TRUCK TOUR! // Western Star HDT // HDT RV

[Music] what you doing i am cleaning up pine needles why well we're gonna load the car here in a few days and i thought i'd better get it cleaned up and you know maybe this is a good time for us to give everybody a tour of our truck what do you think [Music] [Applause] sure [Music] welcome to our tow vehicle we've had so many questions in the last nine months since we put out our top 10 questions on converting an hdt to an rv hauler so many of you have wanted to see the truck and i guess it's probably time that we show it it's filthy my apologies but it is what it is i couldn't wash it in this park so it's a 2017 western star 5700 xe it is built as an over-the-road truck we purchased this truck about uh three years ago and we have loved it it has got the detroit 15 liter engine in it and the engine may look a little overwhelming to some of you but trust me i don't even work on today's dualies so i just take it this into the mechanic and have them do the work but it's really easy to get into to check the oil to check the filters to wash the windshield the the hood opens up and then i can climb up on one of the tires and take care of whatever i need i can check my oil i can check my filters i can check my fuel filters check my fluid levels it's really super simple in fact i even jumped a neighbor last month had a dead battery so we pulled this up and jumped him off of this and he was good to go it was an interesting experience i've never jumped off of a big rig like this it has a 10 speed automated transmission with double overdrive so 12 total speeds it does skip shift what that means is that the truck computer determines the load and the grade that it's on and then it will start out in whatever gear could be third could be fifth could be first it just all depends on what the truck computer decides is best for it we bought this truck with about a hundred and four thousand miles on it and we have put about forty six thousand miles on it now uh we're just coming up on 150 000 miles these trucks are built i'm gonna safely say for a million miles and that's why we didn't have an issue buying it with a over a hundred thousand miles uh we know some friends that have purchased used hdts with 400 500 600 even 800 000 miles on them we're probably not gonna out live this truck this truck will outlive us based on the miles that we put on it and the loads that we put on them people ask why did we buy an hdt kelly and i have been rving for a number of years and we've gone through three different dualies we went through a 99 ford f-350 with a 7.3 liter that was my favorite truck but it we wore it out we just flat wore it out i replaced the brakes on it twice i replaced the brake rotors once i i had it just it just we wore it out it had 200 and some thousand miles on it when we uh when we sold it and so we upgraded into a chevy duramax and quite honestly i didn't have an issue with that truck kelly hated it it was uncomfortable the cab she said felt small and compact there was no storage it felt like she was riding on cardboard so we decided after a year to upgrade into a dodge dually and golly that thing we went through o2 sensors and computer changes and front axle joints and main u driveline u-joints and just a number of issues with the dodge and i just got tired of being nickeled and dimed to death and so we moved from that into a medium duty freightliner m2 business class and then when we decided to go full time we knew we were going to want an extra vehicle and the medium duty truck just wasn't set up for it with a bed to haul an extra vehicle so that's when we moved into this uh the couple that owned this purchased it as a demo truck off the lot in fort worth texas or just outside of fort worth and they converted it into an rv hauler it is never seen over the road the truck came with a as most over-the-road trucks do it came with a five-year or 500 000 mile drive train warranty since we're still under 500 000 miles that warranty is still good on the drivetrain itself and we've been we we love it it's just been a great truck uh it's got all the creature comforts of home it's got leather seats it's got air ride seats it's got an air ride cab it's got uh adaptive cruise control it's got lane assist it's just got all the features that you would want in any high end dually pickup truck it's a little bit bigger i like to tell people it's the same width as your dually on the back hips it's just that that width continues all the way up the front of the truck as i've said before driving this truck is not a whole lot different than driving a class a motorhome we're about 29 and a half feet total length we have tandem axles on the back which a lot of your 45 foot class a motor coaches have we purchased this truck with super singles rather than the tandem duals we uh i don't have an issue with the super singles people ask me all the time why did you put super singles on it that's the way the truck came the truck is set up with a