Anyone make a mistake buying first MH ?

[Dollar98]

Just curious.. No matter how much research you do , it seems there is no substitute for owning and using a MH.. Anyone buy one and then realize you made a mistake on the first one.. If so, how did you rectify it. I haven't felt this way yet and hope I don't.. With all that is involved, I could see it happening.. I believe the best advice I got was to buy an older one and then see what you really want by trial and error..

[MHGinTN]

New to the venue. Bought a '95 Damon Intruder with 43K miles on it (Chevy 454 on a workhorse chasis). Nice unit, 28 or 29 feet long. Found out after I bought it that I couldn't ake a safe bath in it (bad knees and need a stool to shower). Put the unit on the parking lot nearby with a 'House For Sale By Owner' sign while getting the front springs and airbags replaced and the two coach batteries ... wouldn't sell someone something with defects). Sold it for a $2000 loss (the springs and airbags were $1675 installed, so it was as if I rented one to find out what I need to know to get what I truly needed) but immediately bought a 23 ft Winnie Aspect, used 2005, with 6300 miles on it. I tested the shower and toilet before I bought it! Since I travel alone and a lot I'm loving it. Thinking of replacing the jack-knife sofa with a fixed twin bed, for best comfort. Already pulled my hauling trailer with it (6x12 Haulmark) and the Ford V10 doesn't even know the thing is behind it!

[lfeather]

We should have bypassed the gas coach and bought the diesel first!

[tmkilli]

Our first RV was a 29' Jayco TT. We really enjoyed but did have a couple things that irritated me. Of course one was no generator but the other was the fresh water tank was under the sofa at the front of the TT. When I filled the tank, all that weight was added to the tow hitch. Big mistake, couldn't have fresh water until we arrived at our destination.

Second RV was a 31' National Surf Side Class A MoHo. We purposely did not want slide outs as I felt we would be spending more time on the road that at camp sites. Big mistake, had no room when grandkids traveled with us and knocked my trade-in value way down. It had no leveling jacks. Another big mistake. This coach was nothing but trouble since day one. Could not stop rubber roof leaks and had numerous other mechanical problems. National even flew a factory rep. in to try to fix one problem to no avail.

Now we have a 33' Winnebago Voyage which has all the bells and whistles we missed on the first two tries. So far, no problems except we can't find enough time to spend in it.

[Mike_B__in_SC]

I sure hope not! We just bought our first MH five weeks ago. We have never had any kind of RV before. So after years of looking, one year of seriously looking, we bought a used 2004 Safari Trek 30PBS. We have already put over 1600 miles on it and spent five nights in it at five different places! So far, we love it! Everything works and we have not had any problems. I just hope the good times continue. I am concerned with the tires (Michelin XRV's) after reading some posts on this site. We have a 1400 mile trip planned for the end of the month and I may replace them first. They only have 12,000 miles on them but the chassis is an '03 so they may be almost 4 years old. I need to check the dates.

Mike

[AikenRacer]

Our mistake was that we did not do it long ago. We bought an entry level diesel and it just didn't work out. Due to coach problems, we traded it in on a model that was about 50K more and are now much happier. I would suggest to buy what you want first. We probably lost about 5-10K in our trade it situation. Both were 2006 models.

[twocruisin]

We bought a new 32 ft. Motorhome at a dealer on Long Island.....The name on the side of the coach was BRAVO.....It was our first motorhome..........We financed about half of the 35 thousand it cost......We left for Florida a week later..........
We had trouble with the generator and the refrigerator and went into a dealer in Tallahassee, Florida to get the warranty work done........
The dealer told us that the Motorhome was not a BRAVO and was actually a HONEY..........Since HONEY had gone out of business, he could not honor the warranty.........
The dealer on Long Island, NY bought up several HONEY motorhomes and changed the name on all of them...........
I called the bank who financed the unit and they told me no matter what he did with the coach, they had it listed as a Chevrolet Motorhome and they expected me to pay the balance of the money I owed them......
I told them since I had no warranty at all and the dealer defrauded me, I was going to stop making payments and hire a lawyer......
By this time the dealer had sold all the other units he had and gone out of business.......
We used the motorhome for three years without making payments......
One day a Sheriff pulled up at the lot we own in Florida and repossessed the unit...
We went to court in Florida to try and get it back, but since we had signed an agreement with the bank, the Judge said we should have made the payments anyway.......Even if the dealer had defrauded us......
I had filed a Police Report on Long Island claiming that the dealer had actually stolen our money by accepting a down payment..........He never gave the bank the down payment, so they wanted him arrested also..
Although we lost the motorhome, we did live in it for free for about three and a half years, so we really didn't loose much money..........
They never found the dealer because he had used a false name.....
I figured the 15 thousand we put down more than covered what we would have paid anywhere else to rent an apartment for three and a half years, and we got to travel where we wanted, so I wasn't too disappointed when we lost the bus......
I guess the bank lost a good deal of money on the unit, but they should have checked out the dealer they were doing financing for.........

