I'm a retired Alaska pilot. I have a small Dachshund and a young wife and we are in September 2013 going to purchase a RoadTrek,View or late model Rialta. Any for $50,000 or so.I've researched the heck out of all three and just am not sure yet. Any help out there??I need to be able to, once in awhile, sleep four. This is important. I WANT to get at least 16 MPG MOST of the time. Also important. I will airline down to Portland where my new purchase is stored every winter and drive to the East Coast to visit relatives and then rent a Oceanside condo for a few months and drive back to Portland.We will NOT live in the motor home longer than a week at a time. I want a comfy vehicle for cross country road trips that is easy to get around in. A bathroom is necessary just for getting up at night for a whiz.I'm a Senior in good health.I'd much appreciate any "already been there" user help!!Terry in Alaska

The Rialta would be off my list. The Volkswagen chassis is almost impossible to find anyone to work on.

$5000 isn't going to get you anything made this millennium. You likely will find an Xplorer or older model in the mid 1990s, and its MPG will be about 13-15.

I owned a 1999 Rialta which you may know was built around a VW VR6 engine and tranny. I never had any issues with the motor and tranny. I did have issues with the tires in that they are difficult to find or at least they were when I owned it. No VW dealer in my area would work on it so I had to find a foreign car service center who would. Luckily I was able to. I'll tell you that the bathroom/shower in a Rialta is at best a horrible joke. Not only do you have to pull it out from the wall to use it as a shower, but you have to hang a shower curtain, turn on a pump to pull the water from the floor to the holding tank which will clog at a moments notice. The onboard generator was ok for running all the appliances while parked, but it was noisy.Of the three choices you identified, I'd opt for the View, but then again, I've never been in one of them.Good luck in your search and purchase.

Are you wanting to sleep 4 adults? It will be difficult to find a Class B with that capacity. To get four bed will require giving up storage space.You don't mention what type of bathroom you want. Wet or dry? Do you need a shower or can you get by with just a pullout toilet? Is your budget %5000? Or did you leave out a zero? A $5000 motorhome will have a lot of miles on it and/or will be over 15 years old. And unless it is a diesel, it is unlikely that you will get the mileage you say you require.BTW, the View and Rialta are Class Cs.

judging by the comma, and I am going to guess he meant to say $50,000

What should I buy?? | Good Sam Community

29 Replies

captterry
Explorer
Jul 10, 2013
Thanks dixied...

As a matter of fact....I have a wonderful truck/camper rig in my driveway. S&S camper and 2000 Ford diesel with only 60,000 miles! It's a new rig in all respects except age.

There are about a billion Northern Lites around up here. Great, great rig.

I want something akin to a Motor Coach for long hauls. My truck is fine here but for long, long hauls it's too noisy and too thirsty at 11.5 MPG-13.0 MPG.

We like to go out at 9PM sometimes and watch the whales sometimes only 10 miles from home on the beautiful Turnagain Arm.

Thanks,

terry
dixied
Explorer
Jul 10, 2013
Think I'll muddy the water a little here! Right now I have a 2012 Roadtrek Agile SS, my second one. I owned a View in between, which I hated, because it was too big to park anywhere I wanted, and it had dual rear wheels, which I did not like to drive.

However, the best and most comfortable traveling and sleeping camper I ever had was a Northern Lite truck camper on a quad cab 4X4 Dodge diesel truck. My late husband and I took it all over the west and Canada. It slept 4 comfortably, had a nice bathroom, and we could park it and drive it where ever we needed to. When we weren't camping, we took the Northern Lite off and used the truck. It got close to 20 mpg.

Alaska is certainly a place where a good truck would fit in!
captterry
Explorer
Jul 10, 2013
Thanks SkiMore,

Good idea. I'm looking into that also. I just missed a low miles Roadtrek 210 Versatile for $40,000. Right in my Alaska backyard in Portland, Oregon.
SkiMore
Explorer II
Jul 10, 2013
It sounds like you are going to use it for only two weeks a year.

Have you considered renting a MH? Will they rent to you if you have a dog?

Can you rent a MH one way?
Rent on west coast and drive it east, visit family and rent again for the westward trip.
I don't know how much it costs to rent like that, but if you divide your annual MH costs by 2 weeks of use it won't be cheap either.
Rent a big rig when you have 4 people. Rent a small one when it's just the two of you. No dealing with storage or trying to start a rig that has been sitting idle for 8 months. This would also give you the option from starting from a new place every year.
captterry
Explorer
Jul 10, 2013
Thanks RS in Iowa City....

I would not have know the difference in the two year models.

I'd sure like to lease one of these for a few months first. The ERA does seem perfect for us after all my research.

I'll check into all this further. I'm glad that you are happy with your ERA.

Terry
RSchleder
Explorer
Jul 10, 2013
We have owned our 2012 170X ERA for about a year and a half and REALLY like it. We downsized from a Class A DP'er ( had 3 of them) and never looked back. We get 20mpg or so when traveling and the ERA has been trouble free. We bought ours new and paid just under $80K for it so I assume you'll need to increase your budget to buy a new one.
The 2010 ERA was a totally different animal than the 2012 as it was built on a 250 chassis instead of the current 350 chassis. Also, the 2012 model has a totally new interior design/layout that is a much higher quality than the earlier model. If you could find a used 2012 it would be a lot closer to your budget than a new unit, however, that may be difficult as the ERA is becoming a very popular class B. Good luck, Ron
captterry
Explorer
Jul 09, 2013
Thanks again everybody! You are a wealth of good info.

The View/Navion is very successful in sales and satisfaction. People seem very satisfied with them. For me, maybe. I'm going to go to a dealer here today and again sit and look around.I DO like what I've seen online for the Winnebago ERA 170X. Thanks again all of you.

Terry
Islandman
Explorer
Jul 09, 2013
If you are lucky you may find a used Chinook Class C RV, they are very well made and in my mind in a class all by themself. Think they quit making them about 2005 or so,the price for a nice one is near $50,000, but if you ever see one you can figure out why they are worth quite a bit. We own a Pleasure-Way Class B, but my mouth waters a little whenever I see a Chinook driving by.
Chirpnchicks
Explorer
Jul 09, 2013
"I will very, very seldom sleep four. I very well might transport four for a road trip of a thousand miles."

In that case, get a B, it's nimble and way more fun to drive.
Jay
tatest
Explorer II
Jul 09, 2013
C owner here. For what you want to do, live in it for a cross country trip and occasionally sleep four, I would lean toward a small C. For fuel mileage approaching 16 MPH, this means a View/Navion, or one of the alternative Sprinter C's from Thor (FourWinds, Chateau, Dutchmen brands), Coachmen, Fleetwood (Tioga, Jamboree brands) or Gulfstream.

I would let the wife have a say about what the bathroom needs to be like, where you usually sleep, and how well the kitchen works for her. Not that there are many floorplan choices for the early View/Navion, but her wants could very well rule out a B (van conversion) or Rialta. Letting the wife have her say about the house was the key to getting her assent to the whole RVing thing, a factor not to be ignored if looking at the longer term. The RV I would choose for myself would be very different from the one chosen for the two of us.

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