Im my limited experience, every RV is built with cheapness in mind. Chassis are absolutely maxed out (even the bigger cat powered on above!). Its cheaper to buy a chassis that will just make the mark rather than as beefy one that will only be at 60% load instead of 99%, so mfg's use the lighter one.
Just cruising down the highway, probably fine. Want to tow a race car? Look at the tow ratings on most of them, nearly nothing as they chassis is already maxed out.
KyAllroad wrote: https://dayton.craigslist.org/rvs/6150061654.html At your new budget, going overbuilt and seriously heavy duty might be the sweet spot. Actual motor coach and Cat diesel?
I was also going to say, "Bluebird" - but this seems worth investigating if an RV like this is what you need.
As stated above, your first RV is a learning experience. If the trip is part of the adventure, proceed.
We have a 1987 Pace Arrow, 32 foot on a P30 chassis. Yes, they flex. No slides. But over the ten years of ownership it has earned it's keep. I will also admit that I write checks, Camperworld has been one of the shops that has benefited from my learning curve. The other thing that is now starting to be an issue is the dwindling number of shops that could work on my now "vintage" coach if they wanted too.
The previous owner babied this RV. He built a barn, dug a service pit, had it painted in 1996 and when he retired he died on the second trip.
His wife worked me for six years to buy it, the final broken straw was free storage in her purpose built RV barn. All she wanted was to hear about the trips. And we have done our best to use it, now averaging monthly outings. Wilma passed, three years ago but the die was cast. The key includes an understand that stuff happens. Other than the motor expiring on Highway 40 between Barstow and Needles, almost half way to the mile, every thing else has been more of a nuisance that slows you down rather than ending your trip.
One of the first lessons, both the alternator and the smog pump will die when you change the fan belts. Changing the brake fluid, now every three years, allows you to slow and then stop your coach. Without having to pull up on the steering wheel, and saying words your kids will then start saying. The P30 chassis with a RV sitting on it, needs much stiffer front springs. The air bags that most of them are running are a band-aid. A really bad band-aid. With out this one upgrade, we would not still own this rig.
That and AC units that are now of current technology. The originals were R12, loud and not very efficient. No one would touch them. Camperworld in February is your source of quite-ish, smaller, more efficient units that have warmers that actually work. And once you have them installed correctly they do keep the rain on the out side. Again, the learning curve.
To that end, your education on the storage of used water will now begin. We all have stories, create you own!
David
The Country Coach engine is a 10.4 liter turbo diesel rated at 225 hp. No idea bout the torque rating but my guess would be "sufficient". And I'd bet it would tow the moon if required.
Original list price was north of $250,000.
KyAllroad wrote: The Country Coach engine is a 10.4 liter turbo diesel rated at 225 hp. No idea bout the torque rating but my guess would be "sufficient". And I'd bet it would tow the moon if required. Original list price was north of $250,000.
My fear on those types of rigs is more the unknown of heavy truck work. I would assume all maintenance needs are drastically more expensive given the original $250K purchase valuation.
...vs. a 1-ton Ford chassis presumably with driveway DIY on most common repairs with parts from the local parts store.
Lots to learn. If my primary purpose was racecar hauling I'd definitely lean more towards learning the pusher options.
In reply to xflowgolf:
You are probably right there. My local Cummins center often has RVs in the lot for service (they're 2 miles from my house and I drive by it on the way to work most days). And I know from having my truck worked on there, they aren't cheap. Good and reasonably quick, but not cheap.
That Country Coach appears to be built on a bus chassis and from everything I've read over the years, those chassis are quite under-stressed in RV applications. And at 80K miles, the engine is barely broken in.
In reply to xflowgolf:
Yes the ford chassis will be far easier to DIY work. The heavy truck stuff isnt rockey science though. But ford parts are cheap and easy to get. Like wheel bearings that NEED to be done before your trip can start 
In reply to java230:
Oddly enough, the closest parts store to my house is a HD truck parts distributor.
The difference is front wheel bearings won't need to be replaced for a few hundred thousand miles.
I handled HD truck parts some in a past life as a parts jobber. The difference between even the lightest HD truck part and a 1 ton civilian truck is so vast it's hard to compare them. Any reasonably healthy person can load a 1 ton truck drum onto a brake lathe by hand. For HD truck drums, I used the shop fork lift. Hell, we used the fork lift to load and unload them from the delivery trucks.
In reply to Ian F:
At 80k miles I wouldn't be worried about bearings or brakes but with the age I would expect air leaks from old hoses, suspension air bags, etc.
From time to time the wife and I toy with the idea of a motorhome. I think the merry misadventures resulting from this thread have finally cured me. If I do anything it would be a full size van and campground facilities or the occasional hotel room.
