RV manufacturers, I am calling you out

pnichols wrote:
There is a great point buried in what you say above.

One SHOULDN'T HAVE TO do all that maintenance to properly take care of and own a "typical U.S. built RV". I read a lot of comments continuously in these forums on what owners do to take care of their rigs ... sometimes almost sounding proud with respect to how they religiously do this and that on their RVs maintenance-wise and improvement-wise. I scratch my head in wonder at this kind of talk. A case in point ... when is the last time you had to pull maintenance on your pickup truck's or SUV's roof or windows to make sure they didn't develop a leak???? (Please don't deflect by excusing RV manufacturers with statements like "but a big box full of stuff bouncing down the highway is different than your pickup truck or SUV or stick house").

I think there is truth in this. However, I also think a big difference is in how they are used. A car/truck/SUV is driven much more regularly over its life, whether it's a lot of driving or a little, it is pretty well spread out (the old lady who only drives it to church on Sundays vs. the commuter car that gets driven everyday). An RV in contrast is used in batches. The first year you may use it for 3 weeks straight, then every other weekend for 3 months and then it sits for 4 months, then it goes out for 6 weeks straight, then sits for 2 months, and so on. And if life gets in the way, it can sit for a year or more - whereas your car will continue to be used.

Now, that doesn't mean that the manufacturers are not producing junk. They are. A lot of that is because of the "we want the biggest with the most extras for the cheapest price". A lot of the smaller TTs are very well built - but folks don't want a 19ft TT, they want a 35ft TT. And while $20K for a 19ft TT sounds high, it's an affordable price for most. When you equate that increase in quality to the price of a 35ft TT, it more than doubles in price and folks can't afford it, so they buy a more cheaply made product rather than a smaller product.

For me, I bought old but quality. Yes, I need to do maintenance - but it's no difference than with anything else I buy. One winter, I got a leak in my house roof, so I fixed it immediately before it could do extensive damage. This year, my RV's hatch came open from the high winds and I got water inside, so I closed it up and dried out the interior immediately before it could do extensive damage. In both cases, the important factor was that I caught the water intrusion immediately. Had I left my house unattended for 4-6 months, it would have been a huge problem - if I left my RV unattended (in storage) for 4-6 months it would have been a huge problem. I don't do excessive maintenance. I do the basic care to make sure things don't deteriorate. My personal pet peeve is the idea that an RV (which is supposedly built to be outdoors) must be stored inside.

Yes, manufacturers need to improve the quality of their products, but we as consumers need to be reasonable in what we want. Size, quality and price are intrinsically connected. Large size and quality will cost more. Large size and affordability will lack quality. Affordability and quality will lack size. Until we accept that we can't have large size, affordability and quality, manufacturers will continue to produce junk.

NOTE: And by "affordability", I mean a price that is affordable for the average middle class across the board.