Buying a Former Rental Class C. How many of us out there?

[IAMICHABOD]

While researching these pages for my next Motor Home I saw a few threads discussing Rentals, most were Pros and Cons but very few posts from people who had purchased one.

I thought it may be a good resource and helpful to hear from these people. The good, the bad, what they liked and what they didn’t. Also if they had any problems, things they changed, if they would recommend this to others or do it again.

Here is my story: I am not a novice, having owned a Class A for more than 15 years and doing the camping thing with my wife and two daughters, I can say “been there done that” But life changes, and I sold everything so I have been away from this for several years. Starting over I lurked here for a while and got a lot of good insight then went looking.

My criteria was: A Class C within by budget, less than 30 feet so I can keep it at home, saving storage $, a rear bed, and a lot of storage space.

What fit that was Winnebago, Fleetwood and a few others, what I found mostly was Jamboree / Tioga 26Q. In the year models 2002 thru 2006. I did my home work looking at NADA and other sites to find the fair prices for the models that I was looking for.

After several months of searching the internet, Craigslist, private ads and Dealerships for a Class C that suited my budget and needs, this is what I found. Of the dozen or so I inquired about.Most were upsidedown in their payments, owing more than they were worth. All were on Ford Chassis, 7 needed tires, all had the original 7 to 10 year old tires, and they all needed repair of the awning and most needed some work inside or out and the maintenance records were sketchy, but most had low mileage. The Dealerships offerings were better but they had a profit margin to maintain so I got older models within my budget or huge up sales that didn’t work for me.

My next step was looking at the rental market for sales. In my area there are 2 large companies that have rental sales, Cruise America and El Monte RV,who also sell Class A RVs.

First up was El Monte RV Their units are production RVs that are made by major manufactures, with TV antennas and hookups inside and out, Ducted A/C and heat, 2 house batteries, a rear ladder and parts are readily available from those manufacture’s. I looked at their web site and it detailed their warranty and what was checked and serviced by their factory trained technicians. The unit I looked at was like new inside, the upholstery on all the seats was new as was the floor mat in the driver’s area, it had a new mattress, still in plastic and a new bedspread. All of the curtains were new also. Newer (2010 mfg date) tires with 98% rubber and the mileage was ninety thousand (90,000).

Then there was Cruise America: Their units that I looked at seemed to be Spartan,no TV antenna or hookups for one,non-ducted A/C,small counter space and only one battery, no rear ladder for inspection and maintenance of roof and built just for them, they were all “refreshed” their words not mine. They offered extended warranties at a huge cost. All had high mileage, one hundred and thirty thousand (130,000) or more and the price range seemed a little high. The sales staff had a take it or leave it attitude and were not very forthcoming when asked about maintenance records and service,they claim to have proprietary info in those records,It doesn't seem to be a problem for El Monte RV.

At El Monte RV I took a test ride; This Unit was a 2006 Tioga 26Q on a Chevrolet Chassis it rode
Drove and handled much better than the Fords that I had driven. It also had more leg room and was quieter. We got back and I asked about the service and maintenance on it, the salesman, Joey, handed me a 28 page single spaced document asked if I wanted some coffee or something to drink and said “read this and if you have any questions I will answer them”.

It detailed everything that was done before and after each rental, the mileage, generator hours and hours billed. Each time it was washed and detailed inside and outside, all fluids were checked and replenished if needed, the holding tanks were washed, LP system was checked for leaks, all torque on wheel lugs were checked, brakes front and rear checked for wear and cracks, pressure in tires, all appliances, generator oil, lights inside and outside, the list goes on and on.

It also listed all oil changes,coolant change,trans service,fuel injector service and cleaning,fuel filters,air filter, new brakes, all repairs and replacements all with date, mileage and time spent in complete detail from day one to when it was pulled from the rental fleet and was refurbished. I have a complete service record on this vehicle.Also the service records on the Onan Generator,all oil changes,air filter and spark plug replacement with hours and date. I negotiated a good deal with them and am very happy with my purchase.

It came with a 1 yr. 12000 mile power train warranty and 30 day on all appliances. It also came with a 28 page maintenance record that detailed everything. Also the original sales packet from Fleetwood with the manual and serial numbers on all appliances,refrigerator, microwave,furnace, AC, water heater, etc. and the manual for the Chassis. I have had no problems with it so far.

(ON EDIT) 5 Years and close to 14000 miles.Just Scheduled Maintenance and new tires,old ones were at the 5 year mark and I wanted new Michelin LTX M/S2s.

There were a few things that it didn’t have as it was a rental and the ones from private parties did have.
• Power steps, outside Stereo/CD don’t need or want them.
• An Awning, this I wanted and had installed. A Swivel Seat and a new Window in The Door that I installed.
• Wheel Simulators, I like the looks so I had them installed and at the same time had Tire Man valve stem kit put on.
• Replaced the Chinese WFCO with a US Made converter/charger
• It came with mini blinds and not the day/night that most have, these are more practical and have a lot less failure.

