Storyteller Overland MODE LT

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In this episode of the RVing with Joe & Kait podcast, we take a deep dive into our current camper, a 2022 Storyteller Overland MODE LT built on the Ford Transit AWD platform. We discuss the versatility of the camper, its off-road capability, and the battery system that allows for extended off-grid camping. We also share our favorite features of the van, such as the rooftop deck, and discuss the pros and cons of the Storyteller MODE LT.

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Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Key Highlights

Storyteller Overland MODE LT Overview: we share our experiences with the 2022 Storyteller Overland MODE LT over the past two years.
Design and Features: we cover the van’s interior design, including the unique bathroom setup with a shower system that tucks away and touch on the practicality of the garage area and the platform bed’s versatility.
Battery System and Electrical Capabilities: we discuss how the Volta battery system with 12 kilowatts of power supports our energy needs, including running the camper AC, microwave, and our essential RV kitchen gadgets simultaneously without concern for power consumption.
Exterior Features and Utility: we highlight our favorite exterior feature for wildlife viewing and enjoying outdoor events. We also discuss the van’s suitability for various activities, from daily errands to full-time RV living.
Driving Experience and Modifications: we cover the driving experience and the importance of aftermarket seats for comfort. We also share the modifications we’ve made to improve the camper van’s functionality and appearance.
Practical Usage and Lifestyle Adaptability: we discuss the van’s adaptability for different ‘MODEs’ of travel and living, including solo van life and part-time RV life.
Concerns and Limitations: we address some limitations of the MODE LT, such as the comfort of the stock mattress and the compact sleeping space.

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Transcript

Joe Russo Alright, welcome back to another episode of RVing with Joe & Kait and today we’re going to do something a little bit new. We’re going to try something called Camper Talk. What this is going to be is us just talking about different campers that we’ve tried, we’ve owned or we’ve just had a chance to go and do a walk-through of and let you know all about that camper.

So we’re going to go through what it is, the specs, price, what we think of it, and hopefully at the end you will have more knowledge about that particular camper. If there is a camper that you’re specifically looking for information on, drop us a note on our website or leave a comment on any of our platforms and let us know what camper you would like to hear all about.

Kait Russo And to kick off the camper talk series, we are going to talk about our current camper, a 2022 Storyteller Overland MODE LT on the Ford Transit chassis.

Joe Russo We’ve owned that now going on two years. Currently we have 30,000 miles on it, or actually now over 30,000 miles. We just got back from a fun little trip down to Tennessee for a class we were taking. And we absolutely love this camper.

We’ve spent a lot of time with the Storyteller team and the history with us and them is that we met them at an event back in 2019 when they first launched the company. And we’ve just been fast friends with them ever since. We’ve really enjoyed their products. And back in 2019, they had two prototypes. One was on a Mercedes Sprinter and another was on the Ford Transit.

Now, Kait and I wanted a Transit back in 2019. So when we saw the fact that they were one of the few RV manufacturers out there that were making something on a Ford Transit, their prototype at the time had four wheel drive, which was awesome for us. It was exactly what we wanted.

So somehow we convinced them to let us borrow the camper for a couple months to really take it out and, you know, put it through its paces. The only thing that didn’t happen was they didn’t produce it right away. So 2022 was the first model year for it. And as soon as they let us know that they were actually bringing them to production, we’re like, all right, put our names on the list. We want to be the first ones with a new LT.

Kait Russo And we are Storyteller Overland brand ambassadors. They’ve sponsored a lot of content that we’ve created and we’ve worked with them quite a bit throughout the years, attending shows and really sharing the lifestyle and what it’s like to live out of a Class B camper van.

Joe Russo So let’s give a quick description of the van for all of you who haven’t seen it or don’t really know it that well. So the MODE LT, as Kait mentioned earlier, is built on the Ford Transit chassis. It’s about 19 and a half feet long, about 10 and a half feet tall, and is about as wide as your standard SUV or pickup.

