Was I Wrong About Overland Trailers?

if you were to ask me about 6 years ago would I adventure with an off-road trailer the answer probably have been well I don't think so I don't think that's right for me but then fast forward a year and a half later and my mind was completely changed and over the last several years I've been having some amazing Adventures using an off-road trailer like this one and behind me is a new addition to the trail Recon garage and so what I want to do is talk to how we got to this point today and take a look at this brand new trailer what an exciting day guys I am so stoked about this trailer that's behind me Regina and I have already packed it up and we're already talking about our first adventure with it but before I show you our new trailer I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk about how I actually started off-roading with a trailer because early on I was not sure that it was something that was right for me and I know that's a question that a lot of you guys have is an asset like a trailer it's it's an investment and is it right for me well I can tell you that in 2017 I was at Overland Expo and I was walking around with the camera filming and well here's what I said our favorite one was this X1 by Patriot campers man this thing has everything you could possibly want out on the trail to be self- sustained it's just awesome built rig and definitely capable of hitting the trails but the sticker shock man that got us quite a bit 38,000 for this what do you think is it worth it after filming that I was like wow that trailer was super cool what an asset that would be but it's a hefty investment and so I didn't think it was something that I would really ever use but just a couple weeks after posting that video here on YouTube Justin the owner of patriot campers somehow got my email shot me an email and said hey mate how would you like to borrow a trailer and you tell me if you think it's worth it and I was like wow that's pretty cool that's bold that he's willing to allow me to borrow a trailer because what they had was a press trailer at the time which they would give to Media outlets and magazine writers and let them talk about it and he was willing to let me borrow that but I had just retired from the military just started a brand new job that I really was taking a lot of my time and we were renting a house that was small and I didn't have a place to put a trailer and so unfortunately I had to decline which was kind of a bummer because I was really looking forward to trying it out and sharing it with you guys the good news is is that Jess and I kept in touch uh for a little while and fast forward about a year and a half two years later and we had moved uh I had started doing YouTube full-time and so I reached out to Justin and said hey does the offer to borrow that trailer still stand and he said yes absolutely and so he sent out that Patriot campers X2 the media trailer for me to borrow and I did a lot of content with that I shared some stuff with you guys about my opinions about it and really found that I started to really think it was a great asset and I really enjoyed using it out on the trail out at camp and well 8 months later I picked up the phone and I called Justin I'm like do you want this trailer back because I had had it forever and he was just happy for me to use it and I was really finding that it was just becoming such a great asset to me and that's when our relationship really kind of evolved we partnered they've been to sponsor the channel I've had several trailers over the years Regina loves having the trailer and today we got an upgrade and so this is the new trailer that we're going to be using and we are so excited about it because it's got some really really cool Innovations and technology it's a completely redesigned trailer what do you say I give you a tour of it so this is our brand new Patriot campers X3 Gen 2 trailer now we've had an X3 for a while now but this model has been completely redesigned from the ground up and I'm going to show you all the cool specs on it it's a big big improvement over the previous generation all right some of the important specs here are is the Patriot campers X3 Gen 2 is 12 .1 ft in length it's 6.1 ft wide it's 5.8 ft tall it weighs 257 lb completely dry it has a 40 gallon water capacity 300 amp hours of power it has 65 cubic feet of storage space and it has a draw bar weight of 395 lb they've done a lot of work to make this a little sleeker so you're not going to see a bunch of latches on the outside and there's a whole lot of new automation it's a lot different than our other trailer but there's still quite a few similarities let's start from the front work our way back we'll look at all the cool stuff on here all right starting with the front here of the draw bar we have our 360° trailer hitch which is super important to have when you off-roading and you're doing all the articulation a good strong hitch that is going to get allow you to flex back and forth is super important there's a breakaway cable here so if you have a disconnect when you're you're on the road that will lock up the brakes and there are 12in brakes on this trailer you have your seven pin connector and you've got your Anderson connector the Anderson connector charges things up while you're driving you've got a handbrake here which I can tell you is very helpful especially if you're disconnecting and base camping but even just like parking it in the garage sometimes it's not quite level in the garage being able to just use that handbrake and lock those up is very nice the whole draw bar has been redesigned what I like is they designed this platform here that's got this grip on here so I can step up now and access things on there that was very clever design plus they've added a jockey wheel this jockey wheel just swings down and you just wind it up easy to use before you actually had to uh attach and reattach it depending on where you were going or what you were doing so this is super nice the whole front end of the trailer has been redesign it's much more Sleek looking and now they've used this really heavyduty composite to kind of close everything and on the front here I have