Are Newmar coaches constructed better than others?

My indication about Fleetwood was Newmar hired a CEO away from Fleetwood. If I confused anyone, sorry.
So glad your happy with your three Newmars, happy trails.
My point is everyone has an opinion about THEIR RV. I could give a million reasons to buy Tiffin, but buyer beware, do your research about the RV your interested in. Good luck.
Did you miss the not knocking Newmar, seems I hit some marshmallow feelings.

I felt that over the years, I did my research and bought the best bang for the buck DP. My first pick was back in 2005 when we bought a new Monaco Diplomat. That was a great, well built coach, with a large motor and lots of amenities. Unfortunately, when we went to replace it in 2014, they were out of business.

We started our search and found that Tiffin and Newmar were now the two coaches that gave the best quality and bang for the buck. If at that time, Tiffin had offered a 40' DP with a tag, I would be Alegro Bus Don, not Dutch Star Don. After owning the Dutch Star for 4.5 years, I still feel Tiffin and Newmar are still the best deal. I've ordered a new 2019 and it's a Dutch Star. This time, there was a definite advantage of the Newmar over the Tiffin. The advantage was Comfort Steer and the ability to customize a Dutch Star during purchase. You can change anything from the paint, furniture, cabinetry, wiring, flooring and upholstery.

Dale, that's an interesting look at it. One of the reasons that factors into an RV purchase these days is if there is an active user community. I think back when we were comparing Newmar/Tiffin I did see the irv2 activity and felt like I was in a good place to choose either (at least based on that) since there is also an active Tiffin group (on their own website, separate from irv2).

Anyway back to the OP, we have been in 5th wheels for awhile and we started shopping Class A, Newmar was at the top of my list because we had an excellent American Star 5th wheel from them many years ago. I still tell people, the best 5th wheel I ever owned. It just felt strong, like when you put the jacks down you didn't hear the whole box creaking like all my other trailers did.

In the end though, Tiffin won out primarily because of floorplan for us. Forest River had the quad slide bunkhouse floorplan I liked, but I didn't want another FR product. Once I saw it in Tiffin, after speaking to a number of owners I went for it.

Dale,
I think you'll find the post count has nothing to do with anything other than that's where a majority of owners landed. There isn't another active Newmar owners forum that I know of like, say, Winnie and Tiffin have. There are a few smaller ones but not many.

I am also a moderator on another forum; it's a brand specific forum yet it's the largest forum in its class on the net. There are other brand specific forums with 1/20th of the traffic. Many of our members don't own the brand of the forum, they just like the info and socialness of it. All that means is it's the place where everybody landed.

Hate it when I click the wrong button to do an edit before the grammar police drive by while patrolling the the neighborhood.

I don't have a dog in this considering my coach is a bargain basement, entry level 12 year old Four Winds Hurricane but I noticed something over unusual on irv2.com. If you navigate over to the Owner's Forum root listing (Owner's Corner Forums) it shows all the sub groups by manufacture. Rather extensive listing going from Alpine thru Winnebago. What is also listed is how many threads and how many posts have been made for each builder. There's no break out by type of product so the numbers are all mixed for rig types. Class A, B and C, fifth wheels, trailers, and so on.

Now here's were it gets a little interesting. The most active Owner forum with a count of 24,545 threads with 307,487 postings isn't the largest manufacture by volume but a builder way down in total sales volume, Newmar. Winnebago, who has been build rigs for years and at higher year volumes is trailing at 22,984 topics and 223,906 posts, Fleetwood at 11,159 topics with 101,811 posts. What some might consider as Newmar's prime competition, Tiffin, isn't even close at 6,143 and 53,384. And the really strange one is the basement of build standards but the highest by volume, Thor, at 10,388 and 133,080 when you add back in Damon. Keystone, Palazzo and such but still well under Newmar's numbers.

Considering the majority of postings in any topic grouping are from owners with problems looking for solutions you could imply there's a pretty big gorilla sitting in Newmar's corner or maybe the average owner has a lot of time on their hands to interact with other owners on a RV forum. I don't know what this means just that I found it interesting.

I've toured the Newmar factory and other builders and nothing jumped out at me as unique or different about Newmar other than how they move a rig from one build station to the next. I've always liked the styling of their products but I'm a little partial to Tiffin for my next coach at the moment. Tiffin has a floor plan that fits our wants and needs and Newmar doesn't. Might change next model year or it might not.

There is one forum that has higher numbers then Newmar, the Class A General Discussion at 34,465 threads and 451,417 postings. Being that we are pretty much all, or at least the majority in this discussion, class A owners easy to understand that number.

TnTMan: I don't believe Fleetwood was associated with Newmar. You may be thinking of Travel Supreme and Newmar's closeness. In 1989 Glen Troyer from Newmar started Travel Supreme (another high quality manufacturer but much smaller). During the economic crisis of 2008 Travel Supreme closed it's doors and many employees went over to Newmar who was able to stay in business during this period.

We had a Travel Supreme 5th wheel and got a Newmar motorhome. Excellent experience with both. They aren't mass-produced. We added/changed over 100 special items when we ordered.

Newmar has a 5-year structural warranty (sidewalls, roof, frame). Because of the way the sidewalls are built you won't get any delamination issues. They were the pioneers with slideouts - the first to have them with their own engineered mechanism.

Newmar has been in business for 50+ years. Here's an article on their history.

https://www.newmarcorp.com/why-newmar/company-history/

^^^ You are correct. We needed to justify ourselves so much we bought 3 of them just to prove a point. :S :W

And as noted before, these are from a 1995 brochure and a 2018 brochure - still making them basically the same way.

1995;



2018;

What answers you get here are from people who justify their purchase. I am not knocking Newmar, just stating a fact. Prior to buying my Tiffin Phaeton, I toured many factories and was laughing at some of the things I saw and heard. I even went to Tiffin and rejected that model year because of the cheap rubber roof they were installing.
Remember what you read here is biased, you roll the dice when you make a purchase, ALL manufacturers build some bad stuff. The difference is I can call Tiffin and talk to Bob, call Newmar and ask to talk to the CEO. Bob stands behind his vehicles.
As far as the three year warranty, when Virgil passed away, Newmar hired a Fleetwood exec to run Newmar, he stated in RV Business that due to the bottom line (money) they are going back to a one year warranty. If they are built so good, why stop the three year warranty?

two travelers wrote:
We were amazed at how fast the workers were assembling the coaches almost like there was a race or the place was on fire. If we had done the tour first would not have purchased.

What? They work at a snail's pace compared to other manufacturers. Are you sure you weren't on the Jayco tour? :B It's unfortunate that you had problems. That certainly isn't the norm. We never had any. Really.