Buying cheap to fix, good idea?
Hi all, I have a question that hopefully some of you experienced RVers can help me with. I am currently in the market for an RV. I don't have any experience with them, but I have been doing an extre...
Forum Discussion
Let me tell you our experience and you can take from it what you like.
Back around 2009 we decided we wanted to upgrade from a pop-up camper to a motor home. We found this 1990 Winnebago Warrior which we ended up buying for $7500. Took a loan out of our 401K to pay for it. The only thing that did not work on it at the time of inspection was the cab AC, which we deducted for. So this RV was 18 years old when we bought it.
Here is what we discovered after we bought it:
The generator, which we had tested on inspection, only ran for about 30 minutes and then shut down. It needed a $500 repair.
I learned about date codes on tires. You see, most people don't put enough miles on their RV to wear the tread off. So while the tires look good, they can be dangerous to drive on as tires only last about 6 years. Well my front 2 tires were 4 years old, the back 4 were 10 years old, and the spare was 19 years old (original). So this was another $1000 in tires.
The cab AC was so old it used the old refrigerant, and had to be upgraded to the refrigerant. That was another $500. We tried to go a season without cab AC but in the south this was just miserable for the driver.
First trip to Disney World we blew a heater core as soon as we pulled into Disney. That was another $500.
Then we discovered that the roof had leaked at some point. The previous owner had coated the entire roof with latex roof sealant, but the damage had been done. The RV has a musty smell in it (mold) that drives my allergies insane. No one else in the family is affected fortunately, and I have found that if I take a 24-hour Allegra I am fine. But it is there. The leak was the skylight in the shower and it had caused the walls in the shower to rot. So I ripped out the shower and rebuilt it. Probably another $500 there.
The headliner is held to the roof with staples. The black foam that is glued to the liner and then to the roof has disintegrated, and no longer holds the liner to the roof. Also little speckles of disintegrated foam filter down through the tiny holes in the headliner like microscopic pepper. This may be actually what is setting off my allergies and not mold. I have ripped down the headliner in the back 1/3rd of the RV and replaced it with fiberglass paneling - the same stuff I re-did the shower walls with. Eventually I'll do the rest of the RV.
Right now, everything currently works except the cruise control, and I can no longer get parts for it. The RV is now 25 years old. It had about 47,000 miles on it when we got it, it has about 67,000 miles on it now. We've had it to Disney World and back 4 times, and I use it about once a month year round.
The roof is still weak and there are spots I would not dare trying to walk on near the bathroom skylight, and I went over the whole thing with more of the latex roof sealer and liberally filled in all the cracks in the old sealant I could see. What it really needs is a roof rebuilt but that will never happen as the RV will never be worth that $5000+ expense.
The RV also has fiberglass delamination on the sides of the vehicle under the windows where water has obviously leaked down into the fiberglass and caused the adhesive to fail, resulting in large bubbles forming. The vehicle obviously probably still leaks, so we pay for covered storage to the tune of $90 a month to make her last as long as we can.
We also lost a fuel pump and due to a change mid model year had the wrong one installed. $800 later I now have the wrong fuel pump in my RV so my gas gauge reads wrong but I did get the manufacturer (Airtex) to send me the correct one for free. I'm saving my pennies to have it installed.
So I'd say that for buying the "all we could afford" $7500 RV, we have probably spent another $4000-$5000 in repairs since we have had it. Would we have been better off spending $12,000 up front? Maybe, but we didn't have $12,000 up front. We might still be sitting here today saving our pennies for "some day we'll have an RV" and not have done the 4 trips to Disney and all the other things we've done with it since we got it.
My #1 advice would be this: Absolutely avoid any RV with any signs of water damage. Believe your nose! If it smells like mold, mildew, or rot inside, walk away. If you see blistering/bubbling areas where the underlying glue has given way it's almost certainly due to water. Walk away. If you can feel soft rotted spots, walk away. The damage is always more extensive than what you can see until you start ripping things out to get at the damage. Only then do you see the true extent.
