Buying advice

Tom/Barb wrote:

tropical36 wrote:

lsm wrote:
Hello everyone. New to the forum. I am about about three years away from retirement and at this point I am in the "investigative" stage of my motor home purchase.

I have already read JohnnyT's post of buying an motor home and it was great. I do have a very general question. Never having owned a motor home I pose the following question? (numbers and names are only cited for example purposes)

If I decide my budget is 150k (have not settled on a budget yet) would I be better off buying a new motor home that cost 150k (say a Thor) or would I be better off buying a used Prevost that cost 150k? One will obviously be new and the other might be 20 years old. Thanks for the input.

I'm one to always take quality and engineering over newness and drop back in the years to fit my budget. Doesn't have to be a Prevost conversion to accomplish this either, especially if you want slide rooms that will push hard on a $150K budget.
My advice for seriously seeking out a quality unit is for never firstly going through the front door, like most everyone does. Instead, go to the rear and look for a side radiator. If it has one, then most of the rest will follow with a quality built unit, from the ground up. This most always includes, full body paint, a fiberglas roof..etc...etc...Now, go through the front door and to see if you like it, as well as verifying it's worth.
Simply put, no side radiator, move on and save the time.

When any owner is having their maintenance done by a quality diesel shop, why does it matter where the radiator is?

Well for one thing, the side radiator is the last thing a manufacture will spend the money on and only after every other better selling qualities are installed. The WOW factor always comes first, like a huge TV, with a fireplace under it. This usually creates some tunnel vision and diverts attention away from where a scrupulous buyer should be looking.
If for nothing else and one refuses to lift a finger for doing anything, that's much easier, with being able to see the front of an engine, keep in mind, that a shop will charge more and some times mucho more in labor hours for rear radiators, in most cases.
I mean how much does it cost for just cleaning a rear radiator, that is susceptible to overheating in collecting dirt and debris?