To buy used or new?

To each his own ... all my campers have been new.

I use to buy used cars and after a short while had to start paying for repairs. About 15 years ago, decided to buy a new car. No problem at all with it for almost 5 years. Wow! Traded it for another new car, no problem for years. That's when I learned ....

You can either pay more upfront buying a new car, or...

You can pay more at the end buying a used car.

Personally, I don't mind paying more now so I don't have to deal with repairs.

Houses? Never had a "brand" new one, but took 2 old ones, and 100% completely remodeled to the studs the inside (and much of the outside). When they were done, they were all new.

I'm in the new camp. We bought our first TT for 19K brand new and sold it for 12k 7 years later. We camped over 350 nights in it and feel we got 7k use out of it. New, you know what you got and what you did to it. Used you never really know what happened to it. Looking at some used units they are not a whole lot cheaper than new. In the end not sure what makes more money sense but I think its mostly up to the individual and what your plans are with it. On the flip side we bought a used popup used it for a year and sold It for 1K more than we paid. Trying to achieve that with buying new would be a bit tougher.

If you find a used one that is in decent shape, why not? If you are not sure of your abilities to discern "decent shape", better off buying new.

If you have the money to buy either, do what works for you. We really could not get a new one (the one we decided we wanted). We found a year old used one that had some issues that I could take care of so bought it. It has been great (other than the crappy fading on front cap that is common for those years).

I always buy lightly used, 1 to 3 years old and let someone else take the huge depreciation hit. In that time they will have found and worked out any minor glitches and anything major will be glaringly apparent. Many {if not most}, folks buy the wrong unit the first time out and quickly discover their error. They can bend over on the trade in when they buy the right rig or sell it to a private party at a smoking good price... often in "As new" condition.

In many states {Arizona being one}, there is no sales tax on private party sales garnering you even greater savings. Think about how much the average new buyer actually uses their rig in the first couple of years.... usually less and often significantly less with each passing year. With the internet you can literally shop coast to coast from your keyboard so selection, finding exactly what you want should not be a problem.

IMHO: Buying new is for folks with way too much money... and doing the former will often cure the latter.

As always.... Opinions and YMMV.

:B