How to drive a Motorhome/RV | New Driver | First things to do

how hard is it to drive a motorhome well I'm going to share some tips on making it easier next welcome to the channel I'm Liz and I have an exciting video for you today you probably know that I recently bought a 2005 Alpha CEO motorhome and like many you're probably wondering well how hard is it to drive I can tell you right off it's a little intimidating it's 38 feet in length eight and a half feet wide over 13 feet tall and 27 000 pounds driving down the road so actually before I bought my motorhome I did some research I watched a lot of YouTube videos and this video combines all the wisdom I learned plus wisdom I gained as I went through the process you'll see if you walk around campgrounds if you look at used motor homes that this right along here is the Impact Zone because it's so easy when you're driving a motor home to take a right turn too soon and knock things over you could hit signs curbs fence posts that kind of thing so I'm standing at the drive axle if you've seen motorhomes with two axles in the back the front one is going to be the drive axle and this is where the pivot point is right in the center and what the Pivot Point means is where everything turns around it so if I make a sharp right turn everything in front of this is in the Impact Zone so I'll show you how to set your mirrors up so you can see the Pivot Point from the driver's seat and you'll know exactly when to turn so what you'll need is a grease pencil and a traffic cone and also some pin striping you will find pinstriping in any auto parts store the first step to setting up the mirrors is making sure that you are in the driver's seat the way you would be driving down the road you don't want to set your mirrors up or you're leaning forward you want to have your mirror set up so that you just glance over and you can see them so I should mention this is a two-person process you want to stay in the driver's seat guiding a partner who will help you set up the mirrors it's good to each of you have a cell phone so you can communicate let's talk about setting up the passenger mirror for the Pivot Point your Mirror Has Two Parts you have a top part that's probably power what you want to do is you want to position the top part so you have about an inch showing the motor coach and then about a third the bottom third should be the ground with the rest of its sky this is going to help you see as far behind you as possible now the bottom mirror is a convex mirror it's generally adjusted manually this is why you really need to have a partner to help you do it it's got such a wide angle of view that you can probably push it all the way out and still see plenty of motor coach next you want to adjust it up or down so that you see about where the front wheel is about where I'm standing to the end of the motor coach so now let's mark the pivot point on the mirror you want to set a cone next to the wheel right lined up with the center of the wheel right at the pivot point then the driver is going to instruct you on where to place the line on the convex mirror what you're attempting to do with the driver helping you is to draw a little line just under the traffic cone so they'll give you directions so that you can mark the mirror so that the cone looks like it's sitting right on top of that line after you've placed the line have the person walk back to the drive axle and stand on the line when they're standing on the line they should be right at the pivot point if they're not you can adjust the mirror to make sure that they are or just erase the grease pencil and try again remember as the driver you need to stay in place don't be leaning forward to stay exactly in your driving position now you want to test it and you want to drive around a parking lot and make sure that the line is exactly where it needs to be stop right at the edge of a curb and double check that the line is showing showing you right where you can turn any object in the mirror that is above the line is clear anything below the line is in the Impact Zone so once you test the line and it's in the right place replace it with a piece of pinstriping so probably the most scariest thing about driving a motor home is that it feels so big and so wide and when you go in a construction zone and you've got the big barriers on both sides and the lane seems to get narrower and narrower it's so important to know exactly where your boundaries are so this next thing will really help you know exactly where you can be in the lane so what you want to do is pull up next to a line so you'll find a parking lot where there's a long line or you could use a line of traffic cones and you want to pull up so that you're just inside the line the way that I did it was make sure that my mirror was just inside the line then you want to have your helper draw on the windshield where you see that line this is going to be your guiding line after you've got your line placed drive your motor home around the parking lot and come back to that line and see if you can line up exactly how you were when you were started if you can't just erase the line and try again now I will tell you when I did this I really struggled and I realized it's because I have these contacts where one contact sees far away and one contact seems close up so if I close one of my eyes that marker on the windshield was moving so now I drive with glasses on so I don't have that issue after you've got the line placed on one side of the motor coach then you want to turn around and do the same thing with the other side once you're satisfied that the grease pencil is in the right place put a piece of pinstriping right on top of it now when you're driving just pick one of the markers either the left or the right they both will not line up at the exact same time that will be really rare if they do well so backing up is not a problem at all in fact it's easy remember I came from a fifth wheel it had a fifth wheel for three years and when you go to back into a campsite or anywhere you've got that hinge and so you're turning the steering wheel one way and the trailer is going another way it's not easy and it's often taken me 15 or even 20 minutes to back up a fifth wheel into a campsite now with the motorhome you don't want to back up if you're trailering anything in fact you can do some damage if you do so you'll want to disconnect if you have to back up anywhere so when it comes to backing in a campsite you just use your mirrors on both sides and you can see all the way down and I have a backup camera now my backup camera is angled down pretty sharply so I can see the end of my motorhome which is great but if I'm backing a long ways I can't see that far out so I use traffic cones I actually give myself a lane I have six traffic cones and I put three on each side and then I just follow that lane to back in it really is easy to back up a motorhome and it's fun some states require you to have a special license to drive a motor home make sure you know the laws in your area and I want to give credit to the RV Masters Channel where I got the idea to Mark the mirrors sadly that channel is no longer active but there's a lot of good information there well setting up the mirrors was key and I'm really glad that I did that and I'm also really glad that I practiced I took it to the parking lot and I practiced I took it out of my campsite a couple times and drove it around just to get used to it you want to do that before just taking off on a big trip and like anything the more practice you do the better you'll become well I'm definitely learning a lot and I'm glad that I'm able to share some tips with you so let me know any tips that you have for driving a motor home and I will see you in the next video of course remember that these are exciting times to push past fear build confidence and live amazing

Channel: Liz Amazing

Views: 31,557

Keywords: RV life, Fulltime RV living, motorhome, class a, towing, Driving, Driving tips, Learning to drive a motorhome

Id: cmNT0mAXxzo

Length: 8min 12sec (492 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2022