Recommendation for trying RVing

[skyking1]

Pleased to meet you and now you know someone who purchased new (in 2019) and was not without their rig for several weeks at a time.

It certainly was not due to the high quality workmanship. It was due to knowing what you wrote is definitely a problem. We spent three full days at the dealer going over the new 38' motorhome inch by inch and back again. And then we left it for a full month for needed repairs that the dealer's incoming inspection had missed. We did not accept the unit so the warranty did not start until the day we drove it off the lot.

Even then there were issues but none that caused us to cancel a trip or get stranded somewhere. Because the dealer did not get their money until we signed, they actually had an incentive to get things fixed in a timely manner.

One thing I don't think I read here is that you do need to be a DIY'er or you will have your rig stuck at a dealer for several weeks only to find out they did not fix everything. Or maybe anything. Or broke as much as they fixed.

If you can do normal house repairs such as minor carpentry, hopefully some minor electrical and plumbing as well plus normal DIY car maintenance you'll do fine.

But if you are someone who has to "call the guy" for everything, do not consider an RV that you will own. You will hate it. You will pay high labor rates, you will wait and wait and wait, you will miss trips, you name it.

There's also a fair amount of ongoing maintenance. Everything you have in a small house plus a large truck. That rolls down our country's lovely roads. That has walls and rooms that move (the slides).



Maybe. There's also the possibility they dumped it because of the hidden and constant problems.

As for working, yes, you can do it. You will need to pay for at least one and probably two cellular data plans to assure you have connectivity. My buddy is a sysadmin for one of the big multinational law firms and he and his wife live full time in their motorhome.

I second www.irv2.com as a great source of info. Because it's owned by the same company as this site, just use the same email address and password over there as you use here and their system will find your account here.

We're in ours almost half the year because we live in the snowy north and we get away. But yeah, you now almost always need to make reservations months in advance and sometimes a full year in advance.

This winter was kind of weird because the Canadians got locked out of the USA. There were PLENTY of spots even at the very desirable locations. But as soon as the border re-opens that will change.

One other big difference with RV's: the dealers.

Each RV dealer is an independent business, NOT a franchise like a car dealer. They do not really have to abide by the RV manufacturer's standards, they can and do take only service customers who bought from them, it is a highly variable experience.

If you're fortunate to live in a good weather climate all year, like Florida, you will have plenty of "mobile RV techs" for service. Not in Ohio, though.

Ray

So you went in a month early and started the process. Then you were without your RV.
On the late model used rigs, it is always Caveat Emptor.

 

[Mansderm]

When I retired, I said if I get a good price selling my 2nd home, I'm buying an RV. I bought new in 2018, class B Airstream interstate. I do really like it. I grew up tent camping and hated every minute of it. But I really liked the nice campgrounds, nature, state parks and envied all the people in campers. There is a lot to learn and there were warranty issues so I found out right away about how you can be without it for weeks/months waiting for dealers to work on it. Lucky for me, Airstream is made in Ohio, my kids live there, so my service visits are family visits. Airstream let's you camp at the factory, they take it in the morning, give it back at 4pm and you just stay till they are done with everything. I email a list of problems prior to my appointment so they are prepared to do the work. Since it's the factory, they generally have all the parts needed. I love packing up, hitting the road, using my own bathroom sleeping in my own bed. Camping has changed just in the few years that I've been camping. Nice places are definitely more crowded...I do book in advance. I have boondocked at Wal-Mart, cracker barrel, truck stops. The Sprinter drives like a dream but it is small and expensive. I naively thought I'd be able to park it at home since it fits in my driveway, but it's not allowed so I do also have storage fees. And any vehicle really does not do well just sitting outside so when I am not traveling, I go check on it every 7-10 days, turn on engine, check tires, look for evidence of vandalism and check inside for signs of water leaks. Tires should be replaced every 5 years even if you have low mileage. Batteries die, it really is "always something" but to me, for now. I'm glad I have it. It is a money pit in that I'm always buying something for it but overall you do meet people from all over the world (Europeans come over and rent them), most campers are very friendly. There are a few bad apples, but you can always move. The nice campgrounds have quiet times and they are usually enforced. I see doing this maybe 4-5 more years. My goal is to see many of our national parks and to hit all 48 states....I have no desire to drive to Alaska. I get 16-18 MPG diesel. Airstream has a forum you could look into and read all about what we love, what we hate about our units. Any brand you buy usually has a forum where you can list a problem and get feedback on how to fix it. I find RVing challenging, exciting, interesting, freeing and sometimes frustrating. I feel blessed that I can be a part of it. It's not cheap, it's not a good investment, but it's living

 

[NXR7]

So you went in a month early and started the process. Then you were without your RV.
On the late model used rigs, it is always Caveat Emptor.

