Class A on a Budget for Full Timer

Everyone is so helpful. I think the wife and I are going to keep the B Touring Cruiser for a year and do some extended travels with it and see how it goes and then make adjustments. Thanks for everyone's input. What a great community. Reggie

I would suggest a 34-36' National or Fleetwood gas coach from approx 2003-2007. Two of my friends have recently sold coaches like what I am recommending. They are spacious and usually have one or two slide outs. These rigs were made in big numbers so there are lots of them on the road. One of my friends recently sold his 2008 36' National. His was mint and he got 45,000 for it. It was like new though. My other friend had a 34' National and got 38,000 for it. The Fleetwoods are just as good. These have lots of storage space in the basements.

Of course a used DP will be much quieter to drive. But for 35-40,000 you will likely need to spend some money to fix it up.

We bought the Sahara for mid $20s and I probably put another $5k into it getting ready for the winter trip. It is our second coach. We hit the road Oct 31st and don't plan to be home before May 1st. I figure I'll put 10k miles on it traveling around the southeast all winter, moving to a new spot every 1-2 weeks.

We have been able to do all the normal life things on the road (prescriptions, dog groomer, lab work, haircuts, etc), but as Joe B. said, we land at the S&B to deal with other stuff. I don't pretend to be fulltime, or even that I'd be able to do it. But if you plan to try fulltimimg, I suggest you do an extended trip (doesn't have to be 6 months) and see what you need. You should get into the cheapest gas motor home as you can and just try it out. Then, you will know if you need something bigger, diesel, slide-out, tag axle whatever. If you buy the right gasser, you won't lose much money when you resell.

We also have an extensive list of "stuff to bring next time". Of course you can buy this on the road, but I don't need 2 full size vacuum cleaners or 2 basin wrenches.

Biggest expense is by far campground fees. If we did more boondocking and less FHU with cable and WiFi, we could cut down on this item. Second biggest expense is car rental. At the end of the trip, I'm sure that trading in my car for something that can be towed 4 down and having it set up for towing will make financial sense for the next trip.

We went as simple as possible. Reliable CAT engine, quality built older coach, no slides, no toad. We wanted as few things to go wrong as possible.

The OP should give a lot of thought to the type of fulltimer(s) they plan to become, i.e. those that travel often, those that travel seldom and those that just use their RVs as a place to live, while working, etc.

We have people on the forum that say they are fulltimers but they own a stick home somewhere that they spend a few months at a year to take care of medical, dental, legal, family matters, etc. Their situations are different than someone that their RV is their only home.

You have some successful and helpful forum members, such as 2gypsies, that have fulltimed it for many years and are very helpful to others. Pick the brains of the people that are full timing it the way you want to do so.

I have some younger friends that consider themselves to be full timers. They are traveling nurses that work contract at different hospitals on the west coast and Colorado. A normal contract is three to six months and then they move. During that six months, their 40 ft Class A never moves from where it is parked. There is no recreation involved in it, just a place for the family to live close to their jobs.

It makes it easier to talk about a subject, such as full timing, if everyone agrees what it means. Makes it easier to understand their questions and their answers. Need for storage becomes different depending on if you own somewhere to store junk, winter clothes in the summer, etc.

A few years back one of the RV magazines, Motorhome I think, could have been trailer Life but the article talked about the three (3) stages of fulltiming that needed to be thought through before jumping into the lifestyle. Was was planning on what you wanted to do while full timing, the costs, were both people equally in favor of the idea, where to spend time, etc.
#2 was to actully do it until you have to come off the road as everyone does eventually, unless they expire while driving down the road.
#3 which the article says way too many people ignore, until it is too late, is how do they plan to come off the road and what to do, where to live, etc. They need to think about the criteria they will use to decide when it is time to hang up the keys, so to speak.

Talked to one couple in Colorado, that were going full timing. He had retired young, they had two middle school aged kids. The wife didn't like the idea but he promised her they would only do it for 5 years. Then he told me the salesman told him the new DP, one of the Oregon builders, Beaver or Monaco, or? would most likely be worth more in 5 years than he was paying for it. Said it was because the price of DPs was going up so fast each year, it was a great investment for them. Something in my demeanor, told him I didn't agree with that, when I told him, you normally don't hear the words, a good investment and RVs used in the same sentence. LOL He told me their salesman was very knowledgeable and knew what he was talking about. I agreed the guy had been a "good" salesman as he had gotten close to sticker price for the DP he had sold them. The plan was to sell the DP in 5 years and buy another home in western Colorado and send the kids off to college, with the money they got in the sale of the DP. I never saw the guy again, but remain a bit skeptical it would work out for him to make a profit on a 5 year old DP when selling it.

