Young Age/High Mileage or Old Age/Low Mileage MH???

The truth about diesels is they like to be ran….that being said, I would prefer to have a coach with some miles on it. Too many moving parts on a motorhome to sit idle. Most diesels, with good maintenance, will run over a million miles. The fact is the "house" part will most likely fall apart much sooner than the diesel will have problems. I have some friends in my prevost club who have well over 300K + miles and they run like they are new.

A diesel motorhome is just broke in around 30K and you will begin getting your true mileage between 30-40K at the break in point.

A MH has a chassis and a house part. Many MH's have low miles on the chassis because someone drove it to a seasonal site and lived in it for months at a time. This wears on the house part of the MH, but puts few miles on the chassis.

DP motorhomes really want to be used and see some miles. They need to be driven - and maintained. The ideal used DP would have been driven a lot and lived in moderately.

There are not hard and fast rules on this so just feel your way forward.

We bought our DP when it was 3 years old with only 8k on it. We had problem after problem after problem. Mostly drivetrain related. Once we retired and started using it we have had not one single problem. It's now coming up on 50k miles. If I ever buy another used one it's going to have been down the road not sitting in the garage!

The one that has been taken care of the most

I'll say this about diesels since I drove them for a living (I'm now retired) 30,000 miles the motor is just getting broke in! Any of the milage on the coaches that you suggested should get 750,000 to 1,000,000 miles on a diesel engine if properly maintained! I guess what I'm trying to tell you is on the 30,000 mile coach you will wear out the inside of that coach before the motor!

The two motorhomes in my sig were both bought with high mileage. Hubby prefers an engine that hasn't sat around with the rubber rotting. The bus has a Detroit 60, mileage was 220,000 when we purchased it and is significantly higher now. ;) Bought in 2010, we have had no problems. The Winnebago View in my sig is a Sprinter based class C. We purchased it last year with 150,000 miles and after hubby checked it out, we drove it on an Alaskan caravan adding another 10,000+ miles.

So don't be afraid of a few miles, you're not looking at a 1956 Chevy. ;)

I just turned past 150k on my FT. Run it and do not worry. He coach will fall apart before the engine.

And this is one of the reasons I went with a gas job. I have 20 years working on diesel school busses.

I LOVE people who work camp. I just do not want to buy one of their low mileage MHs with heavy house usage.

I would prefer some one turning the wheels on a regular basis

IGNORE high miles on a DP - look for medium to higher mileage imo. Ideally people would be putting on 8 to 12 k per year. YMMV