Greetings, Jeff Johnston here for “RVing Today” television. Back in June of 2021, we purchased this Palomino fold-down truck camper, model 1240. Palomino was probably one of the least expensive truck campers you can buy on the market today. Now, the price of an RV is just one of the factors that determines is it going to be a good buy for you? Are you going to be able to have fun with it? Well, four years now we’ve been using this guy and we’ve had a lot of fun with it. We’ve also had some things that we’ve had to repair and take care of. And that’s pretty much standard. Any new vehicle, whether it’s an RV or a house or a car is gonna have bugs we have to take care of. Well, we’ve had our share of small bugs on this, but oddly, most of them do not pertain to what Palomino did. It’s usually the outside suppliers, refrigerator, jacks for the rooftop, et cetera. Those are the things that have been giving us a little bit of hassle. But in the meantime, we’ll give you a little walk around here and show you what has been working for us, what hasn’t, and why we still think this was a really great buy.

First of all, structurally. Everything on this rig has been really solid. The mounts for the tie downs, the jacks, everything, the roof structure. We haven’t had any kind of problems with shifting of parts or anything like that.

Now, this body doesn’t look a whole lot like other Palomino campers you’ll see on the dealer’s lot. We had this picture installed by Graphics Unlimited in Bremen, Indiana. They did a great job, and it really looks nice. We think it really makes it stand out in photos. And thus far, the graphics are staying on just fine. We think it was a really great investment to be able to put this on here and make it look really kind of special.

One project we had to do that wound up being a couple thousand dollars was replacing the linear actuators that lift up the roof. This is no big surprise. We heard a lot of people having problems and failures with the stock jacks. Sometimes when they were almost brand new. And we protected these jacks from the weather as best we could, try to keep ’em dry. And when we pulled off the bottom– when two of the jacks failed, thing was full of rust. Something’s not right there. So, we spent a bunch of money, got these upgraded jacks that are slower, quieter, geared better, and much better set up for being out in the weather. One part of the camper where we definitely needed to do some work is these fabric corners. Now, the factory installation here is dodgy at best and when you look at how it all  came together at the factory, how it expects to keep water out of there, I don’t know, but it didn’t. We had some leaks up here we had to deal with. So, I came up with these fabric vinyl covers held in place with three pieces of Velcro and it hangs down here so that the water coming off the top of the roof just runs off the edges. We were out in a tropical storm kind of wind for a little while over at the coast in California. And the rain was dumping on here and they work great. If you have leaks in this general area, this sort of thing works pretty well.

There’s not much to talk about here on the back wall except for the pinstriping done by our friend Herb Martinez of Livermore, California. Herbie has been doing pinstriping for 40 or 50 years, and when he puts something on like this, it stays there and it looks really good.

Now, over here on the business side of the camper, the Dometic refrigerator, 12 volt, and propane works great when it works, but we’ve already had to replace the cooling unit on it. That was a little bit of a surprise. Dometics products have been pretty dependable up until now. And then we looked at the label and it says, “Made in China.” Well, that’s cleared the smoke a little bit about why it failed early. Anyway, we got it rebuilt and it works great now.

Now, the items that we have not had a problem with are the Truma AquaGo water heater and the VarioHeat furnace. We love these products. The VarioHeat furnace keeps the interior completely toasty even when it’s  cold and rainy and drafty out, and you got wind coming in off the ocean. And the water heater, boy, you cannot beat the ability to have that constant flow of unending warm water without having a reservoir in there. And we have had a bit of a challenge with the Palomino design propane tank securement. The tank fits the compartment just fine. It’s not hard to get in and out of there from a lifting standpoint, but this metal bracket that helps to hold it in place with this thumb screw, it’s really difficult to fit this in here and hold the bracket open at the same time, it takes two people to be able to wrestle the thing in and out of there. This is definitely gonna be replaced by something like a fabric strap with a Fastex buckle or something like that. Be a little less aggravating, a little less difficult to use. That about covers it for the exterior of the camper.

Up on the roof, of course, we added the Go Power! solar panels. They just lay there and charge the batteries and do what they’re supposed to do. In the meantime, let’s pop on inside and take a look at what we’ve done on the inside and how it’s worked out for us. One of the items they have available as a factory option is this Torklift GlowStep entry stairs. I’m about 240 or 250 pounds depending on the time of year. And this step is super strong and comfortable. Feels very reliable.

It’s eye-opening to take a close look after four years of the new RV. So, let’s continue the tour of our Palomino Model 1240 fold-down camper.

