A no-talk walk thru of a very, very service-able fifth wheel called the Silverback 31B2.

I get amused at Forest River (Mr. Buffets company) as they have a little bit of what I’d call “brand abuse”. Forest River is the owner and manufacturer. Cedar Creek is the brand – as near as I can tell. Then Silverback seems like  sub brand within Cedar Creek. No way you can write it succinctly on a single line.

This RV looks very usable and I’ll note here a few of the noteworthy features. My list is nowhere near complete, I’m just trying to get the things that are interesting…

• outside refrigerator
• bunk house – almost like a separate little apartment.
• black tank rinse – I think will be standard soon and not so noteworthy, but for now I’m including it.
• really good ventilation fan – doesn’t sound like much, but we LOVE our super fan.

Sheri and I recently purchased a new Open Range 399BHS Fifth Wheel RV. We love it. I created a simple walk through review of the unit in the video below.

Before I talk about some of the features of the unit, I’ll list some of the articles I’ve written that you may find helpful.

• Open Range 399BHS Documentation and Manuals. Much of this is generic so it would apply to many other Open Range units as well as many of the equipment suppliers.
• Open Range 399BHS Black and Gray Tank configurations. This really isn’t written down anywhere so this will save you some time and is very nice to know.
• Open Range Leveling Instructions. This is typed and with their leveling control panel, but what if you lose it. I couldn’t find it in their manuals and also it didn’t have the JT Strong Arm instructions included as well. I include it here for your convenience.
• Open Range Users Manual. This is pretty generic, but pretty useful to have.
• For fun and reference : I made this video with a LESSER camera, but still pretty useful to see : Open Range 345RLS Review. I say review because you can see it for yourself, but I don’t actually add any of my opinions.

Some of the features of our Open Range 399BHS that are noteworthy are listed below. I’m not going to try to be exhaustive, but really just list the ones that are really useful and different.

• Electronic leveling. Actually, you do the leveling, but the jacking is all electric. Does require some advance planning, but it is pretty neat.
• JT Strong Arm Stabilizers.
• Black tank rinse. I’ll always want one of these in our rigs. They are life changing.
• DSI Hot water heater. I LOVE the ability to heat water multiple ways.
• Electric fireplace. I love having an RV electric fireplace. They are awesome AND they are efficient.
  • Check out our article on how much it cost to heat our RV for 45 days in 2010/2011.
  • Here is a SHORT article on our actual RV fireplace in our Open Range 399BHS.
• Pot and Pan decorative hanger above the sink. That is really cool.
• Electric RV Awning.
• Other Open Range articles
  • Fixing kitchen faucet on Open Range and the UGLY TRUTH about home repair
  • Esco Convenience Center Settings for Open Range RV
  • The Ultimate Companion RV Users Manual – 5th Wheel Edition
  • Find more Open Range 5th Wheels here: Open Range Fifth Wheels
  • Find General 5th Wheel Page here: RV 5th Wheel Master Information Page

Here are some things that aren’t so great. Not a big deal to us really, but you should know Open Range is not perfect. I think they try pretty hard though so this isn’t bashing them, just listing some things that need improvement.

• The Carrier Air V is a pretty lame air conditioner. The electronic controls just don’t seem to work correctly. Also it could use a regular wall thermostat. The thermostat is in the unit – directly above the fireplace.
• The sink needs a splash guard.
• I would love indoor gray tank controls.

We had a great chance to go through the 2010 Crossroads Seville 35 CK Fifth Wheel RV.  This has a great impact when you walk in and the most striking thing about the unit is the ‘stone’ fireplace. You can’t help but chuckle a little bit when you see it, but it looks pretty nice and it really does have a cozy feeling inside.

We’ve attached a video walkthrough so you can get a real idea of what it looks like. We think these video walk throughs are a great additional resource to the normal photography. We keep them short so you don’t get too bored and we don’t have a sales guy drone on and on in it. What do you think?

This RV is an Open Range 345 RLS Fifth Wheel and we taped it at Crestview RV in Buda Texas.