Thor Magnitude/OMNI in the cold weather ? How good ? How bad ?

chaching

Advanced Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2018
Messages
92
Wow, did we have some nasty weather travelling South from Ontario Canada this year.
Regarding Thor Magnitude/OMNI’s…how are people finding the insulation ? Maybe people with a lot more experience with different rigs can say either better or worse or the same as their previous rigs ?
 
That’s what we do as well. Block off the cab, keep the slide in, plug the roof vents. The roof vent plugs make quite a difference.
There’s a new’ish trend with the “extreme editions”. Big wheels, extra solar and tank capacities with extra insulation (I remember reading some where)
I would love an XG32 extreme edition option without the weight and possible road noise of the big wheels as I would never off road.
 
While it's no extreme 4-season rig, it does do much better than our previous class-A with a similar floor plan. We take our rig skiing and it does pretty good, I leave the fridge on and outdoor kitchen closed and it keeps it from a hard freeze when it's in the teens.
 
We've camped down to single digits in ours. Past the lower teens, the water in the slideout freezes and you have to wait for it to thaw before retraction.

Make sure you don't have the huge front window shade open and block off the cab and things will stay warmer, but it's still suboptimal. There's a TON of thermal loss from the front cabover, not sure why, it's probably not insulated. The heater runs a lot less if the slider is in too - we put towels at the bottom left / right of the full wall slide because there was a draft there.

I second the recommendation for roof vent plugs - we use these Amazon.com - both in the summer and in the winter when it's either really hot or really cold and it makes a huge difference.
 
It seems we are always driving south for the winter when there are snow storms and extreme temps, and this year was no different since we dropped down through Wyoming. A few thoughts:

- yes, the pipes in the slide will get frosty. Unless we are in single digits, leaving the door under the sink and stove open helps some. We always have a gallon of water standing at the ready while we wait for the water to thaw in the morning We never wait to bring slide in until water thaws and never had a problem
- close off cab while traveling to keep the cab warm. The tradeoff is that the coach will be really cold when you stop for the night, but we accept the tradeoff.
- you are going to use a lot of propane when it gets super cold, and we have had trouble at times getting our coach tank filled in extremely low temps. When we got to north Texas this year, we had zero luck finding truck stops that would fill the coach tank. We finally found a propane company that could fill the tank. To hedge this risk, We carry a portable propane tank with a hose that will plug into the outside propane tap, and we use the spare tank first when possible. We can Almost always swap the empty for a full at a lot of Blue Flame locations, which is sometimes easier than finding someone to fill the motorhome tank. In Arizona last year, we were denied propane at 7 locations over almost 200 miles. We finally found a KOA that could fill our coach tank. We had our spare tank just in case. Two years ago, Moab was completely out of propane for almost 2 weeks, including replacement tanks, so we watch our propane levels like a hawk in low outside temps.
- we never keep the slide in when camping in the cold, as the cold doesn’t cause any issues that would require the slide to stay in. The only time the slide stayed in while camping is when the stupid Lipert slide system failed and we were waiting for our appointment at Vroom to solve the problem for good.
- we carry a radiator style electric heater that provides an additional heat source when the generator is running or we are connected to shore power. It is stored on the mattress in front…saves propane.
- we built our own Magnitude Extreme edition with 41” tires, suspension upgrades, gear change, locking differentials, winch, etc, so traveling or camping in bad weather…even deep snow…is not a concern. This year, the road was closed several times because of road conditions, and we passed more than 50 wrecks in Wyoming and Colorado. We just found a spot and camped for the night.
- we use Auto Socks instead of tire chains when chains are required. Takes just a few minutes to install and remove when chains are required and we have never been bothered by LEO.

In short, we don't make a ton of changes in travel or camping when it’s cold, just a few key key tweaks.
 

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