Having the hardest time buying a new class A

[mark52]

So, we are looking to buy our third motorhome and are ready to make the leap into a non-"entry level" motorhome. After an old Bounder and our current '06 Hurricane that we bought in '09, we would like to upgrade to a quality motorhome with full paint. I think our biggest problem is we often boondock (A lot of desert trips and dry camping up in the mountains). Many of the 32' to 38' Class A's now days seem to be made for camping at campgrounds only. Most either have small holding tanks or an enormous residential refrigerator that would require hours of generator use a day to keep the batteries charged. That combined with a other few particulars like, darker color wood interior, non-white couches, bath and 1/2, & oven are proving to make this purchase difficult. New is preferable but were not ruling out slightly used (2016 and newer). with a budget of around 110K, we are at that mid range level and have been looking at Fleetwood bounder, Southwind, and storm, Thor Miramar and Challenger, Holiday Rambler Vacationer, and Georgetown. Ive learned that new motorhomes sell for approximately 20-30% below MSRP and if its more than a year old or if they really want to sell it, 35% below. This makes it really handy for those dealers that list the MSRP, but some don't. I have probably about 50 hours of research in the last couple of months pulling up specs to check out holding tank and towing capacities and have scoured most of the west coast but just can't find the right one. What am I doing wrong here? Please help!!
Mark

[jplante4]

mark52 wrote:
UPDATE...
So here we are. in the middle of June we are leaving for a two week trip to Utah to visit some of the national parks and Moab. It would be nice to have a new one by then but at least we have a good reliable MH now. I'll update if we find something before our trip.

If you poke around the buying thread here, you'll see how bad an idea this is. The manufacturers leave the last 10% of the build to the dealers, things like putting knobs on cabinets and connecting the propane to the water heater. Dealers are not inclined to do this work on a coach they haven't sold yet, because they're doing it for actual customers.

We catch a lot of the warranty work for the local Campers World because people have scheduled a trip right after buying a new rig and do not realize the the dealer can't get to their issues in 2 weeks, or 2 months in some cases.

Nearly everyone that responded to this thread recommended buying used. There's a reason for that.

[Gottahaveit]

Thanks for the update Mark..keep us posted. It took us forever to find our current used rig about 6 yrs. ago and it is just perfect for us. I'm thinking your in my neighborhood or close by as well 😉

[mark52]

UPDATE
Thought I'd update the post with our 3 near purchase experiences for anyone following.
First, early on, when we decided we wanted a new one, we almost bought a 2018 Thor Hurricane 35M. Beautiful inside with a 1 1/2 bath floorpan but a $4K difference between our high limit and their low limit prevented the purchase. That was a good thing because it was then that we realized that we wanted a full paint MH and the tanks were way too small for boondocking.
Secondly, we found a beautiful 2015 Georgetown 377 with the black diamond package in Oregon, a 13 hour drive for us. We put a deposit down on the MH then they sent us the paperwork. It was then that we didn't like what we were having to sign before even seeing the MH in person and we also didn't love the floorpan. So we backed out.
Third - Last weekend we found a 2018 Holiday rambler Vacationer XE 34S here localy and actually purchased it. During the purchase, we were handed a brochure for the MH that stated it had a 100 gal fresh water tank, 45 grey, 50 black, and a 25 gal propane tank. That night i did some research and found that similar MH's had a 60 fresh, 37 grey, 37 black, and a 14 gal propane tank. Went back to the dealer the next morning to discover that they actually gave us the wrong brochure. They had given me a brochure for a 2018.5 (non-XE). What they had in stock was a 2018 Vacationer XE with the smaller tanks. They let us back out with no problems. So here we are. in the middle of June we are leaving for a two week trip to Utah to visit some of the national parks and Moab. It would be nice to have a new one by then but at least we have a good reliable MH now. I'll update if we find something before our trip.

[Tom_Barb]

tropical36 wrote:

Tom/Barb wrote:
If I were looking for a quality coach with a budget under 100k. I'd be all over This one

Not much glitz or glitter but a well built coach, no chip board, real wood, clear finish that can be repaired easy.
Even if you felt that the furniture need to be up graded, the coach its self is near bulletproof.

Tires and batteries need a close look, of course.

When were thinking of buying again and having done all the research ahead of time, the problem at first, was with picking out a 1 1/2 bath model in a quality coach at the right price. Surprisingly though and once the decision was made to go ahead with a purchase, it only took a day or two to locate one in like new condition, withing a 100 miles of home.
Spartan side radiator chassis...etc...etc..
I say etc...etc...cuz once you see the side radiator, the quality throughout, goes without saying.
As for price, we paid well under what they're asking for the Newmar and that was two years ago. One can ask, but not receive and the asking price on ours was like $25K more than we settled on. Naturally cash sales with no trades usually get some attention and we then sold ours privately.

That's the smart method.

We actually found our in a park and sell lot.
Looked it all over, got the keys from the lot attendant, went inside, could not find even a scratch. Checked milage and saw it only had 6800 miles in 8 years, Had to call the owner, it was more coach than we were hunting for, but the price was right for a virtually new coach.
We've had it 9 years, We've had some maintenance issues, but they were mostly induced by ignorant owners 🙂

[tropical36]

Tom/Barb wrote:
If I were looking for a quality coach with a budget under 100k. I'd be all over This one

Not much glitz or glitter but a well built coach, no chip board, real wood, clear finish that can be repaired easy.
Even if you felt that the furniture need to be up graded, the coach its self is near bulletproof.