One of the RV magazines did a survey, a few years back and found the responding Fulltime RVers average about 5,200 miles a year . I suspect that to be true of many as I know when we tried fulltiming for 2 1/2 years, the last 12 months we put just over 5,000 miles on our gas Class A.

To me, diesel rigs are designed for folks that run the highways more than that. Now that we went back to a stick house and consider ourselves to be extended travelers, we average between 15,000 and 20,000 miles a year on our diesel tow rig, used for our fifth wheel and truck camper.

The PPL site listed above has lots of good information on prices, that rigs are actually selling for and they ssll more consignment units than anyone else. I would be looking for a gas Class A or Class C, for just two people. Once you are parked, a gas rig is just as comfortable as a diesel rig unless you need a 45 foot one. I really like diesels, as I grew up operating them on our ranch, but a gas engine today will outlast most of us, and everything built around that engine. Makes a bit sad to see a big DP , sitting parked in a campground month after month, moving a few times a year, maybe.

When we were fulltiming, met a lot of others doing the same. Many loved it, some, like us didn't. Met one couple in Crystal River, Florida that had sold their home up north, made a major down payment on a Holiday Rambler, that probably cost a half million dollars for them to buy. Beautiful rig, but they quickly found they couldn't afford to travel extensively all the time so they ended up parked there in Crystal, and had been for just over three years, without the DP ever moving from its site. The guy had gone back to work as a house painter. He and his wife didn't have any idea what to do next, so they drank heavily, on a daily basis. He told me he could have figured out the same, in a used gasoline motorhome and not spent all their assets, as they did. But they were so upside down on their DP loan, selling it wasn't a possibility. We met too many people that the dream of their lifetime turned into a nightmare for them.

The really successful full timers, that we met, had been RVing for years prior to retirement. They had a good idea of what they were getting into. Those that waited till they were 65 or older to start RVing, sometimes found RVing full time wasn't as fun and exciting as they had envisioned, on their income level.

I'll take a stab at your original question.

In the $30s price range, I like my Winnebago Adventurer. You can get the longer gasser model with 2 slides, and if you look hard enough the diesels around the 2001-2002 mark will come on the market. I like the fiberglass roof and the basement A/C that the Winnebago offers.

Do lots of homework and figure out what the very low end models are (Georgetown?) and what the higher end models are (Newmar?). Different manufacturers have different lines of offerings as well.

I have a 02 Adventurer gas model that I'm happy with. I replaced the carpet and resealed the roof edges and I've been very pleased with it. With the age of coach you're going to be looking at, as long as you make some improvements and maintain it, you can resell and get most of your money back out of it and move up as you save.

Good luck and keep us informed.

Tom

In the Phoenix Craigslist, there are good brand DP's like Monaco in the 2000 year range for under $40K.

I agree with the previous posts. If you are looking for a coach that costs n the 30's, you are going to be looking for an older diesel pusher that will have higher maintenance costs than a newer gas unit. However, since you are going to live in it full time, you will want something big enough and with enough CCC to hold all your stuff, which is harder to do with a gas coach. Look for a well maintained older diesel with the maintenance records to show how it has been cared for. Make sure it does not have an issue with the paint checking because you will be looking at coaches in the years where that was a problem. Go with a quality manufacturer such as Newmar, Tiffin, Country Coach and Winnebago.

revickers wrote:
Our B Touring is probably worth about $26k and would love to buy something in the 30's.

It sounds to me that the OP wants a rig priced in the 30's. He's not limited to 26k.

Certainly rvtrader and ppl are good sites to use as you search for a class a. I used both. Some gas rigs on ppl's site seemed well priced with low to moderate miles and high appearance ratings on the website. When I made a trip to Houston to view them, I was very disappointed. Many had odor issues (usually smoke and/or mildew)...I smelled it, and I do not have a very acute sense of smell, so these were quite bad. Multiple rigs had ceiling stains from water leaks. Others had excessive wear. I presume these were the issues that caused rigs to sit on the lot at those prices; rigs without such issues probably sold and were off the lot. To me the "very good" rating on the ppl site now mean little.