buttons in here but so are your the buttons that control your Jags as opposed to the reflection who puts them on the outside of the camper they put them on the inside to keep them away from all the weather conditions and road debris that might come up and cause a problem with your Jack button so probably the biggest construction feature that we talked about today was the way they cut the registers in the floor but another one is the way they build their back wall now this back wall on this cougar is three and a half inches thick it's a fully laminated back wall where is the reflection that sits next door is an inch and a half thick a little bit different on the construction so this Keystone Cougar and that grand design reflection both have a three-year structural warranty however there is a large difference between the two because if you sell this cougar within the first three years own in it this structural warranty will transfer to the next owner it won't with a grand design automatic level up is standard on every brand-new 2020 cougar now with the reflection you're gonna get those regular electric stabilizer jacks that come down in the back come down in the front you hit a button you're gonna need wood blocks to try to level out the camper this is just like a Motorhome it's got its own equilibrium system in it and actually level out your camper one button one touch so thank you for watching this side-by-side comparison of our Keystone Cougar in this grand design reflection remember it's not what grand design tells you it's what they don't and although these campers are at the same exact price point the Keystone is the superior camper and I hope you guys can take this and make it more informed buying decision as always i'm jake boeing here at Bolling RVs and at humble Iowa your source for adventures on the road

Channel: Bowling RVs

Views: 9,615

Rating: 4.5471697 out of 5

Keywords: keystone Cougar, grand design reflection, grand design rv, keystone rv, keystone montana, grand design imagine, grand design solitude, grand design momentum, keystone rv cougar, keystone laredo, keystone passport, keystone cougar half ton, forest river rockwood, forest river flagstaff, heartland north trail, keystone sprinter, keystone cougar 32rli, keystone cougar 33sab, keystone cougar 29rld

Id: kO2-jagV64s

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 11 2019