new to RVing and owner

Lots of good advise here already. I'll just say for myself: I looked at the plans offered and decided that I'd better use my money camping. As others have stated very well a lot depends on your risk tolerance and abilities.

Best of luck no matter what you decide.

And most importantly of all - Welcome to the club! You are in for a lot of fun.

wmoses wrote:

wilburrj wrote:
My wife and I decided to start RVing after many years of thinking about it. We decided on a 2014 Winnebago Minnie travel trailer. The salesman gave us some brochures on the different packages for maintenance and protection. Any advice as to the value of these plans?

The questions you have to ask yourself are:

• Am I handy and able (and willing) to do maintenance & repairs myself?
• Do I have the time to spend doing repairs when something breaks?
• Am I interested in doing this sort of thing myself?
• Do I have the facilities to do this myself, i.e. do I store the RV at a storage lot or at home next to my house?
• etc ...

No one here can give you the right answer because there is no one size fits all answer. You will find a lot of opinions tending to advise that all plans and extended warranty are garbage and you should do it all yourself. Well a lot depends on the answers to the above questions.

This was a great reply!

wilburrj wrote:
My wife and I decided to start RVing after many years of thinking about it. We decided on a 2014 Winnebago Minnie travel trailer. The salesman gave us some brochures on the different packages for maintenance and protection. Any advice as to the value of these plans?

The questions you have to ask yourself are:

• Am I handy and able (and willing) to do maintenance & repairs myself?
• Do I have the time to spend doing repairs when something breaks?
• Am I interested in doing this sort of thing myself?
• Do I have the facilities to do this myself, i.e. do I store the RV at a storage lot or at home next to my house?
• etc ...

No one here can give you the right answer because there is no one size fits all answer. You will find a lot of opinions tending to advise that all plans and extended warranty are garbage and you should do it all yourself. Well a lot depends on the answers to the above questions.

I agree with the responses you have already received.

Which Minnie did you decide to purchase? We're very happy with out 2201DS.
Enjoy your new trailer!

Ditto to what the others have said about the "extended warranty." I bought a new TT a couple of weeks ago and after doing some quick math decided their extended warranty deal was just not worth it.

Many others on this forum say if something is defective or likely to fail it will happen within that first year.

they make books on how to fix any thing in an RV. fact is it's not rocket science and if some of the people I know can fix one, you can too. Well, I may have gone too far, after reading some posts on this forum, there are some people who don't know a screw driver from a pipe wrench.

A major advantage to travel trailers is that the average handy guy can make his own repairs .
motorhomes have more systems that make them more confusing when diagnosing a problem .
after 5 years of owning your TT you will know every crook and cranny of your TT and how to make the repairs .
spend 5 % of the money to get a good set of tools onboard and some hardware and replacement parts .
odds are high that a critical failure will occur while you are 20 miles down a country road far from the city .
the closest repairman is the owner and he does not charge travel time .

These types of things are usually scams to get a little more money out of your pocket. They will try to make it seem otherwise(that is the point). Stay away.

What kinds of plans are you talking about specifically?

If they include any sort of "protector" for the outside or for the fabric, forget it! Big waste of money and a rip-off!

If you're also talking about an extended warranty, personally I'd take that money and put it aside in an interest bearing account and wait until and unless you actually need to have something fixed. Most extended warranties are also huge rip-offs in my opinion.

WoodGlue