• It also came with Stainless Steel sinks,easier to maintain than the cheap plastic ones that come in the noncommercial units.
  

I am very happy with my Rig, it suites my needs and it was in my Budget range, I think I got a good deal.

So if you bought a rental please share your experience here for others to use as a resource.
Or if there are any other questions that have not been covered in these pages, just ask, there are many helpful people on this thread.

[Harvey51]

Welcome CalCanRVer, from a fellow Albertan. I have one of those former Fraserway rentals, a 2004 20 footer on Ford E350 which has served us well. We’ve had some leaks to fix, the cracking Michelin tires that were recalled, a free recall from Ford to fix a bug in their engine emission software. Ten years now and no paying visits to garage or RV shop.

The engine is certainly adequate for our needs. We go to the mountains every year but usually not through them. One trip to Vancouver Island, one in 2016 down to Lake Louise, west on the trans Canada to Revelsoke and south to Nakusp. On the way back we went west of Revelstoke, took a logging road shortcut from Salmon Arm to Little Fort on the Yellowhead, and up to Jasper which was most interesting.

We have no generator and never plug in to shore power since the single 100 watt solar panel with some engine charging is more than adequate for our needs. With a second panel we could power the microwave oven and a TV but we are happy roughing it without those particular devices.

Good luck with your choice. I think good luck comes from taking time to learn how everything works so you can take care of problems that arise. Participating in this forum is really valuable.

[calcanrver]

Thanks Sachilles for your response which puts my mind at ease regarding the power of the 23A. You also answered my next question by indicating you plan on pulling your racecar behind it on mountain roads. I don't have a toad and maybe never will but its nice to know it will pull one if I ever need it to.

Also thanks to you Photomike for your response. I will be sure to take it on a good roadtest before making a decision. Did you find that CC did the full refurbishment that they advertise they perform? I am not that mechanically inclined and really wouldn't know what to check for to determine whether the seals are good etc. Would it be a good idea to pay for someone to come and check it over? A previous post a while back said it was not necessary with CC (or maybe it was CA) because of their refurbishment process.

One last comment to Canuck Hauler...I certainly understood your reference to #99. Being from Calgary I hated him...and yet loved his unequaled skill level at the same time. 🙂

[sachilles]

I only have limited use thus far, but I live in the mountains. I plan to tow my race car in the mountains. Driving it home, it had no problem with the mountain roads. It is definitely geared for it. It does better in the hills than the chevy van it's replacing that has the 5.7 v8 and is lighter. Transmission seams to use the engines power band effectively compare to the 4Le60 in the chevy van.
On the trip home we were passing others on the steep grades.

I had looked at cruise canada, and found it odd the lack of generators...not sure why they do that on the canadien ones.

[Photomike]

calcanrver wrote:
Hi Photomike...I was hoping you would be among those to respond.I believe you had bought from the Cruise Canada dealer in Calgary which is where we saw the 23A Majestic unit.If for no other reason than the price this will be my focus. Yes the other unit was at Fraserway.

I know you bought the 19G unit recently which also has the Ford V8 and from what I have read this engine is fine for the 19 foot Majestic. The 28A Majestic has the V10 so I am just not sure if the V8 is adequate for the 25 foot one.We haven't got to the test drive stage yet.

Any tips as to what I should look for? Thanks.

Cannot help with the engine other than to say mine is amazing in the 19G. Last year was on the highway and a guy past me in a passing lane just as it was ending, pulled in front of me with only inches to spare and lost control of his truck. I had two choices - hit him or swerve around him. I pulled out saw I had a little room and floored it and that little motor home took off like a shot and got me past him and back in my lane faster than a sports car. They seem to be smart when building the units so I would think that the engine is the right power, take it out and try it only thing you have to loose is some time.

As far as dealing with CC take your time, check it our REALLY closely and be picky. Seeing you are in Calgary take it for a good long drive, hit some rough roads and hills and make sure that it has no issues. Test everything like the air, heater, water heater, etc. The units are amazing, difference is in how they are used and cleaned up for sale. I know that it is usually in the fall that they have the most units for sale as they are coming off the summer rentals but I am not sure if buying now is better or worse as they are gearing up for rental season and want to dump units that are on the lot so they are not sitting on them over the summer. They do have a rental program that applies your rental (or part of it) to the purchase. If you get it narrowed down to one unit see if you can take it out for a night or two.

[calcanrver]

Hi Photomike...I was hoping you would be among those to respond.I believe you had bought from the Cruise Canada dealer in Calgary which is where we saw the 23A Majestic unit.If for no other reason than the price this will be my focus. Yes the other unit was at Fraserway.