When you walk inside, the front two chairs swivel around so the driver passenger seat are on swivels. Directly across from the side door is a bench seat that is good for one adult, two children. There are two shoulder belts there, which is very important because one interesting thing about Storyteller Overland is when they built that seat, they had it pull tested.

And what that means is they essentially fabricated up a, they took a shell of a Transit, built the seat into it, and then they had to do safety testing where they literally try to pull the seat out and see what forces it can take. So it passed all those safety tests.

So it has the two shoulder belts for children or adults, but that bench seat can also fold out into a small bed and that bed is 34 inches by 72 inches long.

Kait Russo And if you’ve watched any of our Summer with Mom travel series where we took mom and her dog Charley around the country for 11,000 miles. She and Charlie are the ones who slept on this bed.

Joe Russo The bed is not comfortable at all if you just lay on it. You need some sort of a mattress pad or something. Once you put the mattress pad on it’s actually quite comfortable.

Now across from the bench seat is the galley. There is a sink and no apparent stovetop. What they’ve done here is there is a portable stovetop that fits in the top drawer of the galley. So it’s an induction stovetop whenever you want to use it you can pull it out, plug it in.

The reason we really like this is because a lot of times there are certain things we’re cooking like sausages for example or bacon or it gets really smoky and there’s a lot of oil. We can take that outside, plug it into the outlet on the side of the van and cook outside and not get all of that grease and the smell inside the van itself.

To round the galley out, underneath the sink is the fridge. It’s a smaller fridge but it points towards the front of the van. When you open the sliding door, that fridge is right there on your left side. You can open it from outside and the door swings all the way out so that if you’re standing outside, you don’t have to go inside to grab a drink or something out of the fridge. You can do it right there while you’re outside of the van.

Now onto the one thing that everyone misses in this van when they first see it is the bathroom. Now this doesn’t have a fixed bath. What it has is a shower system that is tucked into one of the cabinets above. The way this works is you open up the cabinet, the bottom of the cabinet has little latches that drops it out, and then there’s a curtain that you can pull out, it’s on metal arms, it pulls out, drops down into the basin below, and the basin below is what they call the flex space. So what this is is a basin with a top over it that you can lift and open up.

Below that, in the shower basin, is also where your portable toilet is. So if you want to take a shower, all you have to do is take that portable toilet out, take your shower, all the water there goes into the gray tank. Once you’re done, let the shower (curtain) hang for about an hour or so with a fan on and dry it right up, roll it back in and tuck everything away.

Kait Russo And if you’re having a difficult time imagining how the shower system works, we do have a full walk-through of our camper and you can see Joe demonstrate this entire system.

Joe Russo The links for that will be in the show notes.

Now getting into the back of the van, there is a platform bed and a garage area. Now this garage area can actually be expanded because the platform bed itself splits in the middle and you can fold both sides up so you can get taller items in there, walk back to front if you needed to.

Now another cool feature is that you can just put down the driver’s side of the bed. If you take the cushion off it can be a standing desk, a table. If you need extra room for something, it’s there.

Kait Russo We’ve met quite a few MODE owners at campouts who live out of these or travel out of them by themselves. So they’re so solo van lifers and I found that a lot of them just sleep on that groove lounge bed you were talking about and then they leave the garage set up for like a work kind of office area or garage.

Joe Russo I mean there’s all different ways you can configure the mode and I think that’s why or how they came up with that name is you can configure it for different MODEs. It could be like hauling mode, you gotta go down to one of the home improvement stores and buy a bunch of lumber, set it up for friends or family, just solo, adventure, whatever.

The other awesome feature about this and one of the real selling points for us was the battery system. Ours has the Volta battery system. We have 12 kilowatts of battery power and that’s equivalent to a thousand amp hours of battery at 12 volts.

We also have a big secondary alternator which while we’re driving charges the battery back up. And usually if we’re low 10-20 % it’ll take us about an hour and a half to two hours of driving on the highway to charge that back up.

Kait Russo And that also depends on whether we’re running the camper AC or not while we’re driving. Because sometimes when we’re trekking through the desert in the middle of summer and it’s over a hundred outside. I’ve got the van chassis AC blasting up front and I’ve got the camper AC blasting in the back.

