First time buyers considering a 1997 Four Winds class A

Owned seveval used MHs. Watch out for low milers, as they have sat and will be prone to all kinds of little problems.
I buy a MH with 130,000 miles over the same year with 30,000 mile.
Check the dot date on the tires, its located on 1 side of tire sidewall.
Most exspenive items are the frig,AC, and the leveling system.
older coachs will have more dry rot on the gaskets, slide replacement gaskets can run a few hundred dollars.
Close inspection of the roof is inportant to, as that's another exspenive item
Overall perform a close inspection on all areas of the MH.
When buying a coach from the original owner, it's normaly been taken care of.


Enjoy; the older ones are great, but it helps if your handy, or a lottery winner

james ferg, u can count on the idiot lites lying to u.watch how much u use the tanks. then when u move from one place to a nother, before u leave, put a 5lb bag of ice in the toilet, then when u get to the first cg, do the dump thing. wont hurt a thing. and the ice is a bit cheaper too
now its all happy-camping

Here's another question, probably silly but you don't know what you don't know. Are Thor and Four Winds the same company? Did they merge at some point?

james ferg, u can count on the idiot lites lying to u.watch how much u use the tanks. then when u move from one place to a nother, before u leave, put a 5lb bag of ice in the toilet, then when u get to the first cg, do the dump thing. wont hurt a thing. and the ice is a bit cheaper too
now its all happy-camping

Your water leaking when 100% full could actually be the effect of water being siphoned off from the tank from the tank overflow. If I fill my tank completely full, water will siphon out thru the overfill line. I have learned to fill 90%

gemert, Will do, thanks Chief

JimM68 We are fortunate that this 97 model has one slide, right now the seller is telling me that the only problem with the rig is that when the potable water tank is 100% full then it leaks.... so my first thought is to find this tank and see what's underneath it to make sure nothing has rotted out, my next thought is I don't really plan on pulling around hundreds of pound of water and most likely will only be using shower and sink when I'm parked at campground where water is available so this isn't a huge issue, am I deceiving myself with that idea?

JamesFerg wrote:
Question about NADA guide values

I'm familiar with using NADA having bought and sold about 25 vehicles in my life, but I'm a little lost with the RV NADA... Am I just missing the section or is there no place to put in the mileage? Also they list the prices as low retail and high retail. How does that apply to a private seller?

I compared the Allegro Bus I bought against an Itasca and a Bounder (all 1997s) that were sitting on a dealer's lot in the NADA guide and all figures were exactly the same. $12,500 low and $15.900 high retail.

I dropped into the dealer during their CamperPalooza and wasn't impressed with either the Bounder or Itasca mainly because of the cleanliness. The bounder had a real soft spot in the floor and the Itasca had a few more miles on it that I wanted but I never got around to discussing price with anyone there. The dealer has them both marked at $15,900. I paid $13k for my Allegro Bus from the private party. It was immaculate and I knew from seeing their ad late last season that they had already come down in price so I didn't even bother to dicker. He was a retired military guy who unfortunately had a stroke right after he bought it last year and now it was too much for him to handle with the loss of some of his dexterity.

JamesFerg wrote:
I'm an enlisted guy in the Air Force and we have a two year old so the pockets aren't too deep, but I'm fairly mechanically inclined. I obviously don't fully grasp all of the ins and outs of a complicated home on wheels... I know my way around the engine of most any carbureted GM 350 and I'm a decent carpenter so I can get a fair idea of structural integrity. I don't have much experience when it comes to things like tanks, electrical systems, and leveling/hydraulic systems so any advice about what to check for in those areas is much appreciated. Also if there are any rookie checklists that somebody knows about or any hard learned lessons that I can avoid, then I'm all ears.

Look in the "files"sections, Libraries or "sticky"sections of all of these RV forums for buyers checklists. There are a ton of them. Good luck!

Question about NADA guide values

I'm familiar with using NADA having bought and sold about 25 vehicles in my life, but I'm a little lost with the RV NADA... Am I just missing the section or is there no place to put in the mileage? Also they list the prices as low retail and high retail. How does that apply to a private seller?