Trailer Selection - Suggestions requested
Owned several RVs over past 15 years…..Class C, Class A, 5er, and TT. All have their pros / cons. Just sold our 2009 Toyhauler. Just too heavy (13K GVWR for my 2003 Ford V10). Great truck and do no...
Forum Discussion
Being retired, we had similar requirements. She has her checklist and would prefer 14 slides and 40 feet and a butler... I'm right with you short light but with room to "comfortably" sleep a couple of others and a 50 gallon fresh water tank. I always had a 27 foot limit but ended up just a bit more at 27 feet 4 inches...
We ended up with an Aspen Trail 2340BHSWE at 5500 lb's dry 7700 GVW (WE is west coast edition vs the BHS for east). It checked her boxes, full queen, doors for the bedroom, sink in bath, slide for space (both our boxes) It has two FULL bunks not 28 inchers. It does NOT have a separate "sofa" but she can live with that and that ALWAYS takes you up in the 30 foot range. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsBNcySeZWc (short vid)
There are other brands with similar floor plans and they run from like 28 feet to 30 feet some better built. Build quality is Meh, but all the core systems work and are good quality and I'm handy as in making space utilization better from the original design. Up until about February, you could pick a new one up for under 24K, now 28K is about average and up to 35K in some areas of the country. Check out RVTrader for pricing averages and availability of both used and new versions of whatever you are looking at. "Dutchmen" Coleman's and Aspen Trail's are extremely similar with this being the first year of them having slightly different floor plans but they are built on the same lines using same materials.
As of this year, used pricing will only save a few bucks. People are literally selling used 2 to 4 year old units for the same price they paid for them. My dealer gave me 12K for my well cared for used one and I only paid 13 three years ago. He sold it for what I paid for it. NADA said it was only worth 8K (another dealer offered that). AND used ones disappear almost instantly... NADA values right now are worthless being based upon pre-covid values.
If you can find "lightly" used, it might be worth it if only for having first year bugs worked out. For mine, They have added things like lippert electric stabilizers and hitch lift and they keep redesigning the sink area storage with older ones being superior to the most recent iteration imho.
It checks all our boxes and seems to meet many of yours. It tows great and I am pleasantly surprised with a Fastway E2 10K hitch on a Ram 1500 5.7 Hemi. Oh, I added airbags for 300 bucks they sure don't hurt.
We ended up with an Aspen Trail 2340BHSWE at 5500 lb's dry 7700 GVW (WE is west coast edition vs the BHS for east). It checked her boxes, full queen, doors for the bedroom, sink in bath, slide for space (both our boxes) It has two FULL bunks not 28 inchers. It does NOT have a separate "sofa" but she can live with that and that ALWAYS takes you up in the 30 foot range. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsBNcySeZWc (short vid)
There are other brands with similar floor plans and they run from like 28 feet to 30 feet some better built. Build quality is Meh, but all the core systems work and are good quality and I'm handy as in making space utilization better from the original design. Up until about February, you could pick a new one up for under 24K, now 28K is about average and up to 35K in some areas of the country. Check out RVTrader for pricing averages and availability of both used and new versions of whatever you are looking at. "Dutchmen" Coleman's and Aspen Trail's are extremely similar with this being the first year of them having slightly different floor plans but they are built on the same lines using same materials.
As of this year, used pricing will only save a few bucks. People are literally selling used 2 to 4 year old units for the same price they paid for them. My dealer gave me 12K for my well cared for used one and I only paid 13 three years ago. He sold it for what I paid for it. NADA said it was only worth 8K (another dealer offered that). AND used ones disappear almost instantly... NADA values right now are worthless being based upon pre-covid values.
If you can find "lightly" used, it might be worth it if only for having first year bugs worked out. For mine, They have added things like lippert electric stabilizers and hitch lift and they keep redesigning the sink area storage with older ones being superior to the most recent iteration imho.
It checks all our boxes and seems to meet many of yours. It tows great and I am pleasantly surprised with a Fastway E2 10K hitch on a Ram 1500 5.7 Hemi. Oh, I added airbags for 300 bucks they sure don't hurt.