Joe Russo You can run the AC off the battery system. There is a 3.6 kilowatt inverter, at least on our model. That means we can run the microwave, we can run the AC, basically whatever we want to in the van all at the same time.

If we’re running the AC, usually what we found is if we turned it on around eight or nine p.m., if we’re going to bed and we need the AC that night, we wake up at seven or eight in the morning and we still have about 30% battery. And of course that’s going to completely change depending on how hot it is, humid, what temperature you have it set to. But the way we have it, that’s what we found to be our average.

Kait Russo The coolest feature though is on the outside of the van. I think one of my favorite things is the rooftop deck. I love grabbing our lawn chairs and being able to sit up there watching wildlife or just enjoying a beautiful sunset or going to a tailgate and hanging out up there.

Joe Russo Which I think leads nicely into, what is this camper for?

Kait Russo This camper is really ideal for anything. It can be a daily driver, it can be used to live out of full time, or it could just be something you use on weekends to go on trips with family.

And I find myself, now that we have a home base and we’re not full time RVers, that usually is my go to vehicle if we are going out for the day. If we’re going to be running errands and let’s say spend four or five hours out. It’s so nice to have a camper because you’ve got a bathroom, you can make lunch if you get hungry.

Joe Russo Coffee, don’t forget coffee.

Kait Russo You can take a nap. Or let’s say we’re out and one of us wanted to do something, but the other person was tired. The other person can still go do that something while the other person hangs out in the van and takes a nap or just read.

Joe Russo Which you have done.

We will go into the city because we’re kind of out in the country. Go into the city and go to like Costco and we might get some frozen items, throw those in our freezer along with anything else that needs to be refrigerated and that allows us to stay out longer. So we don’t have to rush home. We can go to the store, grab stuff, put it in a fridge and still be able to spend all day out because we have a fridge.

Kait Russo And if for some reason we’re out and we’re hanging out with friends and we end up doing game night until midnight and we don’t want to drive home, we can spend the night in their driveway.

Joe Russo That is nice. Going back to who this is for, I kind of disagree on the full time thing. We have said we don’t think we could have full timed in it.

When we were testing out campers, we spent a couple months in the prototype, and I think spending a couple months in it, we definitely can say we’ve lived in it long term. And we had, for a month of that, we had my mom’s dog Charley with us. So the two of us plus a yellow lab takes up a lot of room.

But I think for us, if we were really full-timing it. It’s difficult because the van is only 19 and a half feet long. The way it comes from the factory, there’s very limited storage. What you have is you have a few drawers in the galley area. You have one cabinet that’s up front above where the passenger seat is, the groove lounge. And then you have the two cabinets in the back on either side above the bed.

When we’ve been in there for a long period of time, those will get filled with our clothes. So the only space we’d really have for our day-to-day things, is down below in the garage area, below the bed.

Kait Russo Well, I think full time is different for everybody. It depends on whether you are a minimalist, what you need to travel and live out of your camper. Whether you’re a solo RVer or two people. Your motorcycle gear alone would take up half the garage.

Joe Russo Yeah.

Kait Russo And that’s part of the reason why it would not lend itself well to the way we would want to full time. But everyone does it differently and there were plenty of people who couldn’t full time in the Class A motorhome that we had because it was too small for them.

Joe Russo Yeah, I agree. And we do know people that are full timing in these.

Now for the adventurous souls out there. The MODE LT is actually pretty good off road. It has all wheel drive and the all wheel drive system has different modes. So you can switch from normal to economy, which we really haven’t seen much of a difference there.

But you can also go into a snow and ice setting. I think there’s a rain condition and then there is essentially what they call mud and ruts. So you’re off road. When we’ve gone off road, we haven’t done any serious off roading in this van. When we have been off road, it feels like a true four wheel drive vehicle. You can feel the computer making changes with how the van is shifting, how the engine is reacting, and how the wheels are slipping or not slipping. It’s actually done very well in very muddy, slippery conditions. I would give it two thumbs up in that regard.

