Forest River Surveyor vs The Field
So I went to my first RV show and its quite overwhelming. I came away with what I thought was the one to get - a Forest River Surveyor. Looking at the 247BHDS bunk house. Lets be honest, most TT's are...
Forum Discussion
Sounds like F-R has moved the Surveyor beyond the Flagstaff/Rockwood lines in the ten years since I was last looking at them. Forest River is a huge RV company and plays over a wide range of the field, entry level to upper midrange price categories.
Sales guy is over-touting a bit, the construction does not involve building a metal cage, rather laminated panels with aluminum perimeter frames are assembled to make a box. Usually metal screws are used, walls screwed to the top or sides of the floor, roof structure screwed to the top of the walls. Laminated sidewall panels have great rigidity and torsional strength compared to stick-built construction, but overall it is about how the box is assembled.
There is nothing special about what the salesman describes, as it pretty much works as a description for everybody else's laminated wall travel trailers. Crowned roofs are not pretty much universal, heating pads a low cost option. Not everybody uses a laminated floor, however, that construction is more common in motorhomes than in towables.
Most manufacturers build at several different cost levels, to different price points. You can find Jayco TTs less expensive and just as expensive as the Surveyor, and you can find Forest River model lines (Salem, Flagstaff, Rockwood) built lighter and to lower price points. Similarly from other mass market manufacturers like K-Z, Dutchmen, Keystone.
Step away from the mass market, look at TTs like Bigfoot or Airstream, then you are looking at something completely different, that some of us think might be worth paying for.
You have to decide whether you are shopping for low price, higher quality, light weight, etc. There are compromises necessary among these goals.
Sales guy is over-touting a bit, the construction does not involve building a metal cage, rather laminated panels with aluminum perimeter frames are assembled to make a box. Usually metal screws are used, walls screwed to the top or sides of the floor, roof structure screwed to the top of the walls. Laminated sidewall panels have great rigidity and torsional strength compared to stick-built construction, but overall it is about how the box is assembled.
There is nothing special about what the salesman describes, as it pretty much works as a description for everybody else's laminated wall travel trailers. Crowned roofs are not pretty much universal, heating pads a low cost option. Not everybody uses a laminated floor, however, that construction is more common in motorhomes than in towables.
Most manufacturers build at several different cost levels, to different price points. You can find Jayco TTs less expensive and just as expensive as the Surveyor, and you can find Forest River model lines (Salem, Flagstaff, Rockwood) built lighter and to lower price points. Similarly from other mass market manufacturers like K-Z, Dutchmen, Keystone.
Step away from the mass market, look at TTs like Bigfoot or Airstream, then you are looking at something completely different, that some of us think might be worth paying for.
You have to decide whether you are shopping for low price, higher quality, light weight, etc. There are compromises necessary among these goals.
