how do you know when to trade

And we camped right next to Dutch and Di in Custer's Gulch RV Park in Custer, SD a couple of years ago. I can tell you their Carriage looks better than many new models. They are nice folks, and they give good advice.

EDIT: to say: I didn't realize there was a page three when I responded to the last post on page two. It is all still true, just a bit late and out of place. dw

I am in the same boat. Have a ten year old fifth. Starting to show heavy signs of wear. Repaired quite a bit of stuff already. But, the big stuff is left A/C is in need of replacing. And the rubber roof is going to need to be replaced adventually. Starting to bubble up and i guess the adhesive is losing its grip on the edpm roof. Of course my better half is all in for a new one. Its funny how these things go, starts off with the small items to go first And then all of a sudden the big ticket item comes and you want to jump ship. Kinda of get it i guess, 7-10,000 for roof replacement is probably not worth it and would be better spent on a down payment on a new one. Always nice to get new, but i really hate payments like the rest of you. Furch5263

If it’s in that good a shape and you like it it’s almost a no brainer to keep it. You’ve already taken the depreciation hit and you’re now just spreading the loss out over more time. After 10 years condition has more impact than age anyway. You might eventually reach the point where repairs get high enough you question the economics of keeping it. But you’ll have to throw a lot of money at repairs to equal the depreciation hit you’ll take on a new one.

I have a 16’ 1989 TT that was bought new and it’s in excellent condition so the current value – what I’ve been offered – not book value, exceeds a quarter of what I paid for it new. So you can see my depreciation cost spread out over 25 years has been peanuts. The frig went out a couple of years ago and cost almost $900 to replace and I didn’t flinch. That’s a fraction of the hit I’d take in depreciation if I replaced the TT because of it. Besides, the layout and construction is better than anything new we’ve seen for years. You could trade it if you’re just ready to spring for a new one, but from a fiscal standpoint it makes little sense to me.

my wife and I had a chat about owning campers not so long ago. We are still young mid 20's and still have many many years of camping left. after two major issues with used campers (2003 and 2004) model years I bit the bullet and bought a brand new Laredo, and vowed to never buy another used camper "not saying new ones don't come without their bugs" We decided that it dosent financially make sense to pay off to own these units, make enough of the monthly payments to break even when you go to sell when you decide you need an upgrade and just move into a new unit. At the cost of 220$ a month for a brand new unit you cant go wrong they make them very affordable. When we start having kids we will very likely move on again.

Only you can make that decision. Some people trade every few years to keep things new and under warranty and already have a payment.
We bought our 1996 Carriage to live in fulltime and to use & not worry about depreciation. We upgraded something every few years and in 2010 decided instead of buying new with a long term payment to just have the outside stripped down and painted even the graphics and do a freshen up inside we had a very low and short term loan and figure we're good to go another 18 years. This is what works for us and has been the best decision.
If you love it and enjoy it, why worry about tomorrow or next year or depreciation? Enjoy what you've got and when you no longer like the looks, either fix it up or buy a new one.
To me anything driven off the lot will never get you enough money to buy a new one. Hugs, Di

Upkeep is on an as needed basis. A payment is every month, regular as clockwork.

Technology and features continuously change on these, and at some point you just can't take it anymore and decide a new one will be easier than retrofitting the old one for those "must haves".

We had a perfectly wonderful and garaged 2007, but auto-leveling, quiet AC, 4-dr fridge, finally broke me, just like it did on the 2007 when we had a 2004, and so on....

Look at it this way
1)you know what you have,no surprises
2)you own it outright
3)depreciation is a mute point in an rv(you lost your shorts on it when you pulled out of dealer lot)
4)if your happy then keep it

I have heard several times that it is hard to get financing for an RV older than 10 years, making the trade or sale value drop at that point. True? Who knows for sure, but at least one of those making the comment was an RV salesman. I know, if his lips are moving then he must be lying. But this particular one I would tend to believe. And if I go on my bank web site and look at loan rates, for RVs it only give rates for 2008 or newer. And from Good Sam web site, Rates above apply: For a refinance, RV must be 2004 model year or newer. For a purchase, RV must be 2006 model year or newer.

Yours has reached that point, so that may not be a consideration for you.

Lots of good comments above. Also look at how you use the rig and how many miles a year do you put on it a year. One fifth wheel we owned in Alaska, we pulled it for three or four years and then bought a river front lot on the Kenai river. So we decided to set it up semi permanently as a fish camp. So the age didn't really matter as we liked the floor plan, kept the roof seams caulked, etc. for several more years. When we sold the property, a dozen years later, we threw in the 5th wheel with the sale of the land.

I tend to keep RVs for as long as we still enjoy using them and still trust them mechanically, out on the roads. Doesn't matter what class of RV it is. We have changed types of RVs more due to changes in our lives than any other reasons. We owned a large Class A at the time our daughters started to college and it was just my wife and I traveling. It no longer fit our needs, so we sold it and bought a smaller rig, for our travels.

So we have no real set measure on when to buy or sell, like I do with our trucks and cars. I keep those till the general costs to bring it back up to new standards is equal to the book value. Our last Dodge Cummins truck needed about $10K in work, new paint, overhauled tranny, new seats, AC work, etc. and the book value was $10K so I traded it in on the current Chevy I now drive. I have done the same thing with private airplanes, in the past.

Prior to living here in the swamps of southern Florida, we lived in Ouray Colorado and did much of our camping in Colorado. Now that we live in south Florida, we still do much of our camping in western Colorado. So road worthiness is more of a concern to us now than it was when we lived there. A three hundred mile trip was a long one for us. Now we put 5,000 miles on our RV to camp in the same places.