Travel Trailer

[Melanie3117]

Help! Too many brands to pick from. Looking at Puma Palomino. 28rkss. Any advice on a new trailer this size?

[CincyGus]

Fizz wrote:
Once you narrow it down have a good try-out session.
Kick out the salesman for 30+ min and live in it. Try the bed, the dinette. Cook a pretend meal. Watch TV. Sit on the toilet, step in the tub for a pretend shower.
Bring in the whole family if you can, repeat the whole process.
No matter how well built, you will never be happy if the floor plans isn't to your liking after a few weeks.

Best advice of the entire thread although I'm not disputing any of the other fine words of wisdom.

Don't rush the decision. We spent 3-4 weekends walking a huge dealer that's about 5 miles from my house and sitting in, pretending to do all the things we would do in a camper, together with our daughter who would always be going with us and one of her friends who would often be going with us. Do this eliminated about 60%-70% of the campers when we actually tried to sit 4 people in some of the smaller dinettes and act like we were cutting meat, eating a pork chop or steak. Trying to find a spot where we could all watch TV if it was pouring and we were stuck inside and wanted to watch a movie. 5 mins of pretending to made you realize this is going to kill my neck, sitting in this position. Try making the bed (take the comforter of and then put it back on in one of those beds that you can't hardly walk around. Look closely at storage space in the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen area along with passthrough. Will all your camping stuff fit?

If you find one that you can pretend to live in for 20-30 minutes, you likely have found one that won't annoy the heck out of you after you own it! Best of luck in making your decision!

[Ex-Tech]

Cougar, Tracer Breeze, Springdale.

[Fizz]

Once you narrow it down have a good try-out session.
Kick out the salesman for 30+ min and live in it. Try the bed, the dinette. Cook a pretend meal. Watch TV. Sit on the toilet, step in the tub for a pretend shower.
Bring in the whole family if you can, repeat the whole process.
No matter how well built, you will never be happy if the floor plans isn't to your liking after a few weeks.

[wa8yxm]

Only advice I give applies to all RV's
As you travel the water changes. If you drink water, or products made from water. then sooner or later you are going to suffere...er... Afterefects.

When this happens the length of "Just a minute" depends entirely on which side of a door you are on.

So my advice is a Bath and a half floor plan.. 2 holes.. No waiting.

[mlh]

I just purchased a similarly sized unit (29QBSS). We travel less than what we used to. The Class C I owned wasn't being used enough so we went back to a travel trailer. I had just purchased a ram 1500 crew ecodiesel with 3.92 rear axle a few months prior. I pulled it home from the dealer and it was a terrible ride. Once I weighed it, I realized it was at max payload without anyone else or anything in the truck. I immediately traded it for a ram 2500 with the 6.4 gas engine. It was like a night and day difference.

Now on to the quality. Puma's may be considered entry level, but entry level has come a long way. I had previously owned a Puma TT and loved everything about it except that we outgrew it. It is this reason that I stayed with the Puma line. The one I bought (29QBSS) had all the features and options that I wish my class C had. It is built on a wooden frame with aluminum siding, but in my opinion, there are trade offs either way. Mine may be more prone to water leaks, but will not delaminate like fiberglass if it does leak. I keep it stored under a permanent cover, so the rain won't be constantly looking for ways to get in. I once told a friend who was shopping for a TT to go look inside several models that are cheaper as well as more expensive to get an idea of the build quality of each, and make your decision from there.

[scbwr]

First of all, you need to look at a lot of trailers from different manufacturers and not only look at the floor plan but really look for differences in quality of construction and fit and finish. Personally, I'd buy better quality used than entry level new. Based upon our experiences with our 2014 Minnie 2201DS (a smaller trailer), consider taking a look at the Winnebago Minnie 2606RL:
https://winnebagoind.com/products/travel-trailer/2019/minnie/floorplans
Or,look as some of the trailers by Grand Design which is now owned by Winnebago. Although now owned by Thor, take a look at Jayco trailers. When we bought the Winnebago, we also looked at Jayco trailers but liked the features of the Minnie line more than the Jayo lines.

