Thor Palazzo The Good Bad And Ugly Please

We really liked that 36.1 floor plan but after a couple of weeks researching them we passed. Just make sure you compare apples to apples. The Palazzo is a entry level Pusher. Tiffin would be the Allegro Reds, and Newmar is the Ventana. As someone said really look at how they are built, and try not to drool over the paint and televisions glitz.

Thank you to everyone that had experience with the Palazzo as well as those who shared an opinion. I've heard about the slide issue and that Thor said they've fixed it and I will be cautious as I look at Thor and other manufactures products.
Best wishes to all for continued good luck, safe and enjoyable journeys with your rigs.

We went to the Hershey RV show and looked at all of the so called entry level DP. We weren't at all impressed with the build quality of the Palazzo. We thought the Newmar made one of the best DP available so we purchased a 2016 Ventana LE 4037. This coach is the real deal and for the capacity, chassis, features, it is not really entry level. Don't overlook this line, and good luck.

You went through hell and back with that coach and glad to hear things are better....

As far as the large slide out goes, I am happy to report a little over a year since Thor upgraded it to triple rails, it is still holding up. That's the good. The ugly is what it took to get to that point and the worry that anytime I open the slide it might still self destruct. I think everyone here has pretty much echoed my comments almost verbatim, so we don't need to go their anymore. The bad, well, there's not too much I can think of other than just normal repairs and fixes, all I have done myself.

We just made a trip to New Orleans and then back up to East TN and back home to eastern NC. The Palazzo drives great and rides good. After the trip the only thing I had to fix was a screw that had backed out in the floor. I had to cut the vinyl flooring to fix that. After gluing the vinyl back down, you can't tell where I cut it.

If the three or four year old unit has the Schwintek in wall slide on anything larger than a small slide I would pass.

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.

Personally, I think their body style and paint makes them look nice and stand out. I think many people don't look past this though. If you look at the hinges on the bay doors, for example, they used some weird kind of metal mechanism, at least on the one I looked at. There first production of the Palazzo used the Schwinteck (sp) slide mechanism. It's not a bad mechanism, but it had a weight limit. Palazzo exceeded that limit and the large slide kept failing. Their solution was to add more Schwintek slide rails to the coach.

Make no mistake, it's an entry level diesel. Spend some time and look at the fit/finish, pull some drawers out, look behind cabinets, under the hood at wiring and under the coach. You can then decide if it's a good value at the price.

Here is the short version of what happened with the Palazzo as reported

1. Customer had terrible slide problems among other things. Thor stepped up
and agreed to give him a brand new RV.

2. As the new RV was being delivered, it was totaled in a wreck.

3. Thor once again stepped up, gave him the next higher level RV. This one
made it into the hands of the customer.

As far as I know, all is good.

In the near future there should plenty of Palazzos for sale because they have got plenty of bad rap on the forums. I personally don't know anyone that has one so I can't judge but I also like the 36.1 floor plan.