Choice: Entry Level DP or High End Gas

JCGibson wrote:

rgatijnet1 wrote:
How do you travel? Short trips close by or long trips across the country? How many miles per year? How long do you plan to keep it? Are you capable of doing your own maintenance?

Our travel year is usually filled with about 10 or so weekend trips in spring and fall, mostly just within 100 miles (Branson MO, Table Rock Lake). My wife is a teacher (I am retired AF) so summers have a lot of 3-5 day at a time trips (about 7-10), up to 200-300 miles away. Then also during the summer we have one long trip, usually 2-4 weeks, about 1000+ miles. Our grand total of camping days per year is about 75-100 and about 4-6K miles.

Plan to keep the class A about 5-7 years. We have in the past usually only kept a camping unit for 2-3 years, however, they haven't been as pricey as a Class A.

I am pretty handy as I do most of the work on my diesel truck and cars and have worked on other various cars to restore them.

Most of your trips are going to be short trips so to spend extra money for SUPPOSEDLY a smoother and quieter ride with a DP may not be a good investment. An older DP may require updating the mattress, electronics, the appliances, tires, batteries, and suspension components like shocks.
A new gas coach will have the newer systems and furniture and any suspension refurbish costs, if needed, will be less.
Your one long trip of 1000+ miles is still a short trip to me. We do 15K+ a year in our gas coach. We did the same mileage in our DP. It is obvious that you will be spending more time with the vehicle parked, than on the highway, so your comfort when camping should be your main criteria. Does the floor plan allow you to be comfortable even if it is raining?
Obviously if you can do the work on your diesel truck, you can service either a DP or a gas coach so that is of little concern. You will be doing most service based on time, rather than mileage.
The amount of miles that you plan on putting on it in the 5-7 years of ownership(30K to 40K) is not going to cause any serious problems with any gas engine or diesel engine. Fuel costs will only vary a few bucks with either engine for the small amount you will be driving.
Basically the choice is still the floor plan that suits both you and your wife's needs the most. Either engine type will get you there and back. A gas powered coach will have all newer systems and your initial investment will be less. That is money that you will have left to spend for your trips.
I've never considered resale value of any RV that we have owned. We have taken many overseas trips that amounted to thousands of dollars spent, with zero recovery. I look at RV's the same way. We enjoy the RV trips and IF we get any money back when we sell the coach, that is just gravy.
Just remember the sooner you buy one the sooner you can start to enjoy it. Now is a good time to buy compared to the closer you get to Sommer.