Sort of. We ordered it to get the options we wanted.

We knew that one of the biggest mistakes people make is GetItHome-itis: "Let's take it the way it is, do a few trips, and then give the dealer a more complete list of things to be fixed. Then we only have to bring it back once."

Uhhh, no. That may work for other things but definitely not an RV.

We never scheduled a trip beforehand because we never had a solid date as to when it would be built and arrive. We also knew it might have problems and I believe that the best way to get service accomplished in timely manner is to still owe a bunch of money to the dealer.

So we wrote everything up and went home. Legally it wasn't "our RV" until a month later when we accepted delivery and got the title assigned. Some things still were not repaired but they were minor and even back then there was parts availability problems.

Ray

 

[skyking1]

We bought a 2005 Tiffin Phaeton summer of 2020.

My only complaint.... it's too small. Yup, at 40 feet long I would like more room

In the year we have had it only stayed in a campground once - yuck.

Preference is Harvesthosts.com - you stay for free at a vineyard, farm, brewery, etc. We usually spend about $50 to 75 at their store buying stuff but waking up in a Vineyard after enjoying their products is beyond awesome.

As for fuel cost yeah at 7 MPG it adds up but so what, I've got ALL the comfort of home. Shower is dang hot, plenty room. Two couches, 2 TVs, a king bed and full kitchen.

Wife & I lived in it with 2 Labradors, a Pug & Corgi for 6 weeks while visiting a friends horse farm.

For fuel I always goto truck stops using https://www.tsdlogistics.com/services/fuel-program/ I usually save about 60 cents a gallon vs pump price.

Thanks for that link, Ken.
We are among the launch hosts for Boondocker's welcome, which was just purchased by Harvest Hosts.
As launch partners we are fee free for life.

 

[NW-Bound]

We bought a 2005 Tiffin Phaeton summer of 2020.

My only complaint.... it's too small. Yup, at 40 feet long I would like more room

Our travel style is different. I have been thinking about downsizing from the current 25' class C to a B+. I like mobility, and rarely stay in one place for more than 3 or 4 nights.

The only thing I may be missing is the toad. We use the towed car in all our trips to go look around nearby towns, to make day trips, or to go to trailheads, etc...

In our trips, we usually are out and about all day, and rarely have time to watch TV, which we do not even do at home.

 

[skyking1]

That toad thing is why we are still truck and trailer. The truck is comfortable and not huge to drive around places.

 

[Trailwalker]

That toad thing is why we are still truck and trailer. The truck is comfortable and not huge to drive around places.

This is an important point about how to choose an rv. Know your traveling style. We are also truck/trailer people. And our trailer is only 16'. Typically, we don't spend much time in the trailer. We use it as a base for hiking and sightseeing. It's a huge upgrade for us from backpacking/car camping.

 

[skyking1]

Ours is a bit bigger at 28', but still shoehorns into many National Parks.
I'd love to hike more, but it would be alone. DW's arthritis is not good for that.

 

[bjlakatos]

I believe the folks behind Good Sam and Camping World (i.e. Marcus Lemonis) have now launched a similar service at www.rvshare.com.

Just to be clear, the Camping world rental entity is RVRentals.com

 

[ImaCheesehead]

We have been fulltiming in our class A diesel pusher with toad for the last 4 years. It was our first ever RV. I cannot offer any advise on renting before purchase because we didn’t. I knew that camping few weeks in a cr@ppy Cruise America would be nothing like living in our MH for long periods, so we didn’t bother. We did lots of research beforehand and eliminated travel trailers, 5th wheels, B’s, C’s and gas A’s for us but of course one of those types of RV’s might be perfect for you.

I will say that my DH has been working full time the entire 4 years and we have not had any issues because we have kept multiple plans on multiple devices. We have 1 Verizon phone with hotspot, one Verizon mifi, one AT&T mifi, and one AT&T data plan on an iPad. We rarely used campground wifi because it is generally not good enough. The websites will say they have it but by the time you know if it is usable for your purposes you are already there. We needed to have assured connectivity so we brought our own.

Good luck with your research and planning.

 

[bjlakatos]

...wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to get into and find out what we'd like and don't like, etc...

Rent as much as possible before buying. Yes, the cost of a rental is relatively high but is a drop in the bucket vs buying and selling an RV you don't like.

