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Monster1's avatar
Monster1
Explorer
Aug 17, 2018

New to RV's but not really

First time posting here. I grew up around RV's since before I could walk. My family owned a dealership since before I was born. By the time I was a teenager, I was a a full time lot boy scrubbing RV's all day long and doing misc work. I started in sales when I was of legal age to do so and did some repairs. Our dealership closed due to the recession in 94. Forward nearly 25 years, I'm looking at buying my "first" RV (lol). I might as well be new to all this because so much has changed. We used to be a skyline and cobra dealer. Cobra has since become forrest river of I'm not mistaken. 25 years ago, construction used to be more maticulous. I'm hearing now that some RV's are able to be assembled completely in 8 hours. My mind is blown. I can't imagine quality control would be up to par in those cases. Anyway, I've started looking for a 26-32ft travel trailer. I figure trailers are not as popular as 5th wheels and tend to sit longer for sale. They always sat longer on our lot anyway. I'm not in a great rush. I know buyers season is approaching with the fall/winter being prime buy time. I'm looking for something around 10k. I looked at a Tango 32ft travel trailer yesterday. I was impressed with the build quality. It seemed well made. But I read some very negative things about that brand. I looked at an Outback today. It was nice as well but the front and rear cap was bubbled. No big deal if nothing is rotted as I've done skin jobs. If I can buy something heavily discounted that needs repairs, I'm fine with that. But I dont want something that is poorly built right of the bat. What advice can you give a "new" guy and what brands should I stay away from? My tow vehicle is a 2500 5.9 Cummins so weight isn't an issue. PM me if you'd rather not publicly down talk any particular brand.

Thanks
Monty
  • Good luck on everything from build quality to price.
    I have a 2011 Outback 298re. 36’long. I think it was reasonably well built if you don’t use it too much. My wife and I spend a few months a year in ours, probably 100,000 miles on it. The first thing on any of them is check the tires. Manufacturers seem to like to put the tire that is just barely enough to carry the prescribed load. Ours only has a payload of about 1900lbs so we probably overloaded it from time to time. 90 gal of waste water is heavy. Look at the A frame every once in a while. Ours broke and was on the verge of catastrophic failure. The repair shop was agast at how light weight the components were. Even so, I think it’s probably built as well as any of them, just always keep an eye on the running gear. Be prepared to work on it frequently. They do take a beating on the highway.
    Enjoy. Shopping is so much fun!!!