First Time Buyer...Updated 03/06/2006
This post is intended to be helpful to the first time buyer of a motor home. For those of you who don't fall into that category or believe this post is incomplete or off the mark, do us all a favor, a...
Forum Discussion
Hi JohnnyT!
We are first time motorhome buyers, and I found your article very good and worthwhile reading (yes, the whole thing - don't know why a buyer would "lose interest" considering how much money they are about to send down the drain.....). Your work is very much appreciated by us - thanks for the contribution.
We have read several articles including the RV Consumer Group excellent how to RV buying guide as well as the great rversonline.com articles, so consider yourself up there with the best of them!
We are trying to buy our final motorhome the first time around. We are determined to skip the expensive "intermediate" steps - don't want to "trade up". Since we are going from a house plus RVing part-time in a tiny trailer to a fulltime (selling the house!) motorhome, this is a big leap for us, but we are becoming increasingly confident we can do it.
Reviewing HOW you are going to use the vehicle has indeed turned out to be the key issue for us, and you touch on that point very clearly. For example, we finally realized that workspace in the living area is extremely important (we do a lot of work with two computers plus a printer for art prints) and many motorhome models don't address this at all.
Another thing is my husband is 6'3" in bare feet. Beds shorter than 78 inches, and interior height shorter than 6'7" are simply not livable for us - no matter how good the quality of the coach.
Of course fulltiming issues like needing sufficient storage and cargo carrying capacity, thermal windows, really good insulation, even heated storage bays have been major considerations. The fact that we usually camp without sewer hookup and sometimes no hookups at all also puts tank capacities and functioning well without shore power high on our list.
The first thing we tried to decide was length. What length had the CCC and storage for fulltiming yet small enough to still fit in some public campgrounds? Originally we had thought 32-34ft maybe. At that size it seemed like gas might be the way to go, but CCC seemed pretty limited in the gas models. Plus realizing that we might be driving a lot we decided we had better consider a diesel pusher. We find ourself now at 36ft primarily due to drivability issues. We know a lot more now about drivability of motorhomes than when we started, and it has risen to near the top of our most important criteria.
Of course it ultimately comes down to budget. If you can't afford it new, you have to try to find what you want used. But whichever way you gotta find the right coach for you.
Well, we are just now at the point where we will start inspecting our "candidate coaches" first hand in greater detail (have already done some preliminary walkthroughs at an RV show), do some test driving, scrutinize the dealers, then factories. So we still have a ways to go!!!
Thanks again for your effort.
Audrey
We are first time motorhome buyers, and I found your article very good and worthwhile reading (yes, the whole thing - don't know why a buyer would "lose interest" considering how much money they are about to send down the drain.....). Your work is very much appreciated by us - thanks for the contribution.
We have read several articles including the RV Consumer Group excellent how to RV buying guide as well as the great rversonline.com articles, so consider yourself up there with the best of them!
We are trying to buy our final motorhome the first time around. We are determined to skip the expensive "intermediate" steps - don't want to "trade up". Since we are going from a house plus RVing part-time in a tiny trailer to a fulltime (selling the house!) motorhome, this is a big leap for us, but we are becoming increasingly confident we can do it.
Reviewing HOW you are going to use the vehicle has indeed turned out to be the key issue for us, and you touch on that point very clearly. For example, we finally realized that workspace in the living area is extremely important (we do a lot of work with two computers plus a printer for art prints) and many motorhome models don't address this at all.
Another thing is my husband is 6'3" in bare feet. Beds shorter than 78 inches, and interior height shorter than 6'7" are simply not livable for us - no matter how good the quality of the coach.
Of course fulltiming issues like needing sufficient storage and cargo carrying capacity, thermal windows, really good insulation, even heated storage bays have been major considerations. The fact that we usually camp without sewer hookup and sometimes no hookups at all also puts tank capacities and functioning well without shore power high on our list.
The first thing we tried to decide was length. What length had the CCC and storage for fulltiming yet small enough to still fit in some public campgrounds? Originally we had thought 32-34ft maybe. At that size it seemed like gas might be the way to go, but CCC seemed pretty limited in the gas models. Plus realizing that we might be driving a lot we decided we had better consider a diesel pusher. We find ourself now at 36ft primarily due to drivability issues. We know a lot more now about drivability of motorhomes than when we started, and it has risen to near the top of our most important criteria.
Of course it ultimately comes down to budget. If you can't afford it new, you have to try to find what you want used. But whichever way you gotta find the right coach for you.
Well, we are just now at the point where we will start inspecting our "candidate coaches" first hand in greater detail (have already done some preliminary walkthroughs at an RV show), do some test driving, scrutinize the dealers, then factories. So we still have a ways to go!!!
Thanks again for your effort.
Audrey
