Thor Palazzo The Good Bad And Ugly Please
Went to the annual RV Show at th Pomona Fairgrounds and we really liked the Thor Palazzo. The units we liked were the he 35.1 and 36.1, but I am concern d about what is priced as an entry level diesel...
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A Thor dealer once described the Palazzo to me as " an ACE on a Freightliner chassis". Don't get me wrong, I like my ACE but I wouldn't pay $100k more for it just to have a DP chassis. The moral here is that the chassis is the same as many other DP's, the house is entry level to drive down cost. Not knocking on Thor, I like them. But would I buy a Palazzo? No. Would I buy one with a full wall slide? Heck no! Would I buy a used full wall slide with a Schwintek? Shoot me first.
As others have said the black eye on the Palazzo was the full wall slides. Mind you this issue occurred across a lot of brands that used the Schwintek mechanisms. Winnie I know had a lot of issues as well. The "fix" was to add another rail. More like a band aid and not confidence inspiring if you ask me, but I haven't heard of many recent issues so maybe it worked.
But I would caution against a 2-3 year old unit of any brand with a full wall schwintek slide. These are the known problems and people dumped them. I am starting to see a lot of used Palazzos and Forzas many coming with a "lifetime warranty" likely because of the slide.
If it were me, I would be looking at brands that do not use this mechanism at all. I know it narrows the field but there are competitively priced entry level DP's out there (Ventana LE comes to mind). Maybe go a few years older. When I window shop on line it seems like if you look at DP's that are pre-2008 the build quality is noticeably better across the board. All manufacturers got "cheap" on build quality in recent years. Fine if you are only buying a weekender entry level model and know what you are sacrificing for cost, not so good if you want a good quality RV. Some still put some quality in them but it sounds like your budget can't support that price range.
As others have said the black eye on the Palazzo was the full wall slides. Mind you this issue occurred across a lot of brands that used the Schwintek mechanisms. Winnie I know had a lot of issues as well. The "fix" was to add another rail. More like a band aid and not confidence inspiring if you ask me, but I haven't heard of many recent issues so maybe it worked.
But I would caution against a 2-3 year old unit of any brand with a full wall schwintek slide. These are the known problems and people dumped them. I am starting to see a lot of used Palazzos and Forzas many coming with a "lifetime warranty" likely because of the slide.
If it were me, I would be looking at brands that do not use this mechanism at all. I know it narrows the field but there are competitively priced entry level DP's out there (Ventana LE comes to mind). Maybe go a few years older. When I window shop on line it seems like if you look at DP's that are pre-2008 the build quality is noticeably better across the board. All manufacturers got "cheap" on build quality in recent years. Fine if you are only buying a weekender entry level model and know what you are sacrificing for cost, not so good if you want a good quality RV. Some still put some quality in them but it sounds like your budget can't support that price range.