We bought a new Bus after we found out that we weren't going to win in court......

John

[SCVJeff]

After several years in a tent trailer we bought a 3 year old 85' Pace-Arrow 27Y from a friend (in 1989.. duh). I had only seen them from the outside driving down the freeway and like the look. When this one came avaliable we bought it on the spot. I think it has one of the better layouts for the day and the 454 has plenty of power (for this rig). 17 years later we just replaced it with a Meridian 34H. I hope I can say the same for this one in the future.

[mrmac]

No. We had a travel trailer years ago, then a tent and finally a m/h. we were lucky enough to travel with relatives a few days in their m/h and we learned a lot from them. Next we took our time(over 6 months), bought rv trader every week or two, went to a number of different dealers and rv shows. We decided that a used coach would be the best way for us to go and financing it thru a home equity loan was the cheapest way to go. We did such a good job we kept it for 5 yr. before buying a new one in 2002. When we did we walked into the dealership, found a salesman and told him exactly what we wanted.

[old_but_cute]

ttll41 wrote:
Hello everyone! I Just joined you all in the RV World Last night when we where giving a 1972 Dodge Avco all I know about it is it needs some work But is running. The wife and I are looking for some info on this RV. I do know the engine is a 413 Dodge.Please Help us!

Im in the same pace as you i just got a 1972 dodge also

[Catdave]

gonesouth wrote:
Our next rig may look a little different from the unit we had, or it may not, but we discovered we don't really care whether you go left or right to get from the kitchen to the living room, just as long as the front door opens to sunshine and 70F or warmer temperatures in January.

Probably one of the best statements ever penned in this forum.

I'm with you 100% on that one! 😉

[gonesouth]

I'm sorry i don't have time to read all 16 pages, but the replies were really entertaining and if you read between the lines, educational as well. In our case, I read this forum all last summer, and when we were ready to buy last fall, we had some idea what we were getting into. We bought a 1990 Allegro with extra closets in place of the dinette and lived in it from November to the end of March, when we sold it in Florida. Would I do it again? Not exactly the same, no. We imported it into Canada and registered it here which cost me 15% extra. This year I figure I will get a Florida only driver's license and register and insure the rig in Florida. Also, because we left in the rig from home, we didn't have a toad with us, this year we will drive the toad south, then buy a rig and have the toad with us. May buy a hitch set, or may just rent a dolly from U-Haul, because we will sit in Florida for January, March, and February.

Our next rig may look a little different from the unit we had, or it may not, but we discovered we don't really care whether you go left or right to get from the kitchen to the living room, just as long as the front door opens to sunshine and 70F or warmer temperatures in January.

So, our research, which was really inexpensive, taught us
1.that floor plan doesn't really matter as long as it works for you
2.the key to happiness is good mechanical condition
3.as long as you buy well, you can try a Class A for very little cost.
4. every motorhome has minor problems to deal with

[dlcole]

We rented several coaches and did a lot of research on who made good units and the problems in all units. We read a lot of the RV.ORG reviews and took them to heart.

The first Class C we rented had the bed in the center where I had to climb over my wife to go to the head. The toilet was so small that I had to keep the door open because my knees wouldn't fit inside the toilet.

We then rented a couple of Class A MHs...32 and 36 ft. Learned a lot about what worked and didn't work for us.