double bunk sleeper in the back i'll show that to you here in a second it's got plenty of room inside it is titled as a private rv out of south dakota the bed is nothing flashy it's just a standard steel bed we tow our smart car on the back sideways as you've probably seen in our videos and it just does a great job it's 505 horse as i say an automated automatic transmission with the detroit 15 liter engine let's go take a look inside getting into a big truck is a little different you've got two steps and then a bunch of grab rails so this particular truck has a grab rail here for my right hand it has a grab rail here for my left hand i just step up reach up grab the steering wheel and pull myself and slide in really no problem i can imagine if you've got arthritis real bad or bad knees or something you might have an issue getting in and out but for the most part we get in and out without an issue one of the things i will mention on this we have a tucson brake controller for the trailers this truck has air brakes obviously and a standard electric brake controller won't work in these trucks so the tucson brake controller ties in with my obd2 computer port so it knows whenever i apply pressure on the brakes the computer sends a signal to the brain of the brake controller and then it sends the message back to the trailer to decide what kind of brakes the trailer needs the interior comfort is one of the main reasons we bought an hdt there is so much room in this cabin and don't get overwhelmed by the buttons and the knobs and the gauges in here it's just that it's got a little bit more monitoring than a normal truck does so for instance i've got utility lights i've got headlights i've got dash lights i've got clearance and id lights i've got the hazards i've got driving lights and i've got fog lights that's all on the top row then i've got mirrored defrost i've got a regen button i've got a override shutdown i've got a lane alert where i can silence the lane alert for a certain amount of time i've got a cruise control limit i've got a deep mud and snow i've got the sleeper lights on a button i've got the air dump for the bed i've got the lock for the inter axle lock they're not overwhelming they're really over not it's just there's a lot there that i can control and then the gauges give me air tanks air tanks air tanks air pressure speedometer oil pressure fuel rpms engine temp transmission temp axle temp turbo and oil temp your standard gauges it's just that the nice thing about this is it's got gauges for just about everything so i can monitor it while i go down the road also in the cab it allows me to put my seven inch back up camera monitor in here and it doesn't even take up much space up here i've got my backup camera for just the truck that i can turn on and off and see what's behind me and i use that while i'm hooking up we've got a cb radio regular radio um it's got bluetooth just like your normal truck would on the steering column again just like in your normal truck i've got cruise control i've got set i've got resume i've got mute for the radio i've got i can flash my taillights to thank the guy behind me for flashing his lights for passing i can flash my headlights to let the guy in front of me know it's safe to come over i've got volume control and of course i've got my handy dandy suicide knob the parking brake this is the air trailer air supply which obviously we don't use climate control gps you can see we've got room in here oh and my tire pressure monitor system we've got room in this cab to put all kinds of gauges and monitors and cameras and it doesn't feel like we're crowded at all i've got air ride seats they go up and down i've got adjustable arm rests and i'll be honest with you i tell people once i get this set up this is just like driving your easy chair it is really nice to have and very comfortable the seats are leather they retract back they come forward it's got lumbar everything you'd ever want in a high-end pickup truck we have in the cab of this truck kelly's got storage with a box up top quick access storage a box down below tons of storage in here along with a wonderful speaker system for the stereo we really really are comfortable in this one of the things i'd like to mention is that those of you that are intimidated with the transmission this is so easy right now it's in neutral i can flip it up it's now in drive and it drives just like your automated pickup does your automatic transmission on your pickup truck does the nice thing about this is it will determine what gear to start in so for instance a lot of times it will only start in third gear maybe fifth gear depending on whether i'm on a flat surface or a little bit of a rise or a little bit of a downhill so all i have to do is flip it in the drive and it determines what gear it needs to go in i can flip it into reverse same thing i've got reverse now just like your regular pickup truck i have a little touch button on the end here most of the time we drive this truck