Another record sales year.

fitznj wrote:
Not sure where all theses "new" campers are going but it's not State Parks;
I've noticed this year that State parks in PA, NJ, DE, MD are surprisingly empty.

Last week I was in PA for 5 days and there were only 1 other site in my loop occupied
Last month I was in DE/MD and same things
I was in NJ and 2 sites occupied out of >200 sites.
My local NJ state park has 3 or 4 people at the weekends.

I'm not complaining - I love the solitude and peace but where is everyone?

Exactly.....this was the first memorial day weekend I've seen in 12 years where our go to state park was not near 100% occupancy. I would guess it was 60 to 70%. A lot of this sales boom is trumped up press by the RVIA. Yes 539000 is a record.....so what. Look at past years. 390000 were shipped back in 2006. Is 149000 more in a country with a population of 360 million a real boom....hardly. One small economy burp and the whole house of cards will come crashing down as it always has done.

I know 4 different people who jumped on the RV bandwagon the last couple of years because its the in thing. A couple of trips in their new 30' + junk and they jumped right off the wagon already. Their new trailers sit rotting with for sale signs plastered on the sides.

Not sure where all theses "new" campers are going but it's not State Parks;
I've noticed this year that State parks in PA, NJ, DE, MD are surprisingly empty.

Last week I was in PA for 5 days and there were only 1 other site in my loop occupied
Last month I was in DE/MD and same things
I was in NJ and 2 sites occupied out of >200 sites.
My local NJ state park has 3 or 4 people at the weekends.

I'm not complaining - I love the solitude and peace but where is everyone?

Gas prices always go up in summer.. at least as long as I've been alive.

2oldman wrote:

SidecarFlip wrote:
Why they (fuel) are climbing I have no idea. Greed maybe?

Summer.

And a growing economy-people have money to spend and "stuff" needs to be shipped.

I would say that most of these new rigs will be concentrated in a handful of popular destinations (Yellowstone, Yosemite, FL and AZ over the winter) and the crush will only last a couple of years. Let's face it, owning and using an RV involves some work, and I haven't seen too many people in the generation of buyers that can handle work.

Now a good business model may be something like Freedom Boats does; buy new RVs, charge people a joinup fee, a monthly fee and an hour use fee. They arrive, get in the rig and go.

SidecarFlip wrote:
Why they (fuel) are climbing I have no idea. Greed maybe?

Summer.

I wonder how many of the new rigs being made will be even serviceable in five years.

gbopp wrote:
Don't worry, fuel prices are going up. :(

And you guys have cheap fuel!! Come to Canada and try out ours at near $5 USD per US gal. And prices always magically go up every year over the summer. There's a big war going on here in the oil industry which is making things worse. Prices could go up a lot over the summer.

Devocamper wrote:
Sales and shipments go up and quality continues to go down !

This appears to be a profitable business model. No reason to improve on your quality when you keep having record sales. And when your rig falls apart in 5-10 years (conjecture, obviously), you'll be making a trip to the dealer for trade-in and rollover of your remaining principle balance onto the next piece of junk.

Haven't checked in a couple years at least, but just checked Thor Industries stock price and it's 95.14 at the moment. Last time I looked it was slightly about 50. Yep, the industry must be doing good!

Sucks getting a camp site though.