2023 UEV-14

Obsessed2findARuggedHybid

Well-known member
No doubt that a generator is by far the least expensive way to roll. Like I have said before coming from tent camping to pop up tent camping to stand up off grid or primitive camp grounds I am just anti generator. No judgment as I live and camp above 6,009-7,000 feet and can roll without ac.

I have not seen an ev 14 in person but the ROA video mentions two frigerators. Outside defiantly 12 volt . The interior one that has vent that shanner showed and mentioned you can turn off very quickly gave me the impression it was shore power frig. Maybe they could offer only one frig and two lithium batteries
 

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Agreed, all those campers with a decent inventory seem poised to nose dive in price over the next 6-12 months. I’m planning on holding out until the dust of the post covid buying frenzy settles a bit. Not sure if the small volume high demand units like Boreas will drop much, I wonder what their margin is with material costs going upward. Plus I’m pretty sure for each of those units there’s a decent number of us that would jump at a chance to pick up one at a bit of a discount. I’m planning on going into next year with an open mind and will probably end up with a used karavan or eos-12 if one pops up, or a dweller/opus 15, that other brand i cant remember that is essentially the same thing or maybe this uev thing.
 

ROA-OFFROAD

Supporting Sponsor / Approved Vendor
Anybody else seen the ROA video on this one? I really like the looks of the layout/use of space. Only downside in my eyes is the table has to be collapsed every night, if it was just me I’d probably sleep on the secondary bed. Don’t think my wife and I would fit on that one together though. 70k still pretty steep for a unit with AGM batteries but coming closer to a reasonable number. I’d probably be up for dropping 60k on something like this






$70k+ and only has 300w of solar and 300Ah batteries that aren’t even lithium. Plus the AC and heat won’t run with out supplemental power. That’s a red flag if you ask me.


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The AC runs on shore power, but the 2023 units come with a truma heater that runs on propane. For the 2022 units that was true, but not on the 2023 units.
 

ROA-OFFROAD

Supporting Sponsor / Approved Vendor
No doubt that a generator is by far the least expensive way to roll. Like I have said before coming from tent camping to pop up tent camping to stand up off grid or primitive camp grounds I am just anti generator. No judgment as I live and camp above 6,009-7,000 feet and can roll without ac.

I have not seen an ev 14 in person but the ROA video mentions two frigerators. Outside defiantly 12 volt . The interior one that has vent that shanner showed and mentioned you can turn off very quickly gave me the impression it was shore power frig. Maybe they could offer only one frig and two lithium batteries


Both the inside fridge and the outside fridge are 12v.
 

EPO

Active member
That's what I thought. And thanks for being here to clear up confusion/speculation. I personally like the UEV-14 layout. Would need/want to upgrade to lithium and look at solar options if needed.
 

ROA-OFFROAD

Supporting Sponsor / Approved Vendor
That's what I thought. And thanks for being here to clear up confusion/speculation. I personally like the UEV-14 layout. Would need/want to upgrade to lithium and look at solar options if needed.

You bet! Any other questions feel free to ping me. I love the rig too. I took my family of 4 camping in it and freakin loved it. Tows like a dream, off roading I never had to wonder if the trailer was doing ok, set up was a sinch. Its a dreamy trailer.
 

WillySwan

Active member
A couple of observations on the 2023 UEV-14 suspension after reviewing the ROA photo gallery:

There is a torsion bar connecting the two trailing arms. It is the first time I have seen that on a trailer trailing arm set up. That makes this a "semi-independent" suspension. When one of the trailing arms compresses or extends, it is going to transfer some of that load to the trailing arm on the other side of the trailer. My guess is that this is an "anti-sway bar" intended to address the side-to-side sway that is common with these suspensions when going down the road. It is probably helpful in that regard but it will limit the independent movement of the wheels off road. Another tradeoff to this design decision is that torsion bar hangs pretty low underneath the trailer. It looks to be at basically the same height as a live axle. This will limit the overall ground clearance.

I don't see any external jounce bumpers for the trailing arms. Jounce bumpers, or bump stops, are important especially off road. It is possible that the air springs or the shocks have internal bumpers. The spec sheet for the Rancho RS55118 shocks shown in the photos state that they have "internal rebound bumpers". Maybe that is adequate, but it is worth investigating.
 
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Treefarmer

Active member
A couple of observations on the 2023 UEV-14 suspension after reviewing the ROA photo gallery:

There is a torsion bar connecting the two trailing arms. It is the first time I have seen that on a trailer trailing arm set up. That makes this a "semi-independent" suspension. When one of the trailing arms compresses or extends, it is going to transfer some of that load to the trailing arm on the other side of the trailer. My guess is that this is an "anti-sway bar" intended to address the side-to-side sway that is common with these suspensions when going down the road. It is probably helpful in that regard but it will limit the independent movement of the wheels off road. Another tradeoff to this design decision is that torsion bar hangs pretty low underneath the trailer. It looks to be at basically the same height as a live axle. This will limit the overall ground clearance.

I don't see any external jounce bumpers for the trailing arms. Jounce bumpers, or bump stops, are important especially off road. It is possible that the air springs or the shocks have internal bumpers. The spec sheet for the Rancho RS55118 shocks shown in the photos state that they have "internal rebound bumpers". Maybe that is adequate, but it is worth investigating.
I hadn't noticed that torsion bar before. Good catch. You don't see that set up on the CruiseMaster ATX suspension used on the X195/R1. I wonder how the ATX addresses the sway issue.
 