Kait Russo We should clarify that this Transit is a gas powered engine.

Joe Russo Yes. It is not diesel. No, and they don’t make Transits in diesel anymore. So the only two engines they have available are the 3.5 liter EcoBoost V6 and there’s also a 3.5 liter non-EcoBoost motor. The MODE LT actually comes in both of those. The first year run and some of the ’23s came with the V6 EcoBoost. The rest then on forward only came with the 3.5 liter non-EcoBoost motor.

We’ve driven both. The EcoBoost definitely has more power, especially when you’re going up hills, but the non -turbocharged engine still has a lot of grunt. There’s less to go wrong with it. You just have to keep the RPMs higher to get that power to the ground.

Now, what do you think about it in terms of driving? How’s it been for you?

Kait Russo The van is very easy to drive. For me, it feels like a large SUV, but I did not enjoy driving the van when we had the original stock seats. Once we got the aftermarket seats, I really enjoyed driving the van.

Joe Russo The stock Ford seats were terrible, very uncomfortable. When we went to go pick up our van, it was a four hour drive, five hour drive home. By the time we got home, I was miserable. I have a bad back and my back was inflamed, I was in pain. We put in Scheel-Mann seats and those are the same seats that we have in our F-350 truck that we had with our truck camper. And those made a huge difference for me and they’ve really transformed the Transit in terms of comfort, but also looks. They look really nice.

So let’s talk about some of the other modifications we’ve made to the van, which actually haven’t been that many. So we’ve put in the seats. We went in and we put Inhabit mats throughout the van, so front to back.

Kait Russo I enjoy having the floor mats because they’re really nice to walk on with or without socks or shoes, and they’re very easy to clean.

Joe Russo I would say the stock floors with the ridges and things around them trapped a lot of dirt and little pebbles and things and were hard to clean. But we also had the Inhabit mat made for the sink top because we were noticing that with our water filter that we keep up there, among other things, we were getting some scratches and discoloration. The mat’s up there, it keeps everything nice and solid and things don’t slip or roll as much as they did before.

Kait Russo We added a vent cover to the rooftop vent that’s over the kitchen. That has consistently been our number one modification to any camper we’ve ever owned.

Joe Russo And the reason for that is, like if we’re out camping in a really nice area, but it starts to rain. Once it starts to rain, there’s a rain sensor on your vent fan that will close on you. And if you can’t run your vent fan, it starts to get stuffy inside. So being able to keep the vent open even during rain or when you’re driving and you just want extra ventilation, it makes a huge difference in the livability of that small area.

We had the Canyon Adventure Vans, GSS, the garage storage system put in and that’s essentially three level shelves with doors and things that goes under the driver’s side portion of the bed. It keeps the bed up. If you need to, you can lift the bed up and actually access the GSS from the top, which is nice.

It’s easy to load. It’s easy to take in and out of the van when we’re not using it. And it secures to the floor using the L-track that come built into the garage portion of the van. So it’s very secure. That’s made a big difference for us from the livability standpoint because in the garage area, if you don’t have a way to really organize your things, it can be difficult to get to what you need on a day-to-day basis.

Kait Russo One modification that is still on our list that we will be getting to this year, which I’m very excited about, is a spare tire and spare tire carrier.

Joe Russo Yeah, that has been one thing that’s kind of been in the back of my mind that we didn’t have. We do carry an air compressor along with a repair kit for tires and I’ve taken a class on how to repair tires in the field. That doesn’t mean that we won’t have a complete blowout where something can’t be fixed or maybe we’re not able to fix it.

And having that spare is gonna be a huge weight off of my shoulders mentally because I don’t have to worry as much about it anymore. The only thing we have to worry about now is making sure that we can jack the van up to get a wheel on and off.

So the only other changes I can think of have been more cosmetic. So we took off the running boards because we like the look of it without the running boards. But me with my giant size 14 feet, I have a bit of trouble getting in and out of the van because they’re not wide enough for me to step out onto. I have to basically step onto the running board with my heel. And if it’s wet, I run the risk of slipping.

