Rough Rider water tank

I know you need to get in there from the inside.  A person needs to take out the mattress to give a bit of room and slide the little doors open, probably need to remove them.  Even then, there isn't much room to work.  

I took mine to some guys who build their own trailers because the whole thing allowed water to slosh out, and when I got a few miles from home, I only had about two gallons left.  Also, the water had to run uphill to get into the tank.  Dreadful thing to deal with.  So, they put in a slightly bigger tank, hooked up the vent which wasn't before, made the water run downhill to go in, and it didn't slop out anymore.  

Anyway, that is the way they got in there, and pretty much had to work upside down to accomplish it.  Those guys were great.

You wouldn't believe the mess dealerships wanted to make of it, and I'm so very glad I had it done right, and I've had no more trouble.

I had a 2015 Little Guy to start, and there was no water problem.  I sold it and got the 2016 Rough Rider, which had the problem.  I have no idea why it was done differently.

Also, I had quite a bit of water going out the overflow, which isn't happening now.

I just bought one, in the desert, so didn't notice water issues, and have since dug into mine for the same.

But first, the previous owner said that this sloshing is an issue, a manufacture error, and it was corrected on the later models. The owner created a shut off valve in the middle of the pipe between the tank and the entrance for adding water. It works, but a pain to crawl in there to turn it on and off. However, the rest of the work was leaking, so I ended up putting in new piping throughout, keeping the shutoff valve.

One thing I haven't figured out is that the city water valve (to hook up to a hose at a campground and leave it) only goes to the shower and doesn't fill up the tank. I can't find any unexplained piping or valves so have no idea what is going on. Have you come across this?

Well, my 2016, I consider to be a later model.  They weren't made very long after that as I remember.  I do not have a shutoff valve because I wasn't about to crawl in there every time, and I don't need one.  Mine was so bad, it needed to be on a side hill to fill it, which is a waste of time if it's going to run back out.  One dealership wanted to put a big patch over the hole and cut a new hole higher up for the fill opening.  Imagine that on a new trailer!  I was even shoving a hose all the way in to get water in it.  

I live in the woods and have a circle I can drive around, unlevel ground.  Two trips around there, and I lost two or three inches of water.

I don't use the shower so far, but I did turn it on a couple times.  Not much pressure of course.

I was shocked at the design, when my earlier one worked perfectly fine.  I went through months of emailing about it and phone calls.  No one wanted to do a proper fix or pay for it, so they agreed with me it should be fixed, but only the ridiculous fixes.  Other fixes they came up with would not have solved the problem, which anyone could see.  One idea was to flip over the fill holes, and that would have made about a one inch difference, and it would still have slopped back out.

So, when I found these guys to fix it, I spent the money, something like $650 I think.  They ordered a new tank and hooked up everything,  including the vent hole. They even did it while I waited. There were also two wires in there that went nowhere, and I don't remember what those were for.  

I don't hook a hose up to fill, I just let it run in.

A while later, I noticed in Trailer Life magazine, they try to help resolve issues.  I wrote a letter, included all my emails and phone reports, and the magazine folks took over.  Pleasant Valley said they would pay for it.  Pleasant Valley manufactured them for Little Guy.  I gave them copies of my receipts, and they paid me what I had spent.  It was a very frustrating experience.

So I'm no help really, and I know others had the same problem, but I wanted to be able to use the trailer as intended.  I couldn't have known it would be a problem when I bought it.  I can't imagine going in a showroom, pulling out mattresses and crawling in there--and probably wouldn't have seen it.  They said it would hold 5 gallons, but to me, slopping out isn't holding water.  From what I gathered, the problem was with Rough Riders and not regular Five Wides which made no sense.