Treefarmer

Active member
No doubt that a generator is by far the least expensive way to roll. Like I have said before coming from tent camping to pop up tent camping to stand up off grid or primitive camp grounds I am just anti generator. No judgment as I live and camp above 6,009-7,000 feet and can roll without ac.

I have not seen an ev 14 in person but the ROA video mentions two frigerators. Outside defiantly 12 volt . The interior one that has vent that shanner showed and mentioned you can turn off very quickly gave me the impression it was shore power frig. Maybe they could offer only one frig and two lithium batteries
The portable generator is definitely the power solution of choice for the masses. In the wintertime AZ desert, yoiu can't throw a rock withouit hitting a trailer with a generator sitting outside on the ground. Some of them are the noisy as hell open frame type while others are a bit quieter.

We're camped right now about half a mile from a group of campers with the louder, obnoxious type of generator. One of them must have a CPAP machine or something because they run the thing all night. I know we're in the minority, but we would personally rather spend an extra $15,000 to have an oversized solar system than spend even one hour listening to the sounds of our generator. We like the sounds of nature when camping. For some people, a generator IS the sound of camping. We may be "powerists" because the first thing we look at when we see a campsite is whether the people are generator users or solar users, and we judge them accordingly. ?
 

Obsessed2findARuggedHybid

Well-known member
The portable generator is definitely the power solution of choice for the masses. In the wintertime AZ desert, yoiu can't throw a rock withouit hitting a trailer with a generator sitting outside on the ground. Some of them are the noisy as hell open frame type while others are a bit quieter.

We're camped right now about half a mile from a group of campers with the louder, obnoxious type of generator. One of them must have a CPAP machine or something because they run the thing all night. I know we're in the minority, but we would personally rather spend an extra $15,000 to have an oversized solar system than spend even one hour listening to the sounds of our generator. We like the sounds of nature when camping. For some people, a generator IS the sound of camping. We may be "powerists" because the first thing we look at when we see a campsite is whether the people are generator users or solar users, and we judge them accordingly. ?


Amen!! Nailed it.
 

calicamper

Expedition Leader
A couple of observations on the 2023 UEV-14 suspension after reviewing the ROA photo gallery:

There is a torsion bar connecting the two trailing arms. It is the first time I have seen that on a trailer trailing arm set up. That makes this a "semi-independent" suspension. When one of the trailing arms compresses or extends, it is going to transfer some of that load to the trailing arm on the other side of the trailer. My guess is that this is an "anti-sway bar" intended to address the side-to-side sway that is common with these suspensions when going down the road. It is probably helpful in that regard but it will limit the independent movement of the wheels off road. Another tradeoff to this design decision is that torsion bar hangs pretty low underneath the trailer. It looks to be at basically the same height as a live axle. This will limit the overall ground clearance.

I don't see any external jounce bumpers for the trailing arms. Jounce bumpers, or bump stops, are important especially off road. It is possible that the air springs or the shocks have internal bumpers. The spec sheet for the Rancho RS55118 shocks shown in the photos state that they have "internal rebound bumpers". Maybe that is adequate, but it is worth investigating.

The reason for the torsion bar is they found these long travel independent suspension trailers actually tow pretty poorly on the highway. Lots of talk about better shocks ie promaster van shocks improve things but don’t change the cause.
I noticed the sway bar also and figured someone in the US convinced them they needed to address it.
 

rehammer81

Active member
I'm pretty sure I have seen a torsion sway bar in pictures of the Kimberley trailers also.

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The portable generator is definitely the power solution of choice for the masses. In the wintertime AZ desert, yoiu can't throw a rock withouit hitting a trailer with a generator sitting outside on the ground. Some of them are the noisy as hell open frame type while others are a bit quieter.

We're camped right now about half a mile from a group of campers with the louder, obnoxious type of generator. One of them must have a CPAP machine or something because they run the thing all night. I know we're in the minority, but we would personally rather spend an extra $15,000 to have an oversized solar system than spend even one hour listening to the sounds of our generator. We like the sounds of nature when camping. For some people, a generator IS the sound of camping. We may be "powerists" because the first thing we look at when we see a campsite is whether the people are generator users or solar users, and we judge them accordingly. ?

They are definitely obnoxious as hell, if I was going to use AC on the regular I might consider that. I find when I’m camping I usually have the heater on and when it’s hot I can make do with a fan and open windows most the time. I’m sure that’s not the case in a lot of the southern US though.
 

DFNDER

Active member
Interesting about the torsion bar and highway driving. Maybe it’s needed with the shocks conqueror uses, but I’ve found our Boreas with cruisemaster suspension to tow incredibly well on the highway, and stable as a rock at 75mph. Maybe more a function of cheap shocks and poor dampening or some other design aspect than a universal problem with independent suspension on trailers.
 

Treefarmer

Active member
Interesting about the torsion bar and highway driving. Maybe it’s needed with the shocks conqueror uses, but I’ve found our Boreas with cruisemaster suspension to tow incredibly well on the highway, and stable as a rock at 75mph. Maybe more a function of cheap shocks and poor dampening or some other design aspect than a universal problem with independent suspension on trailers.
I'm glad you commented on CruiseMaster. We're specifying the CM ATX for our next trailer. It trailer will be big (9,000+ lb GVWR), but our understanding is that the ATX has options that should be easily be able to handle that weight. We never thought about a sway bar on one of these suspensions before. We haven't heard about any sway issues with the ATX yet, but haven't heard a lot about the real life use of the product in general.
 

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