Personal experience with having slides and no slides?

Love our 3 slides in our fifth. Yes, things happen. Most people have had a flat tire, but they don't stop camping. Enjoy your new room

People who don't have slides say you don't need them. People who have slides say they couldn't live without them. Advantage of slides is obviously more room. Disadvantage is slides add weight and reduces your fuel mileage........a bit.

Of all the "things" on or in an RV that can cause problems, slides are way down below a whole bunch of other stuff.

Personally we started with a diesel pusher with no slides and moved up to one with two slides. We really liked the first one and really like the second one, except it has more room, and slightly less fuel mileage.

Our first travel trailer was a Dutchmen Sport Lite (total length 24 feet). It had no slides.

Our second was a Keystone Springdale TT (total length 31 feet). It had no slides.

Our third was a Keystone Outback TT (total length 35 feet). It had 3 slides. It was a rear living room, and both opposing sides were slides. It also had a slide in the bedroom, which was a closet.

Our 4th is a Keystone Montana High Country 5er (total length 41 feet). It has 4 slides. Front living - opposing slides - 2, Kitchen refrigerator and dining table, and the bed in the rear bedroom.

Dependability of the slides? I've never had a problem. It's just that simple.

But I think we followed a basic principle and never deviated from it. And that is the simple fact, the slides were (are) never extracted until the trailer is level and the stabilizer jacks, or the leveling system is on the ground. Only on a couple very rare occasions did we ever extend a slide while hitched to the tow vehicle. If doing an over night, I might have left the TT hitched, but only if the trailer was somewhat level, and then I'd always lower the 4 stabilizer jacks.

Second, I NEVER retracted the slides without sweeping off the slide roofs. NEVER. This safeguards small sticks, twigs, leaves from punching holes in the rubber seals, causing leaks. My current 5er has a ladder on the back and has a walkable roof. It's sooooo nice to get up on the roof now and use a long handled painters wand with a soft RV brush on the end and sweep them off, opposing using a 7 foot step ladder and having to reach over the top and try to keep the ladder stable on uneven ground.

Third, I treat my rubber slides a couple times a year with rubber slide cleaner, and this also affords an opportunity to inspect them carefully for damage. I've never found damage.

I don't know if these three practices are the secret to my success, but all I can say is, I've never had problems with the slides.

FYI... in a lot of ways, the non-slide trailers were less of a hassle. On the negative side, my wife and I played butt-bumpity-bumpity passing each other all the time. We don't have that "togetherness" any more with the slides. (I kind of miss that).

Our previous 33 ft Class A had no slides and we made many happy memories with it. For years I said I didn't want the added complexity of slides, but then my wife came across a newer 34' Class A for sale that had a single 14 ft "super slide". When she took me to see it, I was fully expecting to find all sorts of reasons why we shouldn't buy it, beginning with the access that would be lost with the slide retracted. But on arrival, I was surprised to find that I was wrong in this case, and no access was lost at all except one seldom used outlet. Everything else checked out with just a few minor issues that I could easily fix. We ended up buying it since the floorplan fit our fulltiming needs quite well. Now some years later, there's no way I would want to go back to no slides again. The larger living space just makes the coach much more home like, and our slide has been trouble free except for a simple $12 switch replacement a few years ago. So there you go, we've been on both sides, and are now solidly pro slide.

we're on our 5 camper, all with slides. Wouldn't own a camper without them as the extra room they provide is great. Never had a problem with them but I do follow the same preventative procedures as DutchmanSport above.

Slides make a small RV big. Wouldn’t buy an RV without slides.

A slide is not going to change your mileage enough that you would be able to measure. That would be the worst reason to not get a slide. We have never had a slide issue in 10 years with them.

One thing about travelling by yourself, you don't need the extra space to get out of somebody's way. All slides do is open up floor space. You could have a square dance inside with some of them.

Coming from the cruising boating world, where there are no slides, everything was compact & easy to reach, much like a 28-30' class C with no slides.

Slides are simple mostly reliable things. If you find a unit with slides that steals your heart, get it. Best if you can find a low mileage, well cared for used than paying top dollar for a new & have to work all the bugs out of it.

we done it both ways and even though we've had issues with our wall slides on our current MH we still would rather have them than not.

most of the issues we've had are related to encountering missing pavement on a narrow 2-lane country road in Alabama a few years back. we were running about 15-20 mph and rounding a right hand curve. at the apex of the curve I saw that the right half of the right lane was gone. the section of missing roadway was 4' wide, about 20' long and 7-10" deep (best guess). I hit the skids but could not stop. we rocked twice which broke the resi fridge loose dropping against the opposite counter. I thought we were gonna tip over.

some damage to the slides was immediately found but some did not materialize until a couple of years and many open/close cycles later. despite all that we'd rather have the room than live in a hallway. no leaks or other issues.

Our first trailer had no slides. our second had a 16" deep step up super slide. the one after that had a 30" deep flush floor super slide. its nice to have the elbow room and being able to turn around inside without worrying what you were going to bump into. we now have a class A with 3 slides. We love the extra room it offers. in 14 year of owning slides we have never had any kind of issue. the weight penalty is minimal for the space they provide!