Kait Russo But that has made it challenging for friends and family members to get in and out of the van. So we do carry a little step stool.

Joe Russo So I got a grill from a European spec transit that just looks cooler and I swapped all that out myself. So that pretty much covers what the van is. Different use cases for what we’ve done to it.

I know you’ve mentioned the rooftop deck as being your favorite thing about the van. What else? What do you really like about it?

Kait’s over here thinking. She has a very contemplative look on her face. Just remember, this is radio and not TV. They cannot see you.

Kait Russo I love that it is a Ford Transit. I didn’t have an interest in getting a Sprinter van, but that’s just a personal preference.

Joe Russo Now this is probably a longer talk for another time. We have done a video all about the Ford Transit versus Sprinter and a lot of the differences between the two chassis wise.

From a Storyteller Overland perspective, if you look inside the van, they’re almost identical, minus the fact that the Transit is, I think, four inches taller and it’s noticeably higher when you walk inside that roof line. There’s more room between the bed and your head with the cabinets up above. So from a Storyteller Overland build perspective, it’s the same whether it’s a Ford or Mercedes.

Kait Russo So I love the battery system. I love how much battery you have. And I love that we can run the AC, I can plug in the water kettle, run the microwave, plug in the induction cooktop and everything works. There is freedom in that of not having to worry about my power consumption as much.

Joe Russo We came from our first motorhome, which was a Class A. We had two six volt lead acid batteries. At night, we were running like candles, or we’d have like one light on. We really didn’t have an inverter to speak of. So if we needed to plug something in to an outlet, we had to turn the generator on. It was a lot of conservation, being very careful about what we turned on, what we did, and all of those things. And now there’s zero concern whatsoever. And if we’re not running the AC, even if we’re just being complete power hogs, we can usually go for three to five days with not worrying about having to recharge.

Kait Russo To be fair, I could have run as much as I wanted once we kicked on the generator in our first RV, but the point was to not want to kick on the generator because it was so loud.

Joe Russo And it sucked down fuel. It was another maintenance item and we don’t have to worry about that with this.

For me, I mean, I love the comfort of driving this I find it very easy to drive and I really enjoy taking it on just day to day errands and going out and spending weeks at a time on the road in it.

With you, I love the roof deck. So we’ve gone to some tailgates and other things and we just get up there, hang out, have a drink, relax, watch the sun go down, just do some people watching at the campground we’re at and it’s just, it’s a good time.

Kait Russo I remember we were on the Summer with Mom trip and we were going through Yellowstone and there were so many cars parked looking at wildlife. And I just remember getting up on the rooftop deck and I was above all the cars and I had a much better vantage point of the wildlife that everyone was looking at.

Joe Russo Plus you can be outside and you don’t have to worry about a bison or bear coming after you. You’re kind of protected up there.

Kait Russo A little bit. I do think bears can climb ladders.

Joe Russo They can. Now on to the things that you don’t like. What are some cons of the MODE LT?

Kait Russo The stock mattress is not comfortable. A few nights on the stock mattress is fine. I don’t mind. If you want me to take a three month trip, I need something a little more comfortable. And that’s why, that’s another modification is our, is it three inch memory foam mattress topper that we bought on the internet and just cut it to fit the shape of our bed.

Joe Russo When we get out of the van now and we come home and crawl in to our super comfy bed, it’s not as comfortable as the van is. I echo Kait’s statement, but I also think one thing I really dislike is the bed. Despite the fact that with the mattress topper, it’s really comfortable, it’s very confined. Any van only has so much room side to side. And in the Storytellers, the Ford and the Mercedes, they all have a Flarespace, flares on the side. So what that means is they cut out the side of the van and put these flares that give you more room side to side.

The flare is only so wide from front to back. So when Kait and I are sleeping, we kind of have to, between the two of us, fit ourselves into our little section of the flare. At 5’11”, I’m just tall enough where my feet aren’t hitting the wall. If you’re any taller, that might also be a problem, but then there is the space side to side and we kind of are scrunched in there together.

