Miles

soren wrote:
Mocoondo, Great post. It's good to see that you not only have experience with owning rental units, but address the fact that some can, and do get the snot beat out of them.

Soren, somehow you managed to read a whole lot more into my post than what I actually stated. When I brought up units that have been beat up, I was not specifically referring to rental units. In fact, moreso I was referring to privately owned coaches.

I always smile after a summer on the road, watching mostly foreign tourist, beating, banging and abusing their rented class Cs

I am not sure why that would be worthy of a smile, but this has not been my experience at all. In fact, foreign tourists are among the best, most reliable renters overall. Just because they may not speak english does not make them ignorant or abusive. They care for the equipment, keep it clean, and turn it in at least as clean as they received it. I'd have a lot fewer headaches if all my business was international.

I rented one that was re-bodied, with a totally exhausted box moved over to a new E450 cutaway. Not only was the thing given to us with a filthy interior, and had at least 1/2 dozen defects, it was like talking to a wall when we returned the thing. They couldn't cared less.

Your experience with Cruise America is obviously quite dated since they abandoned the practice of demating units at least a decade ago. Most units in the current Cruise America fleet are late model '12s, '13s and '14s.

The other issue is that they are a easily identifiable, custom made unit, even after they go through the reconditioning process. Thus, it's pretty easy to track them on the secondary market, and it appears that they really drop like a rock, once they have been in the second owner's hands for a year or two. Nothing to see a unit for $24K on the C.A site and find the same thing with an ASKING price 8-10K less, on a dealer's lot, in the same condition, but a year or two older.

Indeed, they are easily identifiable. Cruise America owns the Four Winds "Majestic" model name, so any "Majestic" unit was a previous Cruise America unit. Interior features and certain system design elements are Cruise America spec designed for the rental environment based upon things they have learned over years of operating experience and millions of miles on the fleet. In fact, a lot of the features you see on consumer grade Four Winds units are features that have been previously tested and proven on the Cruise America fleet and then incorporated into consumer grade units.

As to asking price versus a later selling price, I have no opinion on that other than to say I have bought and sold many Cruise units and never lost a dime. If a buyer doesn't know how to negotiate, that is hardly the fault of the unit. For a first time owner or a cost conscious family, they are a tremendous bargain to help people get into the lifestyle without an enormous up front investment or a unit that is costly to own and maintain. Only an absolute luddite would be unable to do his/her own maintenance on an ex-rental unit.