in what they call economy mode i let the computer decide what works best for it it determines the rpm the turbo boost what it needs to do and it just does it automatically i can override that with the touch of a button and it goes into what we call performance mode all i have to do is push a button and it puts it in performance mode when i'm coming up on a grade that puts it in it changes the power band of the of the transmission rather than economy mode it turns it into performance mode and it will shift at a higher rpm to stay in that that high power band going up a hill i can also touch it and it'll go into manual mode once it's in manual mode then all i have to do is shift up or shift down i can shift this just like if i had a stick shift right here i can manually shift it with the flick of of this knob the other thing i like about this truck is the engine brake it's got a three stage engine brake if it's in the up position the engine brake is off i can bring it down to level one which is a slow engine brake i can take it to level two that gives me a little more engine brake and i can come all the way down to level three and that'll throw us into our seat belts as we're as we're approaching so three space three speed engine brake is really nice my wiper controls are over here on the other side on the turn signal lever again don't be intimidated by all this once you understand what everything does it's really nice to have so let's take a look in the back this is a double bunk sleeper setup and we have never stayed in it this is where our dog jake used to lay on on that bunk um but you could see that we use it mostly for storage up above here the upper bunk and again i've got bags here but what i've done is is i have stored my fishing gear up here in this bunk and then raised it up and and my fishing gear sits inside that upper bunk we've got trays for storage on both sides we as you can see i've got my big tackle box over here i've got my my motorcycle helmets here this truck was set up with a table that went in between those two seats that i think we've used two or three times since we bought the truck it sits on a pole we usually don't use it so it normally sits back here but we probably just need to to dispose of it we've got cupboards so in this cupboard we've got our coffee maker our coffee supplies our microwave oven because this truck has an inverter on board we can run our electric appliances going down the road this coming here is where the refrigerator used to be the refrigerator died and so we pulled it out and we just haven't replaced it we've kind of turned it into some more storage we'll eventually put another refrigerator in here but that's where the refrigerator goes on the other side we've got storage up above we've got cabinets we store extra bedding in here just in case we have to stay in the truck for whatever reason so we've got pillows and blankets in here we've got normal storage for just odds and ends tie-down straps and uh and extra paper towels and that sort of thing we have two drawers again basically for storage we've got some towels in here we've got some screwdrivers flashlight that sort of thing and then again more storage for eating on the road we've got some stuff in here that we can use for our food prep in the microwave this is a very comfortable vehicle and we really thoroughly enjoy it so the million dollar question is do you drive it no i don't i have no desire to it intimidates me and the other question is is will i ever do it never say never but i i'm very happy in the passenger seat i really enjoy driving and this truck has changed the way that we travel it really has yeah we we've had not planned but we've ended up with some really long travel days 10 12 hour days not by choice it just kind of happened yeah and i'm not stiff and sore and when i get out of the truck it's uh it's very comfortable i'm tired from driving but you know i'm not stiff and sore so it's a real comfortable truck to drive if you haven't seen our video yet on the top 10 questions we get asked about converting an hdt into an rv hauler i'll put a link up above if you have some more questions feel free to comment below or get a hold of us through our website at sweettravels.com that's right okay okay all right so we're going to wrap this one up thanks for watching guys from newport washington it all starts with an idea we'll talk to you next week bye

Channel: Suite Travels

Views: 89,538

Rating: 4.914856 out of 5

Keywords: rv living, rv travel, hdt, hdt rv, fulltime rv, heavy duty truck, rv hauler, rv north america, rv america, thousand trails, rv toter, big truck big rv, 5th wheel, fifth wheel, rv living full time, motorhome living, fulltime rv living, rv lifestyle, rv youtube channels, rv full time living, DRV Mobile Suites, DRV Fullhouse, DRV Toyhauler, RV Toyhauler, west coast hdt rally, heavy duty truck conversion, hdt rv hauler forums, truck tour, western star

Id: zXAHNXidTPY

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020