Class B Purchase Advice

Teja wrote:

Sebtown wrote:
Rvrent.net located in San Diego has a Roadtrek 190 available. There may still be a company in the SF bay area as well.

Thanks. We're 4 hours drive from San Diego, so this one wouldn't be practical

My Roadtek wrote:
Teja, did you try the Rt rental locator?
Rental locator?

This worked well, thanks, they have a location close enough to us in Burbank. Only problem is, there shortest rental period is 10 days and they only rent high-end Mercedes Sprinters, not 190s or 210s. So the ability to do a simple reasonably-priced weekend-long tryout of the 4 top brands - Roadtrek, Leisure Travel, Pleasure Way and American Cruiser - seems to still be elusive, or not possible. Looks like we may need to simply rely on short test drives + best floor design + recommendations from others, for our final purchase decisions.

UPDATE: They'll rent a Roadtrek Solar CSAdventurous from Burbank for 4 days ($2500) or a week at $3500. Pretty expensive just to check it out. I'm sure it's marvelous but at those prices, it's not very feasible to rent 3 or four different brands and check each one out. The guy who runs this Sprinter rental service, with 22 locatioins nationwide also said this:

"If you are considering a CS, don't even bother shopping any comparable vehicle. There isn't one. Despite slide outs ( future problems) and awesome cabinetry ( Airstream), Roadtrek is STILL the best when you view the motorhome systems. I don't rent FORD's or Chevy chassis because it's an inferior engine a Mercedes Sprinter engine rolls 440000 miles And that is what you should be looking at."

Hmmm. sounds very confident, but makes me wonder if all others - Leisure Travel, Pleasure Way and American Cruiser - are to be totally discounted.

Well of course he's trying to sell you the most expensive version.

Any modern engine that is reasonably well maintained will run to 200K miles. Unless this is going to be your daily driver for the next 20 years, that's all the miles you need.

FWIW, I know of 2 companies with fleets of Sprinters that are replacing them with Ford Transits, due to the continual headaches with the Sprinters. Sure the diesel engines may be great---but if the electronic controls, AC/heat, or transmisions are constantly falling apart, the engine is irrelevant.