In 2010 I helped a good friend make his first RV Purchase. He's a former Naval Supply officer and had a strict budget and we knew he did not need more than 26' of MH, so he spent a lot of time researching best options for the money he could spend. He wanted it on an E450 Chasis with the V10. He purchased a 2004 Cruise America unit out of Everett, WA.. I've had RV's all of my adult life and grew up with them as a kid so I went with him to do the final check over on the unit and at that location the head mechanic gave him all of the service information including the fact that this particular model had a brand new transmission .. so brand new it would need to be serviced in 500 miles.
That MH went from WA to Texas and back for a big dog show two weeks after purchase and several shorter trips in the NW then a trip out to Colorado and back in 2011 and my friend never had a single problem.
Fast forward to February 2012. My hubby and I had a house fire. House not totally destroyed but bad enough they had to gut it and we have been out of it for almsot 4 ms now. I have 4 horses and 7 large dogs.. NO rental in the world was going to rent month to month to me with that menagerie. We have a 8.5' Fleetwood Camper that I've been using for dog shows but had been discussing a MH for some time.. NOW seemed the perfect time and the insurance company gave us 3 ms living allowance up front to use as a down.
Because my friend had such a great experience with CruiseAmerica and because the layout of their 23A worked well for our needs and still wasn't too big to take into the USFS camps we like to stay in, we did some homework and found a 2006 on an E450 with the V10 we wanted but had to go to Salt Lake to get the unit.
Our experience was NOT as rosey as my friends... The sales person in Salt Lake was not particularly on the up and up and tried to refuse to let us up on a ladder to check the roof... We said we'd no sale the deal and drive back to WA state so he relented.. sure enough the roof DID have issues.. WE called their Corporate office ourselves and did some direct negotiating when the sales person said they would not fix the roof or give us a credit so we were going to walk.. Corporate agreed to fixing the roof completley to the tune of over $5K when we told them we'd shopped with them because they claim in their YouTube Videos that they completely refurbish the units and make them 'almost like new' and this roof was NOT.
Outside of that, this has been a great unit and everything else has functioned . We did get their extended warranty as well as a steeply discounted ($500) awning installed... the entire package cost us $18,000 for a 2006 with 150K.
Do be sure to go over any used unit you buy with a fine tooth comb but especially a rental unit. They will say you can't get service records but if you contact their corporate office you can usualy get CruiseAmerica to cough them up.
Since February I've personally put 1,800 miles on this going to dog shows and bringing it home from UT and it drives as smooth as my full size van, actually better in windy conditions.
OH and this unit came with brand new tires all around. We are adding a back up camera system and did add a TV but otherwise I have no complaints at all.