Tires and batteries need a close look, of course.

When were thinking of buying again and having done all the research ahead of time, the problem at first, was with picking out a 1 1/2 bath model in a quality coach at the right price. Surprisingly though and once the decision was made to go ahead with a purchase, it only took a day or two to locate one in like new condition, withing a 100 miles of home.
Spartan side radiator chassis...etc...etc..
I say etc...etc...cuz once you see the side radiator, the quality throughout, goes without saying.
As for price, we paid well under what they're asking for the Newmar and that was two years ago. One can ask, but not receive and the asking price on ours was like $25K more than we settled on. Naturally cash sales with no trades usually get some attention and we then sold ours privately.

[Bill_Satellite]

Ivylog wrote:
By going residential I have actually reduced my generator run time BUT I installed extra batteries and a hundred amp charger on a dedicated PSW system for the refrigerator. Before I ran the generator 2 hours when the DW started dinner and an hour when making coffee...now I've gut those times in half.

On my new ride with a 3000 W PSS inverter I may turn it off at night and see how much the temperature in the refrigerator rises in eight hours… Probably not enough to worry about.

The food will be fine. The worst that happens when I do that is the ice in the ice maker melts a bit and when it refreezes it forms a bit of a clump that needs breaking up. Not bad at all.

[Ivylog]

By going residential I have actually reduced my generator run time BUT I installed extra batteries and a hundred amp charger on a dedicated PSW system for the refrigerator. Before I ran the generator 2 hours when the DW started dinner and an hour when making coffee...now I've gut those times in half.

On my new ride with a 3000 W PSS inverter I may turn it off at night and see how much the temperature in the refrigerator rises in eight hours… Probably not enough to worry about.

[MRUSA]

MetalGator wrote:

crasster wrote:
Thing is about residential refrigerators is they seem to perform way way better

Best thing about a residential refrigerator is I can now take ice cream without it getting soft and melting!

And, they don’t catch fire and burn up your whole motorhome. An all electric coach has no propane tank and hence more basement storage. And the electric refers use far less power than you would guess. We have boondocked a week at a time in our all-electric coach, no problem. Just run the genny 2 hours in the morning and 2 hrs at night. In hot weather we are running it anyhow for the air conditioners.

[Tom_Barb]

MetalGator wrote:

crasster wrote:
Thing is about residential refrigerators is they seem to perform way way better

Best thing about a residential refrigerator is I can now take ice cream without it getting soft and melting!

We don't have any problems with ice cream with our RV refer.

[MetalGator]

crasster wrote:
Thing is about residential refrigerators is they seem to perform way way better

Best thing about a residential refrigerator is I can now take ice cream without it getting soft and melting!

[crasster]

Thing is about residential refrigerators is they seem to perform way way better and last way way longer than the others. No they don't run on propane which is a problem... Constantly here even on RV net we've seen people with so much trouble with classic RV refrigerators... Countless posts.

What we do when we boondock is freeze LARGE ice packs, lots of them in the freezer when plugged in. Put the ice packs all through the fridge and freezer when boondocking. If you need to fire the generator to re-freeze, get them all back into the freezer. At least that's what we'd do. To each their own, and understand all situations are different.

[vjstangelo]

My recollection from Hershey was that Winnebago was still selling 4 door non-residential units in the Vista. These run on propane when Boondocking.

[Tom_Barb]

If I were looking for a quality coach with a budget under 100k. I'd be all over This one

Not much glitz or glitter but a well built coach, no chip board, real wood, clear finish that can be repaired easy.
Even if you felt that the furniture need to be up graded, the coach its self is near bulletproof.

Tires and batteries need a close look, of course.

[MetalGator]

Mr.Mark wrote:
MetalGator, I have never heard of dual holding tanks like you describe. Are the tanks connected to each other? Do they have just one discharge gate per pair?

MM.

The Miramar 35.3 has a half bath and a full bath. The full bath has two tanks (one for the shower and one black tank for the toilet). Then there is the black tank for the half bath and a grey (galley) tank for the kitchen. The tanks are not connected to each other. There are two sewer hookups for each pair. One is in the back of the motorhome (full bath) and the other is in the middle (galley and half bath). The Miramar also has a 100 gallon fresh water tank.

I had a similar setup on my previous travel trailer. I had 2 grey tanks (one for the galley) and one black tank with two different sewer hookups outside.

[Tom_Barb]

mark52 wrote:

Tom/Barb wrote:
trying to stay below $110k for a 2016 coach that isn't an entry level coach, difficult chore.
I'd drop back a couple years, and go for a higher level coach.

This seems to be the consensus so far for the most part. I forgot to mention that we have also been looking at used Tiffin Allegros and Newmar Bay Stars.

Tiffin Allegros, I can tell you about a dozen owners that are crying about quality, and service on the new ones.
Any of the entry level coaches just aren't built to the quality standards that we expect when we pay that much money.