Kait Russo Friends of ours who are over six feet that have a MODE, the taller person usually sleeps on that extra bed, the convertible groove lounge bed. And then the other person sleeps on the platform bed.

Joe Russo The other thing I don’t like about the van is the groove lounge. I go back and forth with this one. I remember when we took the prototype out, we’re like, this thing is terrible. The more time we’ve spent in it, we’ve really found utility in it.

We’ve used it with Summer with Mom, you know, took mom around the whole country and one of us was always sitting back there. In doing so, found that that seat gets very uncomfortable. The seat belts are made more for kids and they are adults, so they’re low on the shoulder and everything else. The padding on it isn’t all that great because of the way it has to function. If there were an option to put in a little lounge back there or something, take that out and do that instead. That would be my preference. But outside of that, I mean it works and it does what it needs to do. So it gives you a lot of utility. So I’m kind of 50/50 on that one.

Kait Russo When we need it, it’s great. I’m so happy we have it. Like when we take an impromptu day trip with friends and we just load them up in the van and go out for the day. It’s wonderful because we all fit nicely and there’s a place for everyone to sit. But for the most part, we’re using the van, just the two of us. Those are the times when I think to myself, oh, I wish the groove lounge was removable. When we need it, we can put it in, and when we don’t need it, we can take it out.

Joe Russo I think that would add to the MODE namesake. But I would say again, head over to the YouTube channel, watch our full walkthrough of it, and you’ll be able to see all the things that we’re referring to, and we’ll go more in depth on some stuff there.

But overall, I mean, we really enjoy this van. It’s perfect for us right now with the type of traveling we’re doing and we’re really being able to make it suit our travel that we’re going on. So when we were going down to Tennessee, it was a short trip, we could bring some stuff along with us that we wouldn’t normally bring with us.

We’ve gone to some camp outs and we’ve brought our fire pit with us, which we would never have in full-time life, but now that we have a home base, we can utilize that garage area for storage of things like that.

Kait Russo In thinking about it, the MODE aspect of the van. Being a part-time RVer allows me to, I think, best utilize the different MODEs that the van can convert into. Because thinking about living full-time, you’ve got everything you own with you, unless you have a storage unit somewhere where you’re going to swap things out for the season or swap things out for different trips.

Living out of a mode full-time, I feel like, makes it a little bit more challenging to do like beach mode or snow mode. You know, all the different ways you can use the van. And I think this van is really ideal for part-time RVing.

Joe Russo I think that’s a great point because when you’re living out of a camper full-time, you kind of get it, you get it set up and that’s what it is. Unless to Kait’s point, you have a storage unit and you can go there and swap things out on a seasonal basis and kind of change it around. A part-timer really has the ability to create the van for their adventure.

Kait Russo That applies to any kind of camper, is setting it up for the trip that you’re going on. And our next big trip is the solar eclipse. Just thinking through how long we’re gonna be camping and what we need to bring along, the van will be set up very differently from how we set it up for this last trip that we went on in Tennessee. We’ll be on solar eclipse MODE.

Joe Russo Solar eclipse MODE, interesting. I can’t wait to see what this looks like.

I think the other thing, and this goes for vans in general. They’re great for their intended purpose, which is to be able to get anywhere. And that’s one thing I love about camper vans.

But one thing I dislike about camper vans is spending any sort of extended amount of time in one, it starts to feel tight. It’s not bad when you’re moving from place to place and you’re always out and about and doing things and going on different adventures.

But there are times, like recently we went down to Walt Disney World and stayed at Fort Wilderness Campground. It was raining and there was a day where we spent almost the entire day in the van, aside from getting out a bit to go use the bath house or something like that.

In this tiny space, there’s only so much room you can move around or different spots you can sit in and that sort of thing.

Kait Russo And that’s when we need to go back to our own advice of you don’t live in the van, you live out of the van. So perhaps we should have driven out to a coffee shop or something and hung out there for the day.

