2021 Rockwood HW296 High Wall, bought blind out of a Minnesota lender yard, my first setup was a comedy

marcy said the buying board wants the figures and the whole story, so here is mine, and the story is mostly me making a fool of myself in a state park, so settle in. i am dan, i live in Dubuque, i have never owned a camper and before september i had never towed anything heavier than a little utility trailer with mulch on it. my wife wanted to take the kids camping without a tent after one too many wet nights. so i bought a 2021 Rockwood HW296 High Wall, the hard-side folding one, and it came through conaway's out of a lender yard up in Minnesota.

the buying part fast, since this is that board, then the embarrassing part. they broker bank repossessions, so the campers are the lender's, not theirs, parked at whatever yard the lender hauled them to, and your whole look at one is the photos. bids are sealed, your number stays yours and nobody else's ever shows. i wrote 9,400 on the HW296, which read 2021, one owner, tidy gallery, and the email came back that it was mine. your winning number is the whole tab, nothing stapled to the bottom of the invoice, and after years of dealer add-ons i double-checked that. 310 miles from the yard to me kept me inside the free first thousand, so delivery billed at nothing. new, these sticker north of 23 grand, and a clean used 2021 runs 14 to 16 around here, so as a first camper it felt like one i could afford to fumble. the conaway auction listed three more folders that same week, they do not sit long.

now the part i actually came to write down, because somebody like me is going to read this. our first trip was a COE park on the Mississippi south of here, a 48 degree october evening, and i had practiced the setup in the driveway exactly zero times. here, in order, is everything i did wrong.

one, i did not level the trailer before i cranked the roof up. so the roof went up cockeyed and bound in the lift and i could not figure out why the crank got hard. a guy two sites over walked over, pulled my chocks, had me move it six inches onto a leveling block, and it cranked up fine. i had read about leveling. i did not do it.

two, the bunk-end beds. you are supposed to pull the bunks out and get their support bars seated before you fully tension things. i cranked all the way up first, then tried to slide a bunk out against the canvas, and it fought me the whole way. did the other one in the right order and it glided.

three, the canvas. i had a flap of the dinette-side canvas folded under and pinched in a hinge and spent ten minutes thinking the camper was broken before the same neighbor pointed at it. four, i could not find the crank handle for a full minute because it stores in a little bracket inside a cabinet and nobody tells you that. five, i forgot to drop the stabilizer jacks at all until we were lying in bed feeling the whole thing rock when my son rolled over.

setup that first night, with the neighbor helping, ate most of an hour and had me sweating in 48 degree air. nothing wrong with the camper. the problem was the operator. the gallery on one of these over at conawaysautosales.com runs long enough that a nervous first-timer like me would risk a blind bid, which is the whole reason i did. coaching welcome, clearly i need it.

second trip in the books, a county park an hour south, 29 degrees overnight this time and the furnace earned its keep. setup was better. i did marcy's order and it went up straight the first try and i felt like a genius for about four minutes.

then the honest part, because this board is honest about faults. when i dropped the stabilizers one of them, the left rear, the little foot pad flopped sideways and i saw the swivel foot was bent and sloppy, clearly from before i owned it, probably somebody backed it into a curb folded up. it still worked but it would not sit flat. ordered a replacement swivel foot for 14 dollars, two bolts, done in the driveway monday. that is the whole repair the camper has needed so far, a 14 dollar foot.

to minivan_tow_dad, you were right to ask. the HW296 behind the Highlander is fine on back roads and a handful on the interstate in a crosswind, exactly like you said. i added a friction sway bar and i slow down to 60 and it settled down a lot. loaded tongue weight came out at 410 on a tongue scale, inside the Highlander and the hitch, but not by a mile, so i am careful about what rides up front.

fair question and i will give you the real answer, including the parts that did not go smoothly, because i would rather you decide with all of it.

the honest limitations. first, there is no financing on these, the titles carry the lien until the thing is paid, so i could not walk in and sign a payment plan. i had my credit union do a small signature loan before i bid so i could wire the money, and i would tell any first-timer to line that up first or it is a scramble. second, two weeks before this one i put a sealed number on a Flagstaff high wall and lost it, by a gap i will never learn, and it ate at me for days. buying this way means you have to name your price, close the laptop, and live not knowing. third, when i wrote conaway's for a couple more shots of the lift and the roof seam, the answer took the better part of three days, and that stretch drags when a decision is hanging. what came back was thorough and the photos were sharp, but it was still three days.

so would i tell a beginner to buy sight unseen. if you are handy enough to read the photos and you line up the money first, the conaways people took good photos and the camper was exactly what the pictures showed, and i saved real money versus the local lots. but if setting up a camper you have never touched in a state park with your kids watching sounds like too much on top of the buying being new, then yeah, go stand in a local seller's driveway and crank one up first. there is no shame in it. the outfit in pataskala is not going anywhere, it turns over every week, so you can learn on a borrowed one and buy this way next year.

UPDATE, the third-trip number marcy wanted. we did a cold run to a state park with electric sites over the holiday break, bundled up, just to use the thing in winter once. i timed myself on purpose.

first setup back in october, with a stranger helping, was right at 55 minutes and a lot of swearing. this time, alone, start to coffee, was 22 minutes. level, chock, stabilizers to touch, crank up straight, bunk ends out and seated, canvas, done. the tape inside the door with the three reminders is still there and i still glance at it. my wife unhooks and does the inside while i do the outside and between us it is more like 15.

what cut the time was not strength, it was marcy's order of operations and just having done it. the camper never fought me once i stopped fighting it. the 14 dollar stabilizer foot is still the only money i have spent on repairs. tires look original and i will check the date codes in the spring before we travel far, because the tire thread has me paranoid now in a good way.

if anybody reading this is on the fence about a used folder, that is the arc: an hour and a comedy the first night, 20 minutes by the third. i am glad i did it. curious what the yards are holding this winter, the conaway's listing refreshes weekly and the folders disappear fast, a thing the lost Flagstaff taught me the hard way. thanks to all of you, this thread pretty much taught me how to camp. Conaway's Auto Sales is where mine came from, in case a beginner wants a look at how a listing reads.