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
My wife and I have learned more in the last 6 months about RVing than we ever thought possible, mostly due to the incredible range of knowledge on this list. We are now looking for our full time RV.
We put together our feature checklist so that we could make apples to apples comparisions on the various homes. The first thing we looked at was the engineering and quality of the slide mechanisms. I think that it is indicative of the overall quality of the engineering of the unit. Even if it's built with the best materials by the most talented craftsmen, if it's designed wrong, it can't be fixed. Small detour on quality, most of the time, quality is confused with value, luxury, longevity. Quality is an objective analysis of does the unit sucessfully meet the requirements and specification. Each of us has our own requirements and specifications, so what may be a quality unit to me may not be a quality unit to somebody else. For us that means I place high requirements on durabilty, sound engineering design, no identifiable weak links, and finally, livability.
Make your own checklist of the things that are important to you.
Our checklist had 25 items on page 1, and if passed page 1, another 40 on page two.
Some idea of what's on our lists:
Slide mechanism attachment points.
Sealant beads uniform or glopped on.
Wire bundles neat and properly stress relieved.
Kitchen trash bag storage.
Kitchen knife storage.
Where does dirty laundry go.
Fan in shower.
Fan in commode.
Usablity with slides in.
Can I cook a pasta dinner?
Can I cook BBQ ribs w/ red bliss potatoes and lemon broccoli (Favorite Dish)?
What's happens when I shave? (In one, I hit the commode with my leg when I bent over the sink.)
Can I see all of the guages when seated in the driver seat?
Can I reach all of the controls. (In one, the shift selector pod was behind the steering wheel and unreachable without leaning quite far forward.)
Cross breeze in the Master bedroom.
TV location? (Watch without head twisted?)
Front door covered by awning?
Where does hobby stuff go.
Cabinet H/W.
How much vinyl vs. solid wood.
We spent last weekend, (20 hr. total) at the NE RV show crawling under and over every Class A DP (and few others for reference to make sure on the premise of a class A DP) in our budget going though our checklists.
Here's a list of most of the homes we completely inspected.
Damon Tuscany
Tiffin Phaeton
Travel Supreme Select
Monaco Diplomat
Alfa See Ya (The GOld DVD has a lot a great generic stuff on it)
Fleetwood Providence
Monaco Lapalma
Itasca Ellipse
Beaver Monterey
Fleetwood American Traditions
Tiffin Allegro Bus
Fleetwood Excursion
Itasca Meridian
Travel Supreme Envoy
Fleetwood Bounder Diesel
We had it narrowed down to four units, both with a long list of pluses and only a few minuses.
Travel Supreme Envoy
Alfa See Ya Gold
Damon Tuscany
Fleetwood Excursion
We then spent an hour or more in each one of these looking at livability and going over my minus list to verify 1st impressions. I had the Damon low on my list, and had removed it when the dealer rep asked me if I would come back in 20 minutes and talk to the Damon executive about my concerns. I did, and I came away thinking that many of the items would be discussed in the next planning session.
The one with the most interior storage by far was the Alfa See Ya. Can't get past the angular design on cabinet faces and the dashboard. Just didn't feel like home walking into it.
We had it narrowed down to the Envoy or the Excursion.
On the way out, we saw a DoubleTree Mobile Suites 36' 5ver with a very nice picture on the living room television. We went in so that I could look at the electronics and see how there were getting the TV signal. (It was a DVD) While in there however, I was running my checklists through in my head and found that it was solving most of the small minuses we had in either of the DP's. The other thing we noticed, is that with 4 or 5 people in the Class A's we were crawling over each other. In the 5ver there were 6 people watching TV, with others walking in and out. SO....Our long weekend of looking at DP's showed us the right unit for us is a 5ver. Wouldn't have figured it out without the checklists generated by the ideas planted in the 1st post of this thread. I have the 5ver list down to a few and will follow this up with our purchase experience in the apropriate forum...
Thank You.
We put together our feature checklist so that we could make apples to apples comparisions on the various homes. The first thing we looked at was the engineering and quality of the slide mechanisms. I think that it is indicative of the overall quality of the engineering of the unit. Even if it's built with the best materials by the most talented craftsmen, if it's designed wrong, it can't be fixed. Small detour on quality, most of the time, quality is confused with value, luxury, longevity. Quality is an objective analysis of does the unit sucessfully meet the requirements and specification. Each of us has our own requirements and specifications, so what may be a quality unit to me may not be a quality unit to somebody else. For us that means I place high requirements on durabilty, sound engineering design, no identifiable weak links, and finally, livability.
Make your own checklist of the things that are important to you.
Our checklist had 25 items on page 1, and if passed page 1, another 40 on page two.
Some idea of what's on our lists:
Slide mechanism attachment points.
Sealant beads uniform or glopped on.
Wire bundles neat and properly stress relieved.
Kitchen trash bag storage.
Kitchen knife storage.
Where does dirty laundry go.
Fan in shower.
Fan in commode.
Usablity with slides in.
Can I cook a pasta dinner?
Can I cook BBQ ribs w/ red bliss potatoes and lemon broccoli (Favorite Dish)?
What's happens when I shave? (In one, I hit the commode with my leg when I bent over the sink.)
Can I see all of the guages when seated in the driver seat?
Can I reach all of the controls. (In one, the shift selector pod was behind the steering wheel and unreachable without leaning quite far forward.)
Cross breeze in the Master bedroom.
TV location? (Watch without head twisted?)
Front door covered by awning?
Where does hobby stuff go.
Cabinet H/W.
How much vinyl vs. solid wood.
We spent last weekend, (20 hr. total) at the NE RV show crawling under and over every Class A DP (and few others for reference to make sure on the premise of a class A DP) in our budget going though our checklists.
Here's a list of most of the homes we completely inspected.
Damon Tuscany
Tiffin Phaeton
Travel Supreme Select
Monaco Diplomat
Alfa See Ya (The GOld DVD has a lot a great generic stuff on it)
Fleetwood Providence
Monaco Lapalma
Itasca Ellipse
Beaver Monterey
Fleetwood American Traditions
Tiffin Allegro Bus
Fleetwood Excursion
Itasca Meridian
Travel Supreme Envoy
Fleetwood Bounder Diesel
We had it narrowed down to four units, both with a long list of pluses and only a few minuses.
Travel Supreme Envoy
Alfa See Ya Gold
Damon Tuscany
Fleetwood Excursion
We then spent an hour or more in each one of these looking at livability and going over my minus list to verify 1st impressions. I had the Damon low on my list, and had removed it when the dealer rep asked me if I would come back in 20 minutes and talk to the Damon executive about my concerns. I did, and I came away thinking that many of the items would be discussed in the next planning session.
The one with the most interior storage by far was the Alfa See Ya. Can't get past the angular design on cabinet faces and the dashboard. Just didn't feel like home walking into it.
We had it narrowed down to the Envoy or the Excursion.
On the way out, we saw a DoubleTree Mobile Suites 36' 5ver with a very nice picture on the living room television. We went in so that I could look at the electronics and see how there were getting the TV signal. (It was a DVD) While in there however, I was running my checklists through in my head and found that it was solving most of the small minuses we had in either of the DP's. The other thing we noticed, is that with 4 or 5 people in the Class A's we were crawling over each other. In the 5ver there were 6 people watching TV, with others walking in and out. SO....Our long weekend of looking at DP's showed us the right unit for us is a 5ver. Wouldn't have figured it out without the checklists generated by the ideas planted in the 1st post of this thread. I have the 5ver list down to a few and will follow this up with our purchase experience in the apropriate forum...
Thank You.