Joe Russo Yeah, now that you mention it that would have been a great idea. Anything else you don’t like about the van?

Kait Russo I don’t know if this counts as something I don’t like about the van. The MODE LT is currently not in production. Perhaps it will come back somewhere down the road. But you cannot get a 24 model year mode LT, which means we have a limited edition MODE.

Joe Russo Now the reason for that, what Storyteller put up on their blog was it was an issue with getting chassis from Ford. And I think there was a problem, at least what it sounds like, with getting the correct chassis for what they needed. If there was demand and they were able to get the chassis they needed, I think they would bring it back.

One other thing we really like about Storyteller Overland is how they’re pricing the vans. So they’re doing something called see through pricing, which means the price is, what it is is what you get. There’s no negotiating on the price. It’s the same regardless of which dealer you go to in the country, which is not the case with most other RV companies.

So when you go to the website, the price you see on their website is the price you’re going to pay. Now, I will say on the older 23s that are still on lots, Storyteller has been offering some factory rebates. So if you are considering one check to see if any rebates are available. Now that said, the see through price for a 2023 mode LT is $171,429

So I think that’s pretty much everything about our van Nacho and that is that’s what we’ve decided to name our van, Nacho.

Kait Russo I think there is one last thing we should mention and probably in all the camper talks as long as we have the information. Miles per gallon.

Joe Russo Oh yes, okay miles per gallon. That is the one negative about the Transit. At least with the EcoBoost motor. We get about 12.5 to 13.

Kait Russo I don’t feel like I have a lead foot. I’m on cruise control most of the time. But I will say whenever we drive into Michigan our MPG goes up.

Joe Russo I don’t know how that works it’s weird.

Kait Russo It’s like Ford knows we’re coming home and it just increases the efficiency of its fuel economy.

Joe Russo I mean, it’s all wheel drive. I didn’t mention earlier that it’s lifted with larger tires. So a Storyteller puts on a two inch lift kit with larger all terrain BF Goodrich tires. So that’s going to kill some of your MPG. There’s a roof rack with an awning. So that’s going to kill some MPG. And this thing is basically just a giant brick going down the road. So it’s not going to be that efficient anyway.

We did post some videos about fuel economy because we got the stock wheels that came with the Transit and we swapped them out to see if there would be much of a difference. There was only about half a mile per gallon difference on average and sometimes not even that much. And we liked the look of the aftermarket wheels and tires better. So we kept those.

But what we did find is that when we posted those videos, a lot of people who had transits were getting much better, like 16, 17, but they also didn’t have all the stuff hanging off of it. Also didn’t mention the ladder on the side. That’s gonna create drag. So all of those things add up to get the MPG that we got.

Now for comparison, in the Sprinter, on average, when we were driving it, we got about 14, and that was pretty solid. You know, apples for apples, the Sprinter gets better MPG.

Kait Russo But diesel usually costs more than gasoline.

Joe Russo And you have to add DEF.

Kait Russo And some people did say they were getting better fuel economy in their transit because they’re driving 55 on the interstate as opposed to us. We’re going 65, 75 depending on the max speed limit.

Joe Russo When you wanted to, if you put that pedal down, it will move. You can get away from stoplights pretty quickly.

Kait Russo All right. Well, I could talk for hours about our camper. So this might be a good time to wrap things up.

Joe Russo And we will be coming back to you with other RVs and campers that we’ve looked at, we’ve lived in, and we’ve just tested and used. So like Kait said, that is it for camper talk on RVing with Joe & Kait. For any of the videos and resources that we mentioned in today’s episode, you can check in the show notes below.

If you’re interested in doing some reading about RVs, check out my two books, Take Risks and Tales from the Open Road, which are available on Amazon in digital and paperback format, as well as digital on pretty much every other platform. And I think if you don’t feel like buying the book, you can actually rent it or borrow it from your local library if they have it.

Kait Russo Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you on the road.

Storyteller Overland MODE LT – Episode 10: RVing with Joe & Kait