I've crawled under, opened utility access (a good place to see construction methods), used measuring tapes. I made notes of what I was finding.
It took us about eighteen months of looking, three major RV shows (starting with Florida Supershow) and at least a half dozen others, and four RV factory visits before we settled on the RV that met my wife's needs and satisfied me with its construction. That one worked for us for ten years, and it is only now that she is gone that I am thinking about what might better meet my needs, alone and doing something different with it.
RV shows are great for looking, tricky for shopping. It is too easy to find the "I gotta have this today" RV that turns out later not to work for you at all. Sales pressure is high with "show specials" that might actually be priced higher than what you might negotiate at another dealership, or even the same one.
At least two other couples in our RV club shopped more impulsively, each went through three RVs in that same ten years, trying to find the one that worked for them. Three more couples figured out within their first two RVs that this was something they didn't really want to do. Others, however, in the club are still using the RV they bought carefully 10, 15 or 20 years ago. One is just now selling the Class A she and her husband used for 25 years, he is gone and she can no longer drive.
