Too Many Choices?

My suggestion: go to the RV shows. Go to dealers that carry the brand you're interested in. And dealers of OTHER brands.Take your time. When looking for our latest RV, we went to so many shows and dealers, they all blurred. Finally, we simply chose our floor plan. And...we happened to make a great choice: probably got lucky.
Watch out for RVs that were not designed by RVers. For instance, we found a very nice unit (at a show) with NO electrical outlets in the kitchen! The ONE outlet was high up INSIDE a cabinet. The other, in a very nice toy-hauler,...the bat-wing antenna...the on/off switch was located BEHIND the TV! (that was before the lightweight flat screens)

Keystone (Thor) actually has much larger market share and many more brands than Forest River. For where I sit, Forest River's responses to consumers seem much more reasonable than Keystone when looking at BBB complaints.

Leo - you hit it on the head. Within a brand there is no real quality difference between entry/mid/upper end within the same brand. Generally they mostly come down the same line and use the same construction techniques. What you're paying for (within a brand) is typically trim level. Base model versus fully loaded - they call that "quality" - but it's not, it's trim level.

If you want to address actually build quality, you need to look at other brands and (if you've got time) actually look at where/how they are made. DRV is a high end 5th wheel brand. It may not fit your budget, but there is a lot more quality there (and typically a lot more in terms of trim level).

Sometimes you can see quality attempts with RVs that aren't running off-brand tires from China. They have upgraded shackles on their suspension, suspension systems with shocks or that are torque-arm based... You're looking for things that don't typically sell to most consumers like cabinet trim and how nice the couch looks.

Assuming you're not actually going high end and need to stay within the area of "most" RV purchase price, my advice is to look at factory warranty and have a look at how the factory responds to consumer complaints. Jayco has a 2-year warranty, they support original and non-original customers direct. Keystone, however, has a 1-year warranty. Although they will respond to an email inquiry, they will simply refer you to a dealer in their "national" dealer network. And the first thing that dealer will ask is "did you buy it here?"

All brands have issues - and I include the high end brands in that too. You can't buy your way out of issues - these are things that are assembled by hand, relatively quickly and they are prone to errors. Expect to spend 3 hours doing your own inspection before you drive off the lot with any RV.

PM me if you want more perspective.

PatRenee wrote:
DO NOT BUY FORREST RIVER.... they have so many brand names because they have such a failure rate.... they are built like sh,,ttttt... They just change the name so when new buyers do internet checks they don't see bad reviews.... then when that model gets a bad rep.... they change it again...

We bought Open Range.... very well built with very few complaints....

Say what??? The Cardinals and Cedar Creeks have been the higher end FR products for years!!!! Ours is a 2005, which we bought new.

There are so many offerings because Warrwn Buffett keeps buy additional companies under the Forest River Inc umbrella. FWIW Buffett does not buy or hang onto losers!!!!!

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/subs/sublinks.html

Dup Post. Chris

that's a bunch of B.S. they have the same issues as ANY MFG. Including Open Range just because maybee YOU had a problem with one does not make them Junk and this is coming from a Keystone guy,like was said before Cedar Creek and Carninal are nice 5er's Just buy what fits your needs and budget and do a thorough P.D.I and buy from a good dealer like I did at Tacoma RV(right down the street from ya) With my last 3 Montana's and call it good:)

PatRenee wrote:
DO NOT BUY FORREST RIVER.... they have so many brand names because they have such a failure rate.... they are built like sh,,ttttt... They just change the name so when new buyers do internet checks they don't see bad reviews.... then when that model gets a bad rep.... they change it again...

We bought Open Range.... very well built with very few complaints....

Forest River kept buying up independent manufactures, and I think for the most part, let them run as they had before. Our Sabre is a Palomino brand, owned by FR. From everything I've read, Palomino got better alert FR bought them, same thing with Coachman, from the Coachman dealers we talked to. FR infused money into the brands, and they got better.

Anyone that puts out a blanket claim that all FR units are junk, is just ignorant, with a big chip on their shoulder. Sure some are not great, but some are as good as others. You get what you pay for, just like any other RV manufacturer.

..Might also want to look at warranties..I know Jayco offers a 2 yr bumper to bumper, quite a few only offer 1 yr bumper to bumper..I know a lot of thing on the units have longer warranties, but this coverage is for a lot of different things that might only be covered by a regular 1 yr warranty.

site is messed up, double post.

PatRenee wrote:
DO NOT BUY FORREST RIVER.... they have so many brand names because they have such a failure rate.... they are built like sh,,ttttt... They just change the name so when new buyers do internet checks they don't see bad reviews.... then when that model gets a bad rep.... they change it again...

We bought Open Range.... very well built with very few complaints....

Talk about narrow minded. Geesh. You obviously have never read any posts on the Open Range Owners Forum site. If you did you'd see they're just like every other brand.

We have a Forest River Cardinal 30LE and love it. Would buy Forest River again