In reply to Wall-e:
That is generally my plan: class B RV built to my specs. Somewhat of a bare-bones build to save weight/expense. Capable of toying a reasonable size enclosed trailer.
I'll just add it to the rest of the projects I need/want to do...
I am sorta in the same looking boat. Me and the g/f are looking for an "acorn" style 13foot trailer. Better than camping, cheaper than a hotel room. As a bonus, they do NOT lose their value over time. The hard part is finding one for sale that is not 4 states away
We just got our first new to us travel trailer. We went with something that our minivan can tow for now especially with the weight distribution hitch and proper trailer brakes.
Its a great size for a family of 4 we have 2 adults, 1 small dog, and 7yr old and 3yr old girls
We picked it up for 5500 the NADA guide value was around 7k older lady who had it listed only on Facebook of all places and I guess didn't know how to list it elsewhere. It looked like we could try it out and possibly flip it or get our money back so we went for it.
We have done one weekend trip so far and based on that my observations of new to trailer life are thus:
I've debated a motorhome for years because of the ability to tow a car trailer behind it for a race car. However I am not impressed with the chassis of most C class units and most A class units make poor use of living space compared to trailers/ C class etc in terms of sleeping quarters.
I'd also say storage is key to look at almost as important as floorplan, the more you can keep in the trailer/RV the less you have to do when its time to go somewhere
java230 wrote: Im my limited experience, every RV is built with cheapness in mind. Chassis are absolutely maxed out (even the bigger cat powered on above!). Its cheaper to buy a chassis that will just make the mark rather than as beefy one that will only be at 60% load instead of 99%, so mfg's use the lighter one. Just cruising down the highway, probably fine. Want to tow a race car? Look at the tow ratings on most of them, nearly nothing as they chassis is already maxed out.
I think this highlights pretty much everything I have learned even as a Neophyte so far. Even new RVs are often plagued with warranty issues like bad seals/poorly installed X Y. If you thought panel gaps were bad on cars then RVs is ten times worse.
Trailers and motor homes are pretty much manufactured home quality inside in the fact everything in general is going for lightness and cheapness
In reply to Jaynen:
Yeah I actually went to an RV show a few months ago.... It was scary, even for 200k+ models.
Sorry, long ass post... We bought Moby the Road Castle for 13k. In 1989, Foretravel sold this U280 to the original owner for 289k. Including tires, I have put another 6 or 7k into it. In exchange, it trailers the rallycar, and every spare part and all my tools and 2 sets of wheels and tires in the basement, with a comoressor to run airtools with.On vacations it gets 11 mpg, goes anywhere (well almost anywhere), and has done 3000 mile roadtrips without a hiccup. I shopped Country coach, Bluebird, Beaver and Foretravel (you won't go very wrong with any of these) and this was the best of the ones I was able to find. This make from this vintage has several built in advantages. Is an in house built monocoque chassis. Very strong, only Bluebirds and the commercial bus conversions are in this league. They have been rolled up to 4 times down an embankment and were driveable after. The suspension geometry was designed properly, with no bump steer. So it just tracks down the road without having to constantly saw at the wheel to keep going straight. 4 wheel air disc brakes. I too wondered about fixing all the commercial truck running gear but so far, none of the big stuff has needed attenton and the little things like hub gaskets and such are cheap and easy to find. 3208 turbo Cat and 4 speed Allison ain't as sexy as the Cummins 8.3 and 6 speed, but this gear is comparably simple and bombproof. OTOH when batteries need replacing I am lookin at 3 8D's, an oil change involves 5 gallons of delo 400, and there is 12 gsllons of coolant in a radiator that outweighs me. But it is all more than up to the job at hand. This thing weighs 22k and the chassis is rated for more than 30. So many other RV's are maxed out for weight before you fill the tanks and climb in (my 1st RV was a p30 chassis with that problem. Golly, why did I average a blowout per year in that thing?). Enough tankage that 3 of us go 4-5 days between dump and fills. 8 airbags, no leveling jacks needed. We enjoy pulling into a spot at say Yellowstone and being levelled and settled in in half a minute and watching the trailers take half an hour to set up. But the trailers can unhook and use the pickup to get around where we either make do or tow a dinghy. The biggest tbing for us is, going down the road in one of these is relaxing. Fun. Yes, one of us can go to the kitchen and make a sammich. None of this applies in a pickup towing a trailer. So tbis monster works for us. Oh and btw that country coach looks like a helluva buy. If there is a forum for them that's as good as the Foretravel forum, then there is sufficient online support to keep something like tbis useful and happy.
That's great info Jay and one of the main reasons I would consider something similar. Have you had any issues with getting that rig into places you wanted to go?
