When to trade

The old rule of thumb was to trade it in when the ashtray got full, not sure if that still applies....

We trade when we have saved up enough to pay CASH for the new one.

A dealer once told me the sweet spot was 3 years old. At that point, it's still easy to sell - depreciated a bit, but not too old, but can still get a good price, and easy to finance.

Owl says "Three".

While I agree there is no hard fast rule for when to trade. It is possible to keep an RV too long. In some cases use drops off, camping interest fades away as well.
Nevertheless many hold on to their rigs until there is no value left vs. realizing the end is near and selling rig while it still has value.
This theory applies to those who actively use their RV's as well.
There is a tipping point where one is wise to trade there rig in while is still has value vs. keeping it until it is worthless.
I do agree in many cases an RV can be worth a lot more to the owner than it is worth to anyone on the open market.
On the other hand I see a lot of motionless dead RV's lying dormant in back yards and driveways wherever I go.
Dead RV's come in all types,shapes and sizes. At some point their owners held on to them a bit too long and missed the trade in/sell deadline.
Hopefully we will all know when it's the time to turn them in, Unfortunately some of us will not.

It is personal choice obviously. If the trailer is not meeting your needs, trade as soon as you can afford to so you enjoy camping. If it is meeting your needs and you are happy with it, keep adding to the maintenance fund so you can take care of problems promptly, especially preventive maintenance to avoid water leaks and damage..

One more thing to consider.

We're looking to upgrade to a bunk house. Four bunks. Still have kids who like to bring friends. But that'll maybe last another 9 years, then we'll be on our own. We were afraid we'd end up with four bunks we didn't need and a bunch of wasted space.

Assuming it's still in great working order, my thoughts were to remove the bunks and create tons of storage/closet space. A small remodel job would be extremely cheaper than upgrading.

Sandia Man wrote:
I don't think there is a magic number since the reasoning varies as outlined above. We have had our current rig 8 years this coming Spring and it is still filling our needs. We go to all the area RV shows but nothing has caught our eye as of yet. Maybe in a couple of years we'll make a change, but we will not trade in current RV as we plan to place it on a piece of property we own.

Agreed, although with us it's always been family/comfort concerns.

We started all of this with an inexepensive PUP to see if we liked to do it. Once my wife gave the "OK, but I'm never going back in a popup) we purchased a 26' no slide TT with no bunks or anything.

As the 4 kids quickly grew we upgraded to a 30' bunkhouse with 1 dinette/couch superslide.

As the 4 kids grew even bigger we upgraded to our current 35' bunkhouse with 2 slides (dinette/couch superslide and a slide in the bunkhouse for more room.

Now, all 4 kids no longer camp, but until ALL the kids are done we'll keep what we have for however long that is (my guess another 5 years or so), at which case we'll go to something just for the two of us (rear living room 5er with couch pullouts or something for guests)

All about necessity

Campfire Time wrote:

Sandia Man wrote:
I don't think there is a magic number since the reasoning varies as outlined above.

X2. We kept our last trailer for 10 years. Aside from faded decals and oxidized front and rear panels, it was immaculate. We traded it because I really didn't have time to sell it myself. The sold it in a month.

But I could think of 20 different reasons to trade and at different times during ownership.

EDIT: I should mention that our reasons for trading had to do with wanting a larger bathroom (wet bath in old trailer) and a slide out.

I agree with these posts. It's all up to you there is no magic number. My TT is a 1993 and it I will use it another year (unless a tornado or accident takes it out)

westend wrote:
No hard and set rule on age of trailer trading it seems. Mine is 44 yrs. old and my needs won't change this year so....at least 45 years.

We need a "Like" button for posts like this. :)