Used Jaycos

[stargirl96]

During our search for used Class C's I noticed that there are few used Grayhawks and Redhawks on the market compared with other makes and models. Is it because they don't produce as many or do people keep them longer? I see more often Tiogas, Chateaus, Freelanders, and some really old Winnebagos.

[bagman]

I hope they leave Jayco alone too!

[j-d]

Unless I'm mistaken, Thor bought Airstream and has pretty much left it alone. Another way to look at acquisitions is to buy the competition so they are no longer competitors.

[crasster]

Jayco has historically been an "ok" coach, especially in travel trailers. It all depends on what Thor does with them.

[bagman]

I Googled "Thor Buys Jayco," and that gives me much concern, because our next motor home was going to be a Jayco, but if Thor decides to cheapen Jayco with lower quality materials and lesser quality workmanship, I'll look elsewhere! For me, Jayco offered the best bang for the buck. Personally, I have never been a fan of Thor. No disrespect to the Thor owners here, but this new acquisition could change everything for my wife and I. So we'll see how all this shakes out! Bagman.

[Mike__Rose]

We owned a 2008 Greyhawk 31 SS by Jayco and loved it. We just trained it in for a park model destination RV because we decided to go seasonal. We liked our model because I could sit up in the queen loft bed over the cab. The newer models have a streamed lined front thus cutting the overhead room. No issues with our Greyhawk and we went seasonal 3 years ago and thus "lived" in our Greyhawk for 6 months each season and held up with everything running and being used all those years. No need for a motor now and thus our decision. When we do travel we will just drive to a campground and rent a cabin or RV rental unit.

[JT]

An FYI: Thor bought Jayco recently. This change wouldn't affect older Jayco models, obviously, but going by the overall build quality of other Thor products, carefully vetting the new offerings coming off the lines under the "Jayco" name would be a good idea.

[DouglasC]

As "tatest" has stated, one of the reasons that there are fewer used Jayco Class C motorhomes for sale is that Jayco produces far fewer vehicles than the "big" guys (Thor, Forest River & Winnebago) do. That being said, another reason may be that Jayco owners are satisfied owners and they do keep there motorhomes for a long time. That is certainly our case. My wife and I have been RVing for 31 years and have owned 7 motorhomes during that time. Most were kept for only 3 to 5 years but our current Jayco Greyhawk is now 11 years old and we still LOVE it.

Jayco is the only manufacturer in the business which still offers a 2 year warranty (vs the "standard" 1 year) and they do stand behind their products. We have had few problems with our motorhome but a couple were significant and Jayco fixed them for free even thought we were then out of warranty. IF they deem the problem to be due to a manufacturing defect, they will fix a problem when the motorhome is out of warranty.

We highly recommend Jayco products!

[j-d]

We bought our Jayco from a couple that retired to FL, but they originally bought it in PA or NJ, I forget which. We see WAY more Jayco trailers than Class C's.

That said, we saw one in a FL campground this week, an Eagle. The layout looked more like a Greyhawk than our Escapade. First, it had a slide and we don't. Second, it was a basement design (deeper storage compartments) and ours has shallower storage. We didn't want the "house" floor any higher than the cockpit than ours is. A very few Class C's still have the house floor about level with the cockpit. The reason it matters is that a basement Class C has no view out the cockpit windshield from the house.

[tatest]

Redhawk is a fairly new name from Jayco. The Greyhawk name was around for much of the first decade of 21st century, either entry level or sandwiched between Escapade and premium Granite Ridge line. Before that, you will find Jayco's Eagle brand on C's. Jayco has also used the Melbourne name, formerly for their B+ on Ford chassis, more recently on a C on Sprinter chassis.

Jayco is historically a lower volume producer of C's than Thor's Fourwind division (selling Fourwinds, Chateau and Dutchmen brands), Fleetwood (Tioga and Jamboree), Coachmen (Freedom, Freelander, Leprechaun) or Forest River (Sunseeker and Forester), all of which supplied the rental industry with model lines positioned below the Greyhawk in price, trim and features. Jayco was in this market only briefly with the Escapade line.

Availability used will also depend on where you are looking. For a long time Jayco had less extensive dealer coverage, both regionally and in sheer number of dealers because of having exclusive territories. Thor got around this by offering three essentially identical brands so dealer territories could overlap. You will probably find more used Jaycos in the Great Lakes region than here in Oklahoma.