Its so hard to find a good floorplan
Oh another thing, you can find tons of decorating stuff or RV upgrade stuff on pinterest. So set your wife loose on that. Stuff like peel and stick subway tile above the countertops/peel and stick wood flooring etc can make an old RV look a lot newer pretty easily
Rent first. It sucks to buy something and find out that camping in a trailer/rv is not going to work. Did the Class A thing for many years and am ready to jump to a travel trailer now. But we will rent a trailer first to see how it works out. We have owned three RVs, two turned out to be fun, one was a nightmare.
My first rv was 27' and going up to this 36 footer I thohght it was gonna be a daunting task but really hasn't been an issue. Just takes practice like anything else.Avenue of the Giants, in redwood forest, was doable without trouble.. We did elect to go out Yellowstone east entrance instead of the northeast entrance through the Bsartooths. Man, that road is steep...
We bought a 92 P30 based 34' bounder in September. The previous owners owned it for years but weren't handy and little things were getting expensive. I'll say this: If this thing wasn't $1,700- I likely would not own it. I had to put tires on it and fix some things, but I'll agree with others that the chassis is fairly maxed out compared to some of the diesel coach's built on real HD frames. My father just scored a 94 Tiffen Allegra Bus that is worlds better than mine, it was $17,000 but is built like a semi.
All that said, I've put nearly 6,000 miles on ours in the last 10 months. We took it from here in south florida up to maine and back on a month long trip with the kids, and then have done some other trips. I really like it and it's absolutely paid for itself. We do tow a car, it's much easier once you get somewhere. And those systems can get expensive. Basically rv'ing is a whole new world that you'll learn as you go.
In reply to xflowgolf:
There is a lot of new info and I did not read it all. If not stated already I suggest doing some research on the Ford v10. I dont know if it's over blown or not but there seems like there is a lot of broken and blown out of the head spark plug issues.
I had eyes on a fun/toy hauler/mover a couple years ago at a bargin price, it needed work and was down a couple cylinders and after researching and checking my project to do list, possibly having to swap an engine was not going on it.
Steve
Here's our budget RV. Spoiler: it's my wife's cheap minivan with an inflatable mattress in the back.
Granted we don't have kids, or pets, so this works pretty well for us.
In reply to maschinenbau:
I tried that with my Grand Caravan. The lack of airflow made it brutal. Of course, when it got too bad, I could just turn the engine on and crank the A/C. But all told, it's basically a tent with crappy air-flow. Is better at staying dry in the rain.
Just got back from a quick trip with the wife in the motorhome and I think my earlier advice stands. We've had the motorhome for about a year and I've done a combination of long trips with kids, short trips with kids, long trips with another adult, and short trips with another adult.
So far, it's been working out really well. During the summer months, the RV is stocked with food (except for the refrigerated stuff) and all the camping gear. I'll bring the RV over to the house and level it out the night before and get the fridge started (I'll jump-start it with four half-gallon milk jugs full of water that are frozen solid). The next day, we load the groceries, everybody puts their clothes away on-board, and off we go.
Updating the pros and cons:
Pros:
Travelling with kids is much easier. They can run back to the bathroom when we're on clear highway in good weather or I can just pull into any parking lot or off the side of any road. No messing around to find shoes and put them on, no nagging about stopping at vending machines, just into the bathroom and back to their seat.
Everybody gets to spread out a little more. I haven't reinforced the dinette yet so that it can be used while in travel, but two kids on the couch, one in the chair, my wife riding shotgun, and the dinette turned into a bed for the dogs to lie on. Very nice.
I don't have to daily drive a full-ton pick'emup. Given the amount of space that I like to have, I would probably want a 5er instead of a bumper-pull.
The opportunity hasn't arisen yet, but in the event that I want to travel to a Rallycross or a track day or if I want to go to a 2-day RallyX event, I can tow the car behind the RV so that I can have my fridge, A/C, furnace, bathroom, shower, and bed. If I had a travel trailer, I would have to tent camp or hotel it. Now, it's been a year and I haven't leveraged that use case yet, so this may not be as big of a deal as I thought. We shall see.
On board generator. It may be only the limited selection that I've seen, but it appears that most trailers and 5ers don't have facilities for on-board generators. I like to be able to have AC power no matter where I'm staying and being able to reach down on the side of the bed and flip the switch to start the generator before I plod to the galley to make coffee in the morning is pretty divine.