the optional Max tracks let's open this up and show you inside they've redesign the latches on the front which are nice and they're lockable before I was throwing padlocks in here so I don't have to worry about that now it's got some gas struts to raise this up and then this is what's called the garage and it's got a massive amount of space but they did some things that are unique which they put this Molly panel up here so you can actually Mount some Molly bags or other gear up here that you need Maybe tools and Axe Whatever uh and they've done that throughout in a couple different places inside here you've got this nice big shelf and again we've already added our stuff to this trailer but up here uh for now we've kind of put our this is our spray hose so this is for that exterior water faucet and then you have the shower hose and so there's a valve here and you can adjust for the hot water and oh yes we get hot water so this right here is a 3G Gall diesel tank and that feeds the truma heater which is inside and that is not only just a water heater but it also does forced air heat inside and I can tell you that system is a massive improvement over the previous gen it heats up this entire tent very quickly and having a three gallon tank is going to be really nice because it really just sips so this will last a long time here I've just put a little um soft box with some hoses inside but you've got a little bit of stage in between there and this is the optional Swing Away Grill so this swings all the way out and allows you access to barbecue you've got your propane tanks right in here on that side and this side and so you got plenty of propane to cook with up here I'm just storing some cables and whatnot but you can figure out like what works best for you and and I'm sure this will probably change and evolve over time but this is a very very functional space and uh easy to access access now and I like I like these new latches but they've done something even cooler with the latch system that I want to show you now before I start opening the side of this up and showing you all the cool features in there let's just quickly talk about the top here so there is the EXO rack system up here which allows you to mount all kinds of good gear up there if you want you could put kayaks up there storage boxes uh all I have up there right now is a shovel and we got the optional 120 watt solar panel so that solar panel comes off and then when you're base camping can kind of help keep the batteries in here topped off which we'll talk about in a second and then this is the 270° Anning this is an amazing awning we've been using this for years it's great I'm not going to pull this out although it might start raining so I might be forced to pull it out but it's just what you think it is it's a big old awning let's get to the really cool stuff and that is this right here the trailer now has a central Locking System so by the click of one button on here I now have access to open up these which is really nice again we used to carry a lot of padlocks with us and we'd be walking around locking everything up when we'd be on our trips to make sure that you know nobody was deciding to go exploring inside the trailer without our permission now it's the click of one button and it makes it super easy over here is you see the little button there are several of those throughout which I will show you right here is your 30 amp circuit so that's one way to charge the batteries but let me pull out the kitchen and show you what uh what this looks like also redesigned again with some Molly panel on the inside of this door so you can mount some stuff here maybe some of your kitchen utensils we'll figure out what we're going to do with that but the redesign of this whole Kitchen System is really nice before you had to use two hands to open it up now you can just do it with one which is really nice slides right out just like that and one more latch and this comes all the way out and super easy closing it is the same way no more fidgeting with a bunch of latches to get in there it closes really nice and they've designed this new table I'm not sure sure what they're calling this but it's really nice to have especially when you're doing dishes which is usually me and so being able to wash the dishes and just set them out here to dry is going to be really nice plus you can use this for food prep or whatever else you need and then in here we've got a little set cabinet for utensils or whatnot cleaning supplies and then there is another drawer down here for utensils as well so this has been redesigned very well thought out and again I love how easy it is now to open and close that works okay let's show you what's in here I know I'm doing a little bit of compare and contrast with our outgoing trailer but it's just so exciting the new tech that they made so to open the kitchen here before there were some latches that you had to undo and they were a little fidgety especially if it was cold and your hands were cold and just messing with those now you just come over here the Press of a button and this pops down and you're ready to go how convenient is that now this trailer is 10 in shorter than the outgoing X3 which means your table here is a little bit smaller you got a little bit less storage but the good news is there's still plenty of table space to cook and make coffee and food prep and all our kitchen gear still fits in here we're having to kind of reposition things a little bit but the truth is on the other trailer we didn't even f that completely full we had lots of empty space and even the stuff that we moved over here we still have a lot of empty space so this is a great stainless steel work area over here you have the brains of the trailer so right here is the truma system and this allows you to adjust turn on and off the hot water and the blower inside plus there's just a vent so you can just have air circulating in there which is really nice keeps condensation down on those cold nights but honestly I think you know turning that heater on is going to be be such a bonus we always carried with us a portable heater just to kind of warm things up in the morning and now we can just kind of turn