This topic comes up every so often and all the naysayers and anti-used RVers come up with this "Renters abuse the vehicles" thing. I think most of them are very cautious about the rigs they rent. We have rented twice, both times in AK and there is a clause there that covers hidden damage. I think maybe that is not need very often.
One thing that was noted in this thread is speed, first off, read all the posts about how fast folks drive their own rigs. Seventy is not an unusual speed to be quoted.
As for foreigners, I haven't seen that. We meet a lot of them and they seem pretty concerned and careful. If you go to Europe, you will hear the same thing about Americans.
A lot is said about not buying a rig from someone that didn't keep complete maintenance and repair records, yet most folks don't but the rental companies do. Some of them give them to you before you buy a rig from them. How many private sellers would do that.
I'm looking at rentals as possible replacement for our 25 year old rig with over 70K miles on it. I'm pretty careful about maintenance and all that but almost all my problems with the house structure has been cause by poor QA. In order to avoid the UV damage to our rig it would have required garaging and replacing all the mild steel screws used in building it with monel or SS and replacing all the caulking from day one.
A lot of folks feel that you should open up your heater and put a couple of drops of oil on the motor bearings every year, I question the effectiveness of that. It has been studied and studied and it isn't as effective as just leaving the alone and using it more often. Exercising motors is a good idea, just like tires and A/C systems.
I just think that with all the units rented and then sold, that if they were junk by the time they were wholesaled off, that we would hear about it on these forums.
I'm seventh-four and like my Bounder, things are wearing out and being replaced. The maintenance has been good but my body has been used and it seems from historical data that I am suffering from planned obsolescence. I am tired of replacing all the stuff that breaks or wears out on our rig and a good used rig seems to me to be a better choice than trying to keep up with all the additional maintenance a 25 year old rig needs. I won't give up RVing yet and a brand new rig is financially possible but with only maybe ten years left in my life and four or five where I'll be driving a 15K pound beast around, it doesn't seem like a good investment. I'll take more trips with the difference in costs applied to fuel and campgrounds rather than to enriching some financial institution.
Like a lot of things, it boils down to my point of view vs your point of view.