And, you may get more helpful advice if you supply a little more information as to how you plan to camp/travel, number of adults and kids, etc. For kids, I still like the idea of a hybrid with the ability to have a more tent-like experience when possible. Being older (soon to be grandpa), we like the comforts of our MH, but I still have great memories of camping with the kids in a popup trailer.

If you can find a slightly used quality trailer, and then be happy with it for 5 to 6 years or more, you will save a lot of bucks and those bucks can be used for traveling and camping.

[myredracer]

Specs say that TT is 33' long with a GVWR of 8800 lbs. That is getting to be a long-ish TT. If it were me, I wouldn't tow it with anything less than a 3/4 ton truck, especially if planning to do lots of miles and/or towing in hilly territory. Expect actual height weight to be up to around 1100-1200 lbs and maybe a bit more and then you can have 400-500 lbs and upwards of cargo in the TV. Always ignore dry weight when assessing tow vehicle requirements.

I would suggest that you can get similar interior features and layout in a shorter rear kitchen trailer. One thing I see lacking in the Puma is a closet for a place to hang jackets and store all sorts of things. We have a closet in our slide and couldn't do without it. Rear kitchen models are great but the location of sinks can eat up a lot of otherwise valuable counterspace. Our rear kitchen TT for example has a pantry at the rear and doesn't have an angled sink and is 29' long overall. This layout used to be made by a few manufacturers and not sure if the exact layout is still available. Great layout for the two of us plus dog. The majority of TTs have little kitchen counter space which you may not notice before you buy the TT.

If this is your first TT, besides renting or borrowing one, some campgrounds have permanent rental units on site that you can rent. There's all sorts of things you can discover about a TT after you buy one and it's better to learn about features and shortcomings before you buy one. Our first introduction to a TT was one we rented in a CG in OR and was very helpful.

Another thing to consider is the "quality" of the particular dealer. Some can be awful to deal with and some are inept at carrying out repairs properly, if at all (BTDT, with 2 dealers).

[DarkSkySeeker]

Melanie3117 wrote:
Help! Too many brands to pick from. Looking at Puma Palomino. 28rkss. Any advice on a new trailer this size?

My wife and I attended an RV show and sought out toy haulers. Then when we sat in a bunkhouse unit with good living space, it was obvious this was the right coach for us.

Normally I am more analytical than this, but ultimately the decision was based on the feeling of sitting in a more open floorplan, and we dropped out preoccupation with the toy haulers in favor of comfort.

[bikendan]

Melanie3117 wrote:
Help! Too many brands to pick from. Looking at Puma Palomino. 28rkss. Any advice on a new trailer this size?

what's your tow vehicle and its specs?

[doxiemom11]

Friends who are trailer owners started with one that did not have much closet space, and you could not walk around the bed. When they bought a new one, those were included in it's features and they were much much happier with it. Is the shower big enough to use? Can you use the bathroom with any slides in? ( You may want to when traveling) How about getting in the frig or using the stovetop. We bought our rv used 10 yrs ago and have never been sorry. Don't rule out an older one/ higher quality for your same budget amount.

[DarkSkySeeker]

DutchmenSport wrote:
During the first year, it's expected you'll have warranty repairs, which will get fixed, but not without undue stress on you, and then going into the second year of ownership, you'll probably be OK. However, you will need to continue to persistently work and to maintain the camper to keep it in top shape.

Well put.

[DrewE]

wrktfsh wrote:

DutchmenSport wrote:
The true length of that camper is 33 feet. Don't let the model number of any RV trick you into think that is the true length of the camper. The true length of any camper is never identified in that model number. The most you can hope for is that number reflects the floor length inside the camper. But this is very seldom really true either.

Isn’t that the truth. I tried to figure out how keystone gave our trailer a “241” number. The box is 20’ over all it’s 26’

Maybe Keystone had 240 models designed prior to coming up with yours?

I sometimes wish RV makers used model numbers that clearly had nothing to do with length rather than sort of kind of approximating it somehow; I think it might reduce confusion in the long term.

[prichardson]

I second drsteve. If this is your first you will find after some use that your idea of what features are important will change.

[drsteve]

If this is your first camper, consider buying used.

That said, the most important consideration is the floorplan. If the floorplan doesn't work for you, everything else is irrelevant.