As mentioned earlier, there is a standard sequence most RVers progress through; tent, popup, hybrid, travel trailer, 5th wheel, Class C or Class A then back down to a travel trailer as age creeps up (think stairs, loss in confidence of driving a large rig, etc)

The point here is there is rarely a one-time purchase of an RV. Most buy, figure out they don't like this or that (layout, gas mileage, trip planning, etc) then move down the sequence. Ask any RVer, they will be happy to tell you how many they have purchased/sold.

 

[REWahoo]

Ask any RVer, they will be happy to tell you how many they have purchased/sold.

Not counting tents, we're on #8 - over a period of 45 years.

 

[bjlakatos]

... interested in how easy it is to work on the road from an RV...

I worked from our RV the last couple years before retirement. My job was such that I had a significant amount of conference calls (via Microsoft teams, skype for business, etc) with worldwide participants. I traveled all over the country and found;

1)park WIFI is not an option (not strong enough, not enough bandwidth, and WIFI is a secondary amenity behind power, water and sewer at RV parks....).

2)hotspots (verizon) had constant issues connecting...I frequently would go into verizon stores in large cities to get help and found hotspots are kind of like a red-headed stepchild as far as the stores are concerned. Nothing like hosting a conference call and not being able to connect at the last minute...

3)iphone as a hotspot--It worked 100% of the time when I had Verizon signal. (Use campgroundreviews.com to determine if your carrier has coverage at the park you are planning to visit). I only planned to visit parks that had Verizon coverage when working.

 

[newlyold]

You might think rentals are expensive, until you look at what a rig costs new. Just Google "Average price of a new RV" and you'll see plenty of resources that show you can spend $30K for a little one, and $300K for a big one, and even $1M or more for a very large, very fancy rig. If you aren't budgeting $300/day or better for the rental, and adding more for fuel & RV parks, you aren't doing the numbers right. But if you are handy and willing to do some cleanup of other owners' equipment, buying used still makes sense. Not as much as it did pre-COVID, when it was a buyer's market for used equipment in January of 2020, but it's still far less expensive than buying new. Plus, you end up with something that's already had the worst of the depreciation taken out of it, and all of the new-owner-surprises (things that didn't work, weren't assembled properly, were broken, or were missing--right from the factory!) are already taken care of. We bought a small, used 5th wheel in February of 2020, not knowing COVID would shut down the market for two months, and that the backlog of travel-denied people would turn to the camper market and drive the prices up into the sky. Wait a year before buying, and if COVID's "D" variation can be beat, then travel out of the country and overseas and via cruises will start up again in a big way. And then there'll be a glut of two-year-old used equipment for sale in a buyer's market again.

 

[Venturer]

We tent camped in the early 70's since it was affordable. Back then the campgrounds we stayed in were on a lake with no "official" camping pads like now. We just paid the tent fee and then just found a spot we liked and put it up. After our daughter came along we discovered popup campers. Wow we still had access to the outdoors but were not laying on the ground. We moved to larger popups aas my daughter grew until one camping trip to the Smoky Mtns. my DW went into a neighbors "standup hardside" camper that also had a kitchen and a bathroom. The next season saw us moving into a 24 ft trvel trailer. our daughter by then was almost grown and had other interests besides "sitting in a cracker box in the woods" with her parents. When she went to university we upgraded to a 34 ft. 5th wheel with a double slide, which she would come visit us occasionally if we were camping in a desirable beach area. Then in 2002 I bought a big touring motorcycle and if I was off work I was ready to ride. DW said one day "If we are not going to use the camper why pay insurance on it and the duelly?" So we sold both and got out of camping until 2018 when we bought another camping trailer to prepare for our retirement. We used it that summer/fall and then when covid hit it mostly ruined our plans. Then this past winter as things started opening up we thought about traveling again, but knew if we did we needed a bigger camper(or at least wanted one). We sold that camper to our daughter and bought another 5th wheel and truck. We just got back from our second trip with these and feel we made the right decision. Already starting to plan for our next years travels, hoping to leave next spring to head west and explore grand canyon, yellowstone, tetons, black hills and then back around thru midwest to home. I still like to get out on my motorcycle but now I'm more of a fair weather out and back 300 mile or less rider for the most part. I've rode in most types of weather but now I try not to leave home on bike if it is too cold,too hot,too wet or too windy, lol other than that I'm good! ;-)

 

[RVplusDog]

The forum “IRV2” is the early-retirement.org of the RV world. Lots of great advice, just like here.