this on the low setting and go to sleep perfect uh we have the red Arc red Vision management system here this is the same we had on the other trailer this makes it very nice to operate Stuff Plus you can use your phone to kind of Bluetooth in on this and control some stuff but the new feature that they've added is there are rock lights now on this trailer I call them Rock lights but really they're just kind of a camp ground light which makes it really nice you know we have crawled on some rocks uh using our trailer but it's not intentional uh I don't plan on being out on the rocks at night but if I had to I could turn them on and use them now you also have the exterior lights your awning lights your garage lights and the interior lights you've got some switches to turn on all the 12volt systems and what's really nice is you now have the compressor so it's had airbags before in the previous model but now it's a little bit more Stout compressor for managing those airbags plus I will show you on the other side there's an air Chuck so now you can use it to air up the tires when you're getting ready to hit the pavement if you've aired down your trailer tires off-road so that's really nice that you have still have the ability to level out the trailer which is one of the things I love about the newer generations of trailers is you know when you get to camp and you're not quite level well you don't have to throw rocks under one side to figure it out you just come here raise one side lower the other whatever works it's a very very convenient system it makes setting up Camp really nice and convenient then you have the switch here which opens and closes the tent and it's automated and I will show you that you can also use the remote and we will get more into that here in a second and then down here you have some power outlets from the inverter a great setup all around uh here you've got a nice big Hefty drawer this is actually a bigger drawer than what was in the other one and it's a little bit deeper so fits all our coffee gear and tea uh in there perfectly got some storage down below got a nice drawer up top for putting some stuff got some cubbies in the corners here which you can kind of put some stuff like Tim fo oil paper towels and then you have a nice little shelf here with your stove so this is all really nicely designed and uh it's something that they continue to improve upon over the years uh it's a great kitchen layout all right let's go hop around to the back now on the back here they've just done a really nice job of just the design and making it super clean back here but I'll start with the corners so in each corner is what's called a wet box and that's for keeping like wet towels or muddy boots or for us what we usually do is put our bagged trash in there until we get to some place where we can dump it those are very handy to have down below you can see there is a really Stout bumper before it was a little lower and it was a little thinner now it's been redesigned and the trailer has 36° of departure angle which I'm certain that I will be putting to the test uh we did talk about the rack up here but I want to talk about about these two buttons here so this one is to open the staircase which we need to open the tent before we do that so we will do that in a little bit but this one here opens this drawer and this drawer gives you a lot of nice storage the great thing about this drawer is you can put stuff in here that you may need when you're outside or inside because you can access this from under the bench on the inside which is super convenient you can see we've already put I mean this is basically everything we had in our previous drawer is now in here just try to avoid packing everything super tight and full because you want to be able to get to it and you don't want to add more weight than you need I love how easy that is to open and close all right let's hop on the other side and then we will finally get this thing opened up now there's only a couple things to talk about on the side but I think what we should do first is talk about the most important thing about this trailer in my eyes way back when was is it really capable off-road and the answer to that I found out is yes I'm able to get back into some really remote areas get through some good obstacles we have put these trailers through the ringer on some trails and they just perform really well you have a full independent suspension under there on the airbags which you can decide which is the best ride height when you're on the trail plus it comes with 33in tires with their PE cor Wheels it's a great setup and I'm telling you these trailers they will just go you just point the Jeep in the right direction and this trailer will follow I've been very impressed over the years with that okay on the side again you have the wet box but you also have your water fill out here before the water fill was kind of hard to get to and now they've put it on the outside and it's lockable I really like that over here is your solar connecture so you take that panel off and just connect it right here and start charging up although probably wouldn't get a whole lot of electricity today the good news is the batteries inside there is 300 amp hours of battery and it's a 2,000 watt inverter so that's going to last you a long time but if you're going to be at Camp somewhere for several days having that solar panel is going to be super helpful and here is that air check which I can think of a whole lot of uses for uh but specifically to air up these tires at the end of a day on the trail because sometimes trying to get that hose all the way back here can be a little bit of a challenge and then you have one more switch to open up this massive storage area now again with the molly on this side and then you just have all this space and what we were able to to crazy enough is we could fit four of these soft boxes in here no problem and still had room to put a little couple things on the side now we're not sure what we're going to put in all these but we just was found it pretty cool that they will all fit all but one of these are empty I put some tools in one of them and the others well we can probably put dry food