We went to lot of shows and tramped a lot of carpet. We eventually bought a 1996 36ft Aerbus on a Ford tag chassis. It worked fine for 3 years. We did the whole Banks upgrade and liked the results. Of course, we couldn't do 70mph headed into Knoxville on I40, but then neither could the 18 wheelers... My wife didn't like that toilet and the bath sink were in the same room, so that became a requirement for the new coach. I was still working so we couldn't use the coach as much as we would have liked.

We got re-energized earlier this year and have put a deposit on a Country Coach 2002 Allure. CC was always my dream coach, but the $$ kept us from seriously considering them. Now that I'm retired, the CC should work great for us. I searched all the internet boards looking for just the right coach for me. I then just flat out asked for the best, no-trade, cash price. It's amazing what some dealers think is a really good price. One dealer made us a really good offer in the first email reply. I think it was his high inventory level that caused him to bust the "asking" price significantly (over $55k). After some calls, pictures, we agreed on a good price and I put down a deposit.

We head out to Oregon in 2 weeks to go through the coach, drive it, etc and if it's right, we'll do the deal. Shame I have to drive 2200 miles to look at this particular coach. It's 3 days out and 6+ days back...oh well...I'm retired and have lot's of time to get back.

I just can't see buying new and taking the 30% depreciation off MSRP by driving off the lot. You can also figure an additional 10% a year in depreciation, so don't sink all your retirement $$ into it. You'll be on the street when you are 70...;-0

Good luck and bargain, bargain, bargain.

[Cowboy_Pastor]

Like Bagman, I think our only mistake was paying about $4000.00, maybe $5000.00, too much. We love our MH and have not had any real problems except having to have it aligned right off the bat. We were totally "green" on the negotiation process and the expectation of 20 - 28% off of MSRP.

[FutureSnowbirds]

We went to a couple of RV shows and decided the following: The shower and toilet area had to be separate and we definately wanted a slide out in the living area. We also wanted something that would fit our "family". We can sleep 4 adults (in 2 queen beds) and 3-4 children, depending on age and size. Our rig has everything else we want - plenty of storage (it's a basement model), microwave, fridge and dvd/vcr (we replaced the vcr).

What we learned: it was our very first motorhome and the dealer was deceitful in explaining the operation of each of the components. We later "lost" our canopy and they refused to replace it. The original one was also loaded with pinholes and there were a couple of stains in the carpeting covering the ceiling. He put the awning up and down so fast that we never noticed the pinholes - we were in awe of the mechanics! The hubcaps on the rear wheels kept falling off and we found out they weren't supposed to be there. Oh well, live and learn.

Our next purchase will be a Class A with at least 2 slides. Someday!

[deuceandddoll]

We all have to learn and our needs do change over time. We started with a tent, then a popup, then a tag along, then a 5th wheel. This was over a period of 15 years being single, then married, then children.

We now have a 1995 Fleetwoood Southwind Storm 30' Class A with a 454TBI. Purchased used with 58,000 miles on her. I perform in an Oldies Show Band that plays in the Southwest, so before purchasing a MH I checked with many friends (entertainers) to get their recommendations as we use RVs very differntly from the average consumer.

I have read a lot of negative feedback about Fleetwood on this site. But some of my friends who own high dollar Winnegabos all the way to Prevost, Blue Bird and other buses all have good and bad things to say about their brands as well.

All I can say about our Fleetwood is that we checked her maintenance history and current condition before purchasing. We knew that the four dual tires needed to be replaced and budgeted for that expense. In addition, we opted for the $2900 36 month/36,000 mile warranty to cover any unforseen problem that might develop. Total investment with purchase price, TTL, four new tires, and extended warranty was $18,785. My used Suburban cost twice that!

This coach looks, drives, and performs like new. Our friends cannot believe she is 11 years old. I have all my band equipment including sound and lights, instruments, costumes, etc. stored on board. We have put several thousand trouble free miles on her. We drive 70-75 mph with a full tank of gas, full tank of fresh water, generator and air conditioning running, and average 8-9 miles per gallon. (Know your weight limits and DO NOT exceed them!)

Deisel has many advantages and we may step up to a larger DP later on. But right now our 30' gas powered RV is perfect for what we are doing. The other band members have their own RVs. The only one who made a mistake is the band leader who bought a 27' Class C with a Ford V-10. His comments are that "it is too small, feels cramped, and lacks the underbody storage of a Class A." So he is shopping for a Class A after owning his Class C for only a month!