Pam and I have been using this camper for about four years now. We’ve had it cross country a couple of times, San Diego and back from here in Oregon, down to Sacramento and that area for family visits any number of times up in the mountains. It’s worked really well, and combined with our 2021 Ram 2500 truck, it’s a dream to drive. And we have also figured out our–you know, how to live comfortably in a relatively small space with two people. This is not the rig that you would wanna buy if you want to bring six people in to have a card game obviously, but for two of us it works great. One of the first things that we did when we got it was– there is a long skinny table with one post that fits here. We threw that out after about the first trip because the post wobbles, the table is long and wobbles. Nothing short of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich face down would stay on that table anytime you even bump it or even look at the darn thing. So, we got it out of here and it’s been working fine ever since. One of the things we have to figure out on a rig like this is where to keep things and store things so they’re handy and yet they’re not kind of cluttered in the way when we’re using it.

So, when we’re traveling, up here on the bed there’s a little bit of space between the bed and the ceiling. So, we have our folding camp chairs, camp table, the tire table, which works really well. And those all stay up here when we’re moving in, in transit. Take ’em out when we get there, put the bags in the front seat of the truck, and we’re set up. We enjoy the factory stock mattress. We find it comfortable and terrific for a good night’s sleep.

Among our accessories we’ve added the Go Power! charge controller and battery monitor for the solar charging panels and the pair of six volt AGM batteries we have here in the utility bay, that’s been working flawlessly. Absolutely no problems at all. This little AM/FM radio has one USB port which isn’t enough for charging phones and accessories. So, we went to RecPro and used one of their little two-port USB charging plug accessories. Easy to install, wire’s right into the 12-volt system. It works great. Now, another item we added during the solar installation was this Go Power! 2000 watt inverter. This gives us 2000 watts of power on a couple of dedicated outlets for charging camera batteries and that sort of thing. And we’ve already mentioned the fact that we’ve had some challenges with our Dometic refrigerator. Once again, take a look at the label in there,
Made in China, that explains a lot. We got about three years out of it before the vent fan on the back– the cooling fan went out and we had to have that replaced. And then the entire cooling unit on the back of the fridge went out. Had to have that replaced too. That was a couple thousand dollars worth of fun. Luckily, our guys at George Sutton RV here in Eugene, Oregon, did a fantastic job. And the new cooling unit from a company out in Indiana, I believe, that rebuilds ’em does a great job, and it actually cools it faster and better than the original equipment did. Maybe that’s no surprise. 

Now, the hanging bags that come part of standard equipment on this Palomino have done a good job for us. This one is the one we use as a pantry. We’ve got breakfast food and miscellaneous things in there. And the other two hanging bags on on the right and left side, one is for Pam, one is for me. And those seem to contain most of the clothes we need for an average RV campout. 

This is also a replacement stove that we had to install. The original one had a defect in the regulator that didn’t allow the flames to burn anywhere above about 3,000 feet elevation. Well, that’s not terribly high. And we do go up to 8,000 or 9,000 feet on modest trips around here through the mountains. So, we had to buy a new unit to be able to replace that. It’s the sort of thing that happens, I suppose.

Everything else has been working fine. The sink–we’ve added our little storage containers over here
to be able to hold our accessories. When they installed the VarioHeat furnace, obviously they needed a different outlet than– was stock on the camper. So, they put the one circular outlet right here, has veins so we can direct the hot air up down wherever it needs to go. It’s controlled by a little panel over on the wall there that also controls the AquaGo water heater. And these items have been working so well. We love this furnace ’cause it doesn’t wake you up when it kicks in in the morning or in the middle of the night. And it has several heat levels and fan levels so that it only needs to put out as much heat as it needs to maintain as opposed to bringing it up to temperature. It’s an expensive furnace but, boy, is it worth it. Cabinet type storage space is limited in this rig. There are two little cabinet doors at the foot of the bed on a really narrow compartment that we keep wine glasses and so on in. This one is a cabinet immediately adjacent to the sink and stove– the kitchen area. It’s really handy, although we’re a little bit scared every time we open it. We’re never sure if something’s going to shift around in transit and come piling out. So, we need to pay attention to that and do a little bit of rearranging. And we also added this paper towel holder. It’s low enough that when the fabric from the top folds in– when you bring the top down, it doesn’t interfere with the fabric folding. And yet, the fabric also holds on to this and contacts it so it doesn’t allow it to unroll as it can happen sometimes in an RV when you’re on the road.

This little Palomino 1240 has been pretty good to us. Yes, there are a few things that we’ve had to address and spend money on. For example, the Dometic refrigerator, the suburban stove, and so on. And we’ve had to replace the water pump now two times. Why that goes out, I don’t know. It’s a good brand, but that’s what happens these days with RVs. You don’t need to spend $40,000 or $50,000 or a lot more in order to have fun with an RV and a camper like this.

We have been able to thoroughly enjoy this rig. We’ve got trips planned coming up in the near future, long as we can get over the mountain passes in the snow. And we look forward to all of our upcoming adventures with our Palomino.