clothes knickknacks whatever it's a nice little storage area it's really large okay we say we open up the tent and take a look inside now the way they have added automation into opening the tent is incredibly nice it's one of Regina and I's favorite features because now she's able to set this up all by herself before was a little bit of muscle and positioning yourself right just to get it to open Perfectly but now it's extremely easy you've got these latches on either side which now open super easy and then over here there's a little sensor that you just turn that on and then you can hit the button and yeah look at that look how easy that is opens right up now here's the other cool thing in my pocket here is the keychain to lock and unlock well you can also open from here how nice is that another the great thing about the remote is when you get the lid to about this point you unlatch the ladder and then you can just keep on opening all the way using the remote so doing that literally took just a few seconds maybe 30 seconds now what I need to do is just walk around and attach the bunge cord which is going to pull the tent tot around the lid and then we will raise up these poles and then we're done super easy super fast that's it done super fast okay there is a little side awning uh that has some Stakes that you can put out I'm not going to deploy that what I want to do is take you inside which starts with deploying the steps and one thing that folks don't realize is this is actually storage area while this is a living space we keep our chair in here we keep a table and we keep our portable toilet so there's actually a whole lot of space in there and most of it we don't even use there's a couple little cubbies in the side and then you've got a little bit of storage under the bench let me set these down we'll take you guys inside inside the tent this is a great living space I can't tell you how many times Regina and I have come in here and hunker down on rainy evenings or super cold mornings and had to turn on the and kind of huddle up this is a very nice place to get out of the elements when you need to and it's very large I mean you can see I'm 6'2 standing up and I've got plenty of headro there's a whole lot of space in here we've had meals in here when we needed to it's very nice and comfortable and I like these new cushions that they've done now let's start over here with the bed so this is a large it's almost a Queens siiz bed and you can keep your bedding on here because when you close it up there's this little mesh that goes over the top top and that keeps your bedding secured so when it folds up it just stays in there nice and easy there are LED lights all up on top and there's one here on the floor and then you've got windows with really fine mesh all the way around so you get plenty of visibility plenty of ventilation extremely nice storage wise I mentioned there's lots of storage on the floor and there's a couple little Cubbies underneath but in here is where the truma heater system is so you can access that if you need to do any maintenance on it and and then underneath this storage is you can get access to half of the refrigerator so if you don't want to go outside to get access to the fridge while you're inside here and you want to drink or something it's very nice to do that and then under this bench seat there's a nice big storage area underneath that one and then under this one is access to that drawer that I showed you on the outside so again this is a really nice feature it's something I really like about this trailer you can come back here kick back there's a table that pulls out again you can put your laptop up here you can have you know a card game you can have a meal very convenient there's a lot of nice features in here but I got to say the new heating system they put in here is probably my new favorite thing that they've done to the inside of this trailer there is a power outlet down below and there's a couple USB and 12 volts uh all around there's a lot of space in here Regina and I have spent many nights in our previous generation tent and it's a great place to get out of the weather it's lots of room in here for two adults no problem you could invite a couple friends in here if they want to get out you could have some children with you you could have a you know your dog with you it's a great space and it's comfortable very comfortable now I know I didn't deploy the awning but you got to remember that's also another great covered area we've actually hung out underneath the awning in some pretty heavy thunderstorms something like just watching it come by there's something soothing about watching rain and thunder come through Regina is super excited about the conveniences that this new generation 2 X3 has I'm excited to get out and use it because these trailers have been so capable over the years and what I'm going to do at the end of this video is I'm going to put a couple links to a couple videos on adventures where I've taken these things and show you what they actually can do not only are they an amazing asset allowing you to take all that weight off your vehicle and putting it in a nice convenient package like this but they're just super conen to have whether you are base camping or you are on a long adventure I've definitely been a convert from trailers uh since six years ago when I first did that walk around at Overland Expo I'm very thankful for my partnership with Patriot campers a huge thanks to them and we look forward to taking this trailer out and putting it through its paces and sharing it with you guys I hope you've enjoyed checking this out let me know if you got any questions about the trailer and I'll do my best to answer them thanks for watching

Channel: TrailRecon

Views: 274,991

Keywords: trailrecon, jeep, wrangler, overlanding, 4x4, adventure, trail, review, light, lift, tires, led, overland, rock, crawling, desert, forest, rubicon, socal, California, product, jk, tj, yj, cherokee, toyota, fj, cruiser, overlander, truck, bronco, four wheel drive, offroad, off-roading, off-road, overland vehicle, news

Id: zYqKwV3mQ6w

Length: 23min 56sec (1436 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 26 2023