I know you bought the 19G unit recently which also has the Ford V8 and from what I have read this engine is fine for the 19 foot Majestic. The 28A Majestic has the V10 so I am just not sure if the V8 is adequate for the 25 foot one.We haven't got to the test drive stage yet.

Any tips as to what I should look for? Thanks.

[Photomike]

calcanrver wrote:
Hello, I am brand new to this forum and the first thing I would like to do is give IAMICHABOD a big thankyou for starting this thread. Had I not been able to use this as a resource in doing my research I'm sure I would never have considered buying a former rental unit. Now I have decided this is the way to go for the reasons indicated throughout these pages. I do not retire until next year so there is no urgency in buying one but it would be nice to get one sooner than later.

I live in Calgary Alberta and there are a couple of places that sell former rentals. None however appear to sell any with the Chev engine so I am limited to the ford engines. I am looking at something between 23 and 25 feet long so I can keep it behind our house.

I saw a couple of units today that look interesting. One is the 23A from CC that has about 160,000 km on it. It is 25 feet long and has the ford V8 engine. It does not have a generator. The other is an ALP adventurer that has about 90,000 less km and has a generator as well as the ford V10. However it costs about $15,000.00 more.

So the first question I have:is the V8 sufficiently powered to take the 23A through mountain drives? Also is it really necessary to have a generator?

Thanks and I'm sure I will have a few more questions as my search progresses.

If one of those is from Fraserway RV..... RUN and do not stop running. I can fill pages of issues that they have and I have only taken a couple for test drives from them.

[calcanrver]

Hello, I am brand new to this forum and the first thing I would like to do is give IAMICHABOD a big thankyou for starting this thread. Had I not been able to use this as a resource in doing my research I'm sure I would never have considered buying a former rental unit. Now I have decided this is the way to go for the reasons indicated throughout these pages. I do not retire until next year so there is no urgency in buying one but it would be nice to get one sooner than later.

I live in Calgary Alberta and there are a couple of places that sell former rentals. None however appear to sell any with the Chev engine so I am limited to the ford engines. I am looking at something between 23 and 25 feet long so I can keep it behind our house.

I saw a couple of units today that look interesting. One is the 23A from CC that has about 160,000 km on it. It is 25 feet long and has the ford V8 engine. It does not have a generator. The other is an ALP adventurer that has about 90,000 less km and has a generator as well as the ford V10. However it costs about $15,000.00 more.

So the first question I have:is the V8 sufficiently powered to take the 23A through mountain drives? Also is it really necessary to have a generator?

Thanks and I'm sure I will have a few more questions as my search progresses.

[sachilles]

Hokie-Dave wrote:
sachillies, glad you made it home safely. Yes, some of those roads in PA can be rough, especially parts of the turnpike. You will hear the house rattle as you are driving accross that road. I was afraid your purchase got delayed, I was driving home today and saw a 23A still parked out front with a SOLD sign on it.

That one was a guy coming in from the new york area. Flights there were all messed up on monday and tuesday. Thankfully we were able to fly over it, and drive through after it had been cleaned up.
Last I heard, he wasn't getting out by air, and was going to try to rent a car to get down.
We bought ours, drive to the walmart at the manassas mall, used our car rental to go to a couple local stores. Then loaded it up, and dropped the rental off at dulles on our way out.

We did get to hit the go kart place at the mall. My son go karts at home, he's 9. They were nice enough to let us on the track together, which isn't normally the case. Lil' brat nearly beat me.
Wish we had more time to poke around the battlefield.

[Hokie-Dave]

sachillies, glad you made it home safely. Yes, some of those roads in PA can be rough, especially parts of the turnpike. You will hear the house rattle as you are driving accross that road. I was afraid your purchase got delayed, I was driving home today and saw a 23A still parked out front with a SOLD sign on it.

[IAMICHABOD]

sachilles,great to hear you made it safely back home and your inspection went well, your overall positive review will surely be of help to others. Again congratulations on your new rig and also being #100 on Former Rental Owners list!

I did notice on the newer Majestics that Cruise America has deleted the window in the door,I would surely miss that on mine, without it there would be no way to see who was at the door and I think it would make it a bit more confining without that extra light coming in.

I did find a recent thread where a Forum Member put a window in his door,this may be of interest to some of you if your are handy with tools,It doesn't seem to hard to do.

Here Is That Thread on page 3 it shows how he did it and the finished project.

I replaced my door window with a EDWIN,I liked it better than the frosted glass that was there.Here is that project.

[sachilles]

Thanks,

Boondocking will be our primary use. Second battery, is on our list. Mostly to cover the use of the heater in the spring and fall.

[radiojeffrv]

sachilles... Congratulations on your purchase! We also picked up our 28A from CA and had much the same experience 🙂

We have done a bunch of upgrades and have a few more planed. We took a cross country trip last year from NJ out to Zion and the Grand Canyon with no issues at all!