Finding a sub-$10K RV can be done, but it will probably be in somewhat rough shape.
Steve
Back around 2009 we decided we wanted to upgrade from a pop-up camper to a motor home. We found this 1990 Winnebago Warrior which we ended up buying for $7500. Took a loan out of our 401K to pay for it. The only thing that did not work on it at the time of inspection was the cab AC, which we deducted for. So this RV was 18 years old when we bought it.
Here is what we discovered after we bought it:
The generator, which we had tested on inspection, only ran for about 30 minutes and then shut down. It needed a $500 repair.
I learned about date codes on tires. You see, most people don't put enough miles on their RV to wear the tread off. So while the tires look good, they can be dangerous to drive on as tires only last about 6 years. Well my front 2 tires were 4 years old, the back 4 were 10 years old, and the spare was 19 years old (original). So this was another $1000 in tires.
The cab AC was so old it used the old refrigerant, and had to be upgraded to the refrigerant. That was another $500. We tried to go a season without cab AC but in the south this was just miserable for the driver.
First trip to Disney World we blew a heater core as soon as we pulled into Disney. That was another $500.
Then we discovered that the roof had leaked at some point. The previous owner had coated the entire roof with latex roof sealant, but the damage had been done. The RV has a musty smell in it (mold) that drives my allergies insane. No one else in the family is affected fortunately, and I have found that if I take a 24-hour Allegra I am fine. But it is there. The leak was the skylight in the shower and it had caused the walls in the shower to rot. So I ripped out the shower and rebuilt it. Probably another $500 there.
The headliner is held to the roof with staples. The black foam that is glued to the liner and then to the roof has disintegrated, and no longer holds the liner to the roof. Also little speckles of disintegrated foam filter down through the tiny holes in the headliner like microscopic pepper. This may be actually what is setting off my allergies and not mold. I have ripped down the headliner in the back 1/3rd of the RV and replaced it with fiberglass paneling - the same stuff I re-did the shower walls with. Eventually I'll do the rest of the RV.
Right now, everything currently works except the cruise control, and I can no longer get parts for it. The RV is now 25 years old. It had about 47,000 miles on it when we got it, it has about 67,000 miles on it now. We've had it to Disney World and back 4 times, and I use it about once a month year round.
The roof is still weak and there are spots I would not dare trying to walk on near the bathroom skylight, and I went over the whole thing with more of the latex roof sealer and liberally filled in all the cracks in the old sealant I could see. What it really needs is a roof rebuilt but that will never happen as the RV will never be worth that $5000+ expense.
The RV also has fiberglass delamination on the sides of the vehicle under the windows where water has obviously leaked down into the fiberglass and caused the adhesive to fail, resulting in large bubbles forming. The vehicle obviously probably still leaks, so we pay for covered storage to the tune of $90 a month to make her last as long as we can.
We also lost a fuel pump and due to a change mid model year had the wrong one installed. $800 later I now have the wrong fuel pump in my RV so my gas gauge reads wrong but I did get the manufacturer (Airtex) to send me the correct one for free. I'm saving my pennies to have it installed.
So I'd say that for buying the "all we could afford" $7500 RV, we have probably spent another $4000-$5000 in repairs since we have had it. Would we have been better off spending $12,000 up front? Maybe, but we didn't have $12,000 up front. We might still be sitting here today saving our pennies for "some day we'll have an RV" and not have done the 4 trips to Disney and all the other things we've done with it since we got it.
My #1 advice would be this: Absolutely avoid any RV with any signs of water damage. Believe your nose! If it smells like mold, mildew, or rot inside, walk away. If you see blistering/bubbling areas where the underlying glue has given way it's almost certainly due to water. Walk away. If you can feel soft rotted spots, walk away. The damage is always more extensive than what you can see until you start ripping things out to get at the damage. Only then do you see the true extent.
Finding a sub-$10K RV can be done, but it will probably be in somewhat rough shape.
Steve