On the longer trips when we stop for the night it's really easy to hunker down for the night. If the spot is already pretty level, all I have to do is park, shut down the engine, pull the curtains shut, and we're done. If it's not level, I can work the jacks from the driver's seat to get us close enough. Leaving in the morning also doesn't require anyone to exit the vehicle. Much nicer than having to go back and forth with a travel trailer. Also, most trailers I've seen have manual leveling jacks. Why level, you ask? It's all about the propane fridge. They don't work and sort of catch fire when they're not level.
Cons:
Two more engines to maintain. Not to mention another transmission, brake system, power steering system, four more shocks, etc.
Gas mileage. Going from Northern Kentucky to Daytona Beach, Florida and back while towing a car was about 7mpg. Without the car, it's usually about 7.5. I can get 8mpg if I go nice and slow on flat highway. Running the generator doesn't move the needle too much. I'm not really sure what a big Powerstroke would get pulling a big fifth-wheel, so this may or may not be relevant.
It would be a lot easier to drop a trailer and take off in the tow vehicle than to pull up, unload a car from the trailer, park the trailer, disconnect the trailer, then park the motorhome. A Blue Ox bar would probably make that a bit easier, but those systems are very pricey and I wouldn't be flat-towing the RallyX car. And flat-towing limits what your daily driver can be.
Truck tires are way more expensive than trailer tires per each. And you usually need two fewer tires for the trailer.
Because there's all the truck parts in a motorhome, they're more expensive. You can get a much newer and nicer trailer for the money. I paid around 7,500 for a motorhome but the trailers and fifth-wheels in that price range were way nicer.
If you have a mechanical failure with your tow vehicle, you can stay in the trailer while repairs are being carried out. Or you can sell it and buy a new truck pretty easily to continue your journey. Finding a shop to work on an RV is a little more difficult and if you're working on a budget, it's going to be much more challenging to try to sell the broken one and buy a different one to head home with.
While we're talking about mechanical things, working on a trailer really doesn't require much in the way of special tools. A motorhome is going to be bigger, heavier parts and require heavier duty jacks, jack stands, and stuff like that.
And a final point on mechanicals: You'd work on your truck in your garage, right? I bet your garage isn't 40ft long and 12ft high. So now you're stuck outside doing truck repairs. That's not so much fun.
So would I do it again? More than likely, I will replace the current motorhome with another motorhome in another year or two. I know that ¯_(ツ)_/¯ had some pretty epic issues with his, but my experience has been mostly opposite. I'd stay pretty far away from anything under about $6,500 but just like pretty much anything else with an engine, you'll never go wrong following the advice of "buy the nicest example you can afford". The $10-15k range has some really nice stuff in it, but I'd break down the "is it junk" probability thusly: <$5k = 99% junk, $5,001-$7,000 = 95% junk, $7,001-$10,000 85% junk, $10,001-$15,000 50% junk, and $15,001+ 35% junk. I've never looked much past about $25k but I assume the junk probability drops tremendously.
If you're playing in the shallow end of the pool like me, I would look for older Winnebago products primarily because they used a one-piece fiberglass roof as well as a steel frame at the caps. Yes, there are rust issues over the windshield, so check for that. But assuming that's good, you have reduced the potential for leaks dramatically and you've added some rigidity to the whole thing. Eternabond is your friend, and for the love of all that is holy, don't even think about touching silicone anything. Having grown up around 454s in a boat, I have an irrational trust of the big block Chevys and that's what I wound up with, but the Deere chassis that use the Ford 460 tend to be a little more stout than the P30. Either way, go fuel injection, even if it's only TBI.
It is true that the older gas motorhome chassis are pushed to their limits, but if you remember that it's a recreational vehicle and just take it slow and steady, it'll be fine. A trailer will track nicely behind the RV, but you'll feel it going up and down hills. Get a vacuum gauge and you'll be able to keep it from downshifting over most hills as long as you let it sacrifice speed.
If you want to tow, most of the older gas units have 3,500lb hitches. Depending on how long the RV is versus how long the chassis is, you'll probably have some frame extensions that are very shoddily butt-welded to the factory chassis. A trailer will act like a lever on those welds and if that moves, it'll shift the end cap which will basically destroy the RV. I got some heavy C-channel and bolted in reinforcements to those extensions.
There are definitely advantages to both, but my long term plans involve replacing the motorhome with another motorhome.
I guess the question is, with the price of some of the burb 2500's as everyones favorite tow vehicle (it does rule out a 5er) could you afford to buy one and just park it and would that be any better than the motorhome.
I think the in transit benefits and ability to tow race car are the two real plus's for me and the motorhome angle, while I find that parking and leaving a trailer that I would prefer that with a tow rig and most trailer floorplans seem to be better
I think I would like to go the "overkill chassis" route even if it meant an older coach if looking at motorhomes. Honestly you could probably have a standard contractor do a lot to the inside similar to remodeling a house
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