First Time Buyer...Updated 03/06/2006
This post is intended to be helpful to the first time buyer of a motor home. For those of you who don't fall into that category or believe this post is incomplete or off the mark, do us all a favor, a...
Forum Discussion
Here’s a thought on buying your first RV with a different twist on it. For years now I have been telling my wife that I want to retire into an RV and spend our retirement seeing the country. I’ve been telling her this for 20 years now and she aint buying. We once had a TT in York Beach Maine and she liked that because it was more like hoteling than it was camping. In the 20 years I have been pitching the RV idea she has always had it in her head that it meant we would be camping and she is a hotel girl.
Recently we road tripped in our car. We did 17 states on the eastern seaboard. During this trip we stayed in many hotels. As you can imagine some were nicer than others. The not so nice ones worked out very nice for me. After the trip I convinced her that if we had an RV we would never have to stay in another dirty hotel. I explained that she would always have her own bed linens and her own bathroom. She was now nibbling at the bait.
I took her to look at some RV’s while in Florida. I’ve been trying o get her in one for years and she wanted no part of it. Now that she looked inside one she liked what she saw. We looked at quite a few but could not buy one because it meant she would have to drive our car back to New England while I drove the RV. No sale!
When we got home I new I had to reel her in quickly or I would loose her again. I also knew that if I went to look at new RV’s she would never bite. The price was to high for something that she was only mildly interested in. So I started to look for a nice used RV. Sounds easy but its really not. There is a lot of junk out there. There are also some nice rigs but the prices were to high. I needed something for a moderate price if I was going to make this happen.
After much shopping I found two mid 90s class A motor homes. I new I needed clean, roomy, inexpensive and well lit. These were the things that were important to her. For me I knew I needed an on board gen, a decent galley and a bathroom that was bigger than a postage stamp. The two rigs I found both fit the bill.
After much negotiating I was able to use cash as a motivator and bought a 95 Damon Daybreak for short money. Once we got it home and cleaned up the wife was starting to get excited about it. I knew we needed to use it before winter set in or she might loose interest. So we took it out and I brought her to the seafood festival in New Hampshire. She had a ball. After that we went to the Big E in Massachusetts. Once again she had a great time. She loved having her own bed and hew own bathroom.
Right now its winter here in New England and other than going to the last two Patriots Playoff games the camper sits dormant. For 20 plus years I have been trying to get the wife to go to a local RV show and the wants no part of it. Yesterday I mentioned in to her and she could not wait to go. Next weekend we will be at the RV show at Gillette stadium and we will be looking at new RV’s. Now she has the bug.
So the moral of this story is that if you want to catch a big fish, sometimes you have to start small and work your way up. For Me I had to lead her to the water, reel in a minnow and then use the minnow for bait in order to catch the big one.
Magilla
Recently we road tripped in our car. We did 17 states on the eastern seaboard. During this trip we stayed in many hotels. As you can imagine some were nicer than others. The not so nice ones worked out very nice for me. After the trip I convinced her that if we had an RV we would never have to stay in another dirty hotel. I explained that she would always have her own bed linens and her own bathroom. She was now nibbling at the bait.
I took her to look at some RV’s while in Florida. I’ve been trying o get her in one for years and she wanted no part of it. Now that she looked inside one she liked what she saw. We looked at quite a few but could not buy one because it meant she would have to drive our car back to New England while I drove the RV. No sale!
When we got home I new I had to reel her in quickly or I would loose her again. I also knew that if I went to look at new RV’s she would never bite. The price was to high for something that she was only mildly interested in. So I started to look for a nice used RV. Sounds easy but its really not. There is a lot of junk out there. There are also some nice rigs but the prices were to high. I needed something for a moderate price if I was going to make this happen.
After much shopping I found two mid 90s class A motor homes. I new I needed clean, roomy, inexpensive and well lit. These were the things that were important to her. For me I knew I needed an on board gen, a decent galley and a bathroom that was bigger than a postage stamp. The two rigs I found both fit the bill.
After much negotiating I was able to use cash as a motivator and bought a 95 Damon Daybreak for short money. Once we got it home and cleaned up the wife was starting to get excited about it. I knew we needed to use it before winter set in or she might loose interest. So we took it out and I brought her to the seafood festival in New Hampshire. She had a ball. After that we went to the Big E in Massachusetts. Once again she had a great time. She loved having her own bed and hew own bathroom.
Right now its winter here in New England and other than going to the last two Patriots Playoff games the camper sits dormant. For 20 plus years I have been trying to get the wife to go to a local RV show and the wants no part of it. Yesterday I mentioned in to her and she could not wait to go. Next weekend we will be at the RV show at Gillette stadium and we will be looking at new RV’s. Now she has the bug.
So the moral of this story is that if you want to catch a big fish, sometimes you have to start small and work your way up. For Me I had to lead her to the water, reel in a minnow and then use the minnow for bait in order to catch the big one.
Magilla
