motor home mpg

Toyota
If you eat healthy you may end up being the only one in the hospital cuz all your junkfood junkie friends will be dead.

I had a 27 ft TT for a few years. Never liked towing it. Just too dangerous. Also had a 25 ft Class A MH. Was perfect for the two of us plus my pre teen son. However, sold it a few years back because I worked overseas and my wife was not going to use it by herself. Now that we've been retired for 10 years or so I am looking at a way to get around the state of Florida and maybe a couple of the southern states comfortably. I really like the idea of having our home with us wherever we go. If you have a car and stay at hotels then you are always changing sleeping arrangements. Lugging stuff in and out and victims to what ever neighbors you have in the next rooms. Of course you're always eating unhealthy food. Every rest stop that you visit there is no where to sit down and relax. And, of course you have to use the public facilities which can sometimes be unclean and possibly dangerous at night. We just have to make sure that we get the right type of MH (Class C 21-24 feet)and that it's in the best shape possible when we buy it. By the way, when we travel now we stay at Hampton Inns at $100 per day as we don't like surprises juggling where we stay. And $80 per day is less than $15 per person per meal. If I were eating out in my small Florida town I might get away with $10 per person. But, on the road things are more expensive. With a MH you can eat healthy and a lot less expensively.

Floridastorm wrote:
Glad to hear that you are happy with your Prius. However, I wonder when you include hotels (My wife and I would never stay in a hotel that was less than $100 per night as we enjoy comfort and safety) and food (we don't do fast food) at $80 per day, if a MH would not be less expensive. The food you have in the MH is the same as you have at home, so no extra expense. And RV parks are 1/3 the price of a hotel. Also, do you do tent camping? You talk about a Pup. I guess if you stay in tents things would be less expensive.

We value safety and comfort, too, but it is very rare for us to pay more than $85/nt on a hotel room. Just takes a bit of advance planning, usually. As for food, I don't think we have ever spent $80 in a day. We always bring our own breakfast foods, utensils, plates, and cups. Sometimes we take advantage of the free hotel breakfast, if it's decent. Our big meal of the day is always lunch and I'm like you--we don't do fast food, except for McDonald's coffee and choc chip cookies (fast food crack!) We find a nice enough restaurant and we always share a meal (neither of us can eat an entire meal alone.) Or if we really want different things we'll order separate meals and take half of it back to the cooler in the car, to eat for dinner later. We always carry fruit, salad & dressing, grilled or fried chicken, cheese, and bread. Oh, and boloney. Gotta have my boloney sandwiches!

We save a blue TON of money on gas by driving the Prius and it rides well. Would we rather be towing again? Well, that's complicated. Some days we sorely miss having the truck and camper so we could just pack up and go. But, realistically, our health has taken some big hits in the last 3 years. I don't really know how much we would actually use the camper and truck now. Better for us to just park it at a place we love and use the Prius (and requisite cooler) for day trips.

Floridastorm wrote:
Hello Folks,

I am a mechanical idiot (Contracts Manager my entire career)and know next to nothing about engines with the exception to what I read. Am still considering a motor home for getting around Florida and Georgia in retirement.

Can you help me with the reasoning behind the inability of engine manufacturers to produce an RV engine that can get decent gasoline mileage. I worked with engineers my entire career and don't really understand why they would not want to build this type of engine considering the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of motor homes built every year. Is it a physical problem or scientific? I would imagine this would address the trucking industry also.

Also, is it better to use premium gasoline compared to regular in a motor home? How about synthetic oil as compared to standard oil?

Motorhomes are heavy and square,not conducive to a good mpg no matter what engine they use..
Still there are some interesting inventions that would improve ice efficiency,why dont automakers use them is one of those million $ questions
For the mechanicaly inclined heres a couple

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-1009-what-ever-happened-to-smokeys-hot-vapor-engine/

http://www.coatesengine.com


Wonder how much would mpg improve if motorhome design was similar to this bullet train
https://youtu.be/ybWFO_YbKgE

Glad to hear that you are happy with your Prius. However, I wonder when you include hotels (My wife and I would never stay in a hotel that was less than $100 per night as we enjoy comfort and safety) and food (we don't do fast food) at $80 per day, if a MH would not be less expensive. The food you have in the MH is the same as you have at home, so no extra expense. And RV parks are 1/3 the price of a hotel. Also, do you do tent camping? You talk about a Pup. I guess if you stay in tents things would be less expensive.

Jebby14 wrote:
prius and hotel combo. if you aren't happy burning some dino juice this is the wrong path for you

I had to laugh at this. That's exactly what we've done. We parked our TT permanently 3 years ago, due to health issues. Sold the truck *which got 13mpg on a good day* and bought a Prius, which gets 50mpg. The first time we went camping we felt a little tug at our heart. It was too easy--just throw the clothes and the pup into the Prius and drive to the campground. Hook up the water and power and voila! We're camping in 10 minutes. At the end of the trip we clean up, unhook, and drive off. THAT was the great part!

Since then, we've enjoyed traveling with the Prius and staying in hotels. It costs less than towing the trailer and getting a campsite (I don't do Flying J or Walmart.)

To address the original topic: I have no experience with a MH, but when we went cross-country in 2007 with our TT I was unprepared for how bad our mileage was going to be. Thankfully, we had reserve funds but I'm telling you there were times when we were in the Rockies that we got a blistering 6mpg!

looks like the best MH at 12 mpg will save you about $200 over the one of the worst (avg) - 8 mpg on 2000 mile trip.. if you you factor in the comfort afforded seems like a no brainer..

This is all true. However, many times the previous owners of an older motor home have already repaired and replaced a lot of the appliances and accessories, especially good if they have receipts for the work. Also, there may be new tires, brakes, and other assorted consumables on the unit that one purchases. So, there may not be a necessity to incur high costs for these items going forward. The thing that I would worry about, with an older unit, is the engine, transmission, and drive trane. Possibly the optimum idea would be to purchase a used motor home, that is not only in the best shape possible, but that falls within the maximum years allowed by a service contract. I think it is mostly 12 years but some are 15 years. At least that would protect against engine, transmission, and drive trane failure. The only other option, for me, is to purchase a new or late model used MH that still has the warranty and where the components are still in good shape. I can afford payments over a 12 to 15 year period and my credit score is over 800. If one is going to an RV dealer to purchase a MH what is the rule of thumb on pricing? I have heard that you should offer 30% under the listed price to start with. Any ideas if this is correct?

There are a lot of systems on a motorhome that are not in a truck. All of those systems will eventually need repair or replacement. Just as you do not expect the refrigerator in your house to last forever, the refrigerator in your coach will eventually need replacement. Just with anything else, the better you take care of it, the more years you can expect to keep it. The other issue in a motorhome is you are moving all of this down the road. So you need to expect that you will need to repair and replace as time goes on.

We did the math and it was much less expensive for us to do the repairs than purchase a new one. We love the 2004 coach we have and hope to enjoy it for many more years to come.

Problem:

Everything is older and closer to its life expectancy. Everything. And it is much more likely to stop working or need replacing sooner than on a newer unit. Could be a fridge or a pipe or maybe the roof. Just the fridge and the roof could easily cost 5-7k.