Some of our mods include adding a TV, water filter and Accumulator Tank, portable solar and USB outlets for phone charging. This year I plan to add a 2nd house battery, as we like to boondock.

Best of luck with yours and welcome to the club!

[sachilles]

Our is home and in our driveway, after the Virginia to Vermont trek which is about 10 hours.
Quite happy with the purchase.
The RV was inside so I could inspect most everything in comfort. Nice epoxy floor in the shop so I could roll around underneath and look at stuff.
Tires were new. Rears dated at the end of 2016, fronts 2017. Mechanically decent. After dealing with the horrendous roads in PA, I will likely need an alignment if if it didn't need one already!! Awful roads. Everything else was smooth sailing. Mechanically very good.
The house part, definitely isn't new but was in good shape. Little nitpicky things like chips in the formica counter tops. Nothing major. The tan plastic and upholstery in the cab shows it's age a bit. We'll see what some tuff stuff cleaner and some other cleaners might do. It's not awful...but noticeable compared to a new unit. To be clear it wasn't dirty really, but tan shows ground in dirt a bit more than grey.
All seems to work as intended. Camped over night at wal-mart in PA. Bed is more comfortable than I expected. Wife and son love it. Unit was clean on arrival. Test drive revealed a few rattles, that were fixed once back at the shop. I was provided with a ladder to look at the roof. All seemed in good shape. We encountered rain...and snow on our drive back. No apparent leaks, and no musty smells.
Outside was clean. I small ding was noticeable in the front bumper under certain light. Small chips in paint here and there. Rear bumper was straight(can't say the same for most of the rental units on the lot).

Underneath was pretty good. Looked like a new steering stabilizer was installed. Rear shocks also looked newish. Fronts had been in place a while. Looked like some new hardware on the generator mounting brackets.
314 indicated hours on the generator. House battery was good.

So long story short. We like it. We are happy with what we got, for the money we paid. I wouldn't hesitate to drive it cross country tomorrow. Very minor cosmetic issues that can't be seen 20 ft away, but if you are searching them out, you could find them. Salesman was knowledgeable about the house systems, but less so on the van systems. He was man enough to say he didn't know the answer, rather than make up stuff like some salespeople like to do.

Overall positive. I'll have another look over underneath as the PA roads were that bad...if everything is still good, then I think the RV can take any abuse.

[IAMICHABOD]

Canuck_Hauler,#99 Thanks for the consise write up on your experience on your purchase and how the problems were handled,I am sure that this
will help others and give them a road map of what to look for when they go shopping.

A hint for the roof vents opening,if you would put vent covers over them, vent covers like the MaxxAir on each vent will eliminate the problem,as a bonus you can leave them open in any weather and when driving. also replace the the Vent seal this will also help in sealing the vent lid to the vent edge and make a better seal and do away with any leaking when closed.

The pictures were a nice touch, I like your traveling companion,I always like to see members rigs.
We will stay tuned to see what comes up next.
Again thanks for the write up and congratulations on your new RV.

[Photomike]

Canuck_Hauler how did you get a day without snow???? Glad you had a safe trip home. All units new or used usually have little things that need to be done. Sounds like you had a better experience with CC Calgary than I had, but I have been told the salesperson that I dealt with is "no longer employed by CC". Honestly it was not so much anything big with the unit I got, it was just a lot of little things he told me were done then I find out they were not to not to 100%.

Funniest thing was when I got up on the roof when I got home and found Dicor on EVERYTHING. The sealed the bathroom fan cover so it would not open, they put Dicor in places that it should never had gone like on the housing for the conditioner at each screw hole. Must get paid by the number of tubes that they use.

I never dealt with a warranty repair but I have been told they are good, but that only applies to the drive train. Other things are not covered so it is up to the generosity of the person that you deal with. DO call ASAP as the sooner that you call the less they can say that you did it.

I also bought with the idea that if anything was wrong that I had saved enough that I could pay to fix it. One of my first stops was to a private mechanic that I know (not a dealership or national chain), he had one of his guys go over the unit completely. Checked everything, replaced a few things that were not 100% but nothing big. He did not like was the alignment, said overall it was okay but it was still not 100%. Recommended that be done right away. I did find after the alignment and redoing the tire pressures to what I wanted it drove so much better, was not bad before but after it was great! He also recommended a tune up and I had that done a few month later and that gave me a lot more confidence in the engine being as close to tuned as a used unit can be.

One thing that amazes me is how the unit is assembled. I have seen million dollar motor homes that are not close to these units. I was going to do some major changes when I got it to suit me more as how I use it and I did not as the way they built it was so good I did not want to do any major cutting and replacing just for little improvements.

Hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of your unit!