Major repair costs for a Class C
I live in Florida and I would like to travel and see North America while I still can, but on a stipend of 2,000 USD per month. I can get a used Class C motorhome for around 5,000 - one short enough to...
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It can be done. I'll recap what I posted before.
About 6 years ago we bought our 1990 Winnebago Warrior for $7500. It had a roof leak and it had rotted out the bathroom walls. Which I eventually ripped out and re-built the bathroom. It still has a mold problem which sets off my allergies. I take a 24-hour Allegra when we go camping and I'm fine.
The rubber roof had been over-painted with sealant, so I just went over it with more sealant. It needs a proper roof repair but it is not worth the expense.
When we got it, it needed 7 new tires. That was $1000.
The generator only ran for about 20 minutes then shut down. That was $500 to fix.
The cab AC did not work. Being old, it ran on the old refrigerant and had to be upgraded to the new refrigerant. I think that was about $500.
Fuel pump went out after a few years. That was about $800 and I ended up having the wrong pump put in so the gas gauge doesn't work right. Got the manufacturer to send me the correct pump but I will have to have it installed, which I have not yet done.
Cruise control has quit working and you can no longer get parts for it to repair it.
The fridge sometimes does not like to start up on gas. If you start it on electric and switch to gas, it works fine, usually.
So. An older rig can be done, but you will probably have a lot of repair expenses along the way. I'd guess we have probably put $4000-$5000 into our $7500 RV, which, of course, we will never recover in any sale. Would we have been better off buying a $11,000 RV? Maybe, but we did not have $11,000. Could we have waited until we did? Sure, but then we would have missed out on 5 years of RVing.
About 6 years ago we bought our 1990 Winnebago Warrior for $7500. It had a roof leak and it had rotted out the bathroom walls. Which I eventually ripped out and re-built the bathroom. It still has a mold problem which sets off my allergies. I take a 24-hour Allegra when we go camping and I'm fine.
The rubber roof had been over-painted with sealant, so I just went over it with more sealant. It needs a proper roof repair but it is not worth the expense.
When we got it, it needed 7 new tires. That was $1000.
The generator only ran for about 20 minutes then shut down. That was $500 to fix.
The cab AC did not work. Being old, it ran on the old refrigerant and had to be upgraded to the new refrigerant. I think that was about $500.
Fuel pump went out after a few years. That was about $800 and I ended up having the wrong pump put in so the gas gauge doesn't work right. Got the manufacturer to send me the correct pump but I will have to have it installed, which I have not yet done.
Cruise control has quit working and you can no longer get parts for it to repair it.
The fridge sometimes does not like to start up on gas. If you start it on electric and switch to gas, it works fine, usually.
So. An older rig can be done, but you will probably have a lot of repair expenses along the way. I'd guess we have probably put $4000-$5000 into our $7500 RV, which, of course, we will never recover in any sale. Would we have been better off buying a $11,000 RV? Maybe, but we did not have $11,000. Could we have waited until we did? Sure, but then we would have missed out on 5 years of RVing.
