Daughter and I went to the Rv show in Grand Rapids last night to check things out. Four hours of wall to wall people and countless Rv's was enough as everything becomes a blur after awhile. So anyway here are some of my totally random thoughts I came away with.
Class B vans. I love the idea of these things. You can park just about anywhere where there is a campsite, urban camping, etc. I remember going thru a few last year at the show but I took a closer look this year. They are much smaller in person than what it appears on YouTube videos. I am 6'4" and 220# and it is literally impossible for me to use the shower in these things. I stood in one and shut the door, it isn't happening. If I were single and wanted a van I would build my own and simplify it plus they are ridiculously expensive. The size and $$ pretty much eliminated any dream of owning one.
Slide outs. I noticed on some of the high end diesel pushers they have excellent slide out construction. The outer fascia/trim is one with the slide, in other words it appears to be built as one piece with no joints just all fiberglass. That may have not made sense but those that have them probably know what I mean. Wish they were all made that way.
Indiana construction pretty much all the same. High end, low end, so called good ones and the bad ones are all junk pretty much. Lippert I feel has way too much going on here. The "higher end" ones just have more expensive stuff but workmanship is the same I feel.
I wish there were some true full time rated manufacturers there and maybe there were some, I just not sure which ones are rated full time. All the units we looked at were pretty much made in Indiana, wish I could have seen Arctic Fox for example. I won't bash manufactures by name as I don't want to offend anybody but one really popular and fairly new manufacture that has become a rock star among buyers, I cannot figure out what the hype is. The construction methods and workmanship I didn't feel was any better than others in their category, it was in one of their high end line of 5ers that had the spongiest floor. I haven't figured out that one yet or drank the koolaid either. Another long time and well respected manufactures high end line of 5ers that looked impressive at first glance was sloppily built. I know that these two manufactures were