HOW did you choose your Class A ? ....

it was1986 and my wife and i decided to take the plunge. we found a one-owner 1985 26' Winnebago Chieftain for $25K at a dealer in Indiana, Camper Land, I think. very low miles. we were told the owners took it on one trip and traded it for something larger. we had very little trouble with it for the 15-years we owned it. we also didn't know diddly about RVing but had some good friends to show us the ropes.

We had purchased a 2002 Triple E Senator Class C motorhome from a rental agency in BC, Canada. It was a great MH, but we needed something a bit larger and perhaps with slides. The new search began.

We searched many local MH dealers, and were looking for a 30+ foot diesel pusher with slides. We found a 35' 2008 Itasca Suncruiser that we love and we bought in 2011. Then salesman (a blues guitarist for the WHO) convinced us that a gas version was more appropriate for us. We entered the MH on a cold day with the heat on, classical music playing, and with mood lighting. We were sold!

The MH had been used by his step-father on a trip to Yellowstone, where he had a heart attack, and never used the MH again. It had 6,400 miles on it and was 3 years old. They gave us a great price for our Triple E and we negotiated a great price. We have never looked back. Good luck with your search!

I drove a Prevost. End of search. It did take awhile to find one with the right floor plan and price but there was no going back.

The selling point.. Was the half bath. Two toilets

The length of "Just a minute" depends entirely on which side of the door you are on. 2 doors. two toilets no "Minutes"

It was all about floor plan for us. We wanted a gas Class A because of the few miles we put on the motorhome a year. We found a floor plan we liked in an entry level model and almost pulled the trigger and then saw the same floor plan in a different model at the Tampa RV show. Didn't purchase at the show but ordered the Motorhome a month later. Besides the chassis you want, I think the floor plan is most important.

This is our 2nd Class A, and 5th RV overall.

For us this time, it came down to a couple things:

1. Quality - I've spent enough time fixing shoddy construction and poor materials on our last RV, this time we decided to spend the extra $$ to get a quality built unit and hopefully avoid some of that. Newmar was about the best quality we could find anywhere without spending tons more on a diesel pusher (and we want nothing to do with diesel).

2. Floorplan - We have learned over the years camping, a couple things we really wanted in a floorplan that hadn't had before - dinette on camping side, bed facing toward camping side with plenty of windows for ventilation, residential refrigerator, larger shower, fantastic fans for ventilation. The Newmar 3014 unit seemed to fit all that better than any we looked at, and in a smaller size like we wanted (see below).

3. Size - We wanted something fairly smaller this time,32' or less. Kids no longer camp with us so we don't need bunks or so much space anymore, and we wanted to be able to get into more remote, rustic sites. Also, we do a good bit of 'boondocking', and a smaller unit makes it easier to do that.

As to what I'd do different: Honestly, can't really think of anything. We took our time with this one, did our homework, and got just exactly what we wanted, needed.

...As you're probably going to see from the responses on this, everybody's needs, wants are different, and there is no one size fits all when it comes to RVs.

For us it was three things, floor plan, floor plan, and floor plan. The fact that it was a high quality coach (National RV) was icing on the cake.

Al

First and foremost, thorough research (nearly 2 years) and driving as many class a rigs as we could in our state. After viewing/driving a couple dozen coaches we were able to zone in and fine tune our search knowing which chassis and powertrain we were most interested in purchasing.

RVing for 3 decades we obviously understand floorplan is important, more so for towable RVs, we have had TTs, 5ers, and toyhaulers, but this was our first incursion into motorized RVs. IMO, with used class a rigs, floorplan takes a close second to upkeep of powertrain and chassis by previous owners.

Our diligence finally paid off, we had the inside track to a low mileage, well kept Monaco in neighboring TX, owners were in their 80's and willing to wait for us to view it first. Our purchase occurred late July the first summer of the pandemic, TX was a hotbed for the virus as it roared through our country.

Not an issue, we simply followed CDC guidelines, downside we could not find anyone willing to do inspection. Owners were great and allowed us to stay 3 days in rig, I was able to drive and test house and chassis systems. We even enjoyed a couple of TX state parks, NM closed all state parks indefinitely.