I can only speak from my experience with a Motorhome I got in May of this year from Cruise America. It is the 28A model. I have had it out most of this summer and it has been great. The only problem I had was that the kitchen faucet leaked and I opted to replace the handle and faucet with a fancy one my wife wanted anyway. All the functions of the MH work as they should. CA has a very good re-manufacturing process at their facility in Arizona. I am sure people smoked, pissed on the floor, jumped on the beds and generally did not treat it as they would one they owned themselves. But I have not seen any results of abuse after the process in Arizona. No stains, no smells or damage anywhere and I am very picky. The CA units are made at the Four Winds factory. I understand they take over the factory for about a month just building MHs for CA. They are built to the specifications of CA. Mainly they do not have things like awnings, TV antennas, steps external, and many other nice things you may want but you must understand that many, if not most, who are renting are new to the MH world and these types of things would cause problems. Even experienced MH owners forget to put their antenna down or steps inside the coach. They try to make them as idiot proof as they can.
BUT here is the difference you have to decide if it is worth it to you to buy one new or used off a local lot. I looked everywhere close to my home and found a difference of up to $20K in price for models of the same year by the same manufacturer. Yes, mine had over one hundred thousand miles on it, but the mechanical parts are designed to go way over that amount of mileage anyway. That would be more miles than I am going to put on it in my lifetime. You have no guarantee that the one bought from a local lot has not been abused as well and in most cases it may have just been washed up a little and that is about it. Check out the CA manufacturing process that is available on line. People I have talked to who have seen it, are very impressed.
I am very happy with mine and have added all the features that were not on the ones I looked at local and it was just a small amount to add them in contrast to the high price the local dealers wanted for a comparable MH. I have no affiliation with CA at all even if I sound like a salesman. I am just a happy customer. I also have the ability and time to fix just about anything that goes wrong with the MH. That is if I want to and at my age I opt to pay to have it done in many cases on all my vehicles these days. This is not my first MH and I knew what I was getting into. Just remember if you are new to MHing. you have in a MH, a house that is going down the road each day experiencing a very bad earthquake and things are going to fail and fall off sooner or later so don’t be surprised when things like that happen at a most inconvenient time.
