Used TH Year Range vs Quality

[cfdwheeler]

Wife and I just bought a new Denali dually and are looking at fiver toy haulers. We don't want to spend the money on a brand new one, so we are looking at used units. And frankly after reading in this forum for the past few years it seems that the quality of RVs has really tanked the past few years as compared to the past. (Having said that, we do understand they ALL are built relatively poorly). Question is, are there any range of years to avoid? We have a $30-50k budget, give or take. Have found some in the 2012 to 2015 model years that fit our needs. Should we be looking further back for "better built" units? Cyclone, Raptor, Voltage, Fuzion and XLR keep popping up in our range. Have seen couple Jaycos as well.

We could also get an Impact, Carbon, Vengeance or Torque brand new that's in our price range, but I'm leary/skeptical of going that route. A new Wolf Pack is even at the lower end of our budget. Suggestions on this as well?

[Dirtclods]

Check out this auction

http://www.crankyape.com/default.asp?pg=DisItems&Cat=6

[JAC1982]

cfdwheeler wrote:
Thank you guys for the input. This will be our first RV of any sort so we want to spend our money wisely, as we hope to keep and maintain it for several years. Aside from electrical work (I can do light/small elec), I am pretty handy and not afraid to tackle much of anything, so long as I know how it works.

We will keep shopping to find the right unit that meets our needs/wants and is still in the budget no matter the age.

Good luck! We shopped for well over a year to find the right trailer this second time around,and then once we found it, shopped another 3 months to find the best deal (thankfully it was at a local place!). So if you have any questions I'm happy to try to answer them, we looked at just about everything out there!

[cfdwheeler]

Thank you guys for the input. This will be our first RV of any sort so we want to spend our money wisely, as we hope to keep and maintain it for several years. Aside from electrical work (I can do light/small elec), I am pretty handy and not afraid to tackle much of anything, so long as I know how it works.

We will keep shopping to find the right unit that meets our needs/wants and is still in the budget no matter the age.

[JAC1982]

I also wanted to add that our neighbor has a Fuzion that's similar to our Impact. It's a nice trailer, and some differences I've noticed are things like, their steps are better (we're actually going to replace ours eventually with ones like they have), all their cabinets and hardware feel like better quality, all their light fixtures are nicer, it's overall fancier in terms of how it's put together (more wood, etc), nicer appliances, and they have fancy electronic touchpads for their systems and can control everything with their phone. But a lot of the "guts" are exactly the same. Auto-leveling is the same system, doors are the same, bathroom is almost exactly the same fixtures, garage features are the same, etc.

So anyway, just something to keep in mind when comparing a used "fancy" one to a brand new middle range one.

[JAC1982]

We've been overall pretty happy with our Impact. Also, our old bumper pull toyhauler was a Raptor, but was rebranded the year after as a Carbon with no changes. We were overall happy with that too. I agree that you only hear the bad stuff online because by nature, people like to complain, but aren't really into making positive comments.

That being said, each have had some issues, but nothing unfixable or major. In our Impact, the front AC crapped out when it was only 4 months old, while on a week long boondocking trip in July. There were also some QC issues, such as the labels on the tanks being reversed, the outlet for the stove exhaust fan wasn't sealed so some water came in during a torrential downpour, the screws holding in the ceiling speaker weren't long enough and came out while traveling and then the speaker fell into the top of the slide, and some carpet staples were sticking out in the bedroom. But this was all really minor stuff that we either fixed ourselves or had the dealer fix under warranty. It's just a frustrating first year with any new camper, but at least this time we knew what to expect.

With a used unit, you don't know if the former owner caught all the QC stuff and had it fixed, and you also don't know how they maintained it, or how often they used it. I know whoever bought our used Raptor got a really great camper as we take really good care of our stuff, got every little thing we found fixed quickly, and we "gently used" it. I think we only had our RZR in the garage one time, and that was to bring the RZR home from the dealer when we bought it.

But, there's also people out there that really USE and abuse their stuff, especially toyhaulers. If you do go the used route I would hire an independent RV maintenance person to look it over. It's easy to clean it up and make it look nice on the surface but bad maintenance and heavy use can really do a number on the "guts" of a unit.

[arhayes]

Based on people I've run into with "older" units, they went through many of the same problems as the rigs today. With social media, people are really quick to tell the world about a problem, no matter how minor or reasonably expected that issue might be. They rarely spend their time calling out positives. YMMV

[azdryheat]

Check it over real well and a used TH should be fine and have the bugs fixed. My 2014 Voltage was absolutely terrible when we bought it new. After 6 months of me fixing all the stuff that the factory screwed up, it has been very reliable ever since.

[the_bear_II]

People need to keep in mind as they read any forum posts you're only seeing a very small representation of whatever the forum community is for. For this and other RV forums if you think about the millions of RVs on the road today and the relatively few forum posts weekly the majority of RV'ers are satisfied with their RVs. The posts you see on RV forums are from folks looking for info, folks who are unhappy with their RV or parts or supplier/dealer or folks who are happy and finally folks like me who like to share their experience with others.

If you consider the fact that RVs are designed to travel thousands of miles on less than perfect roads they are very sound. The key to longevity is good maintenance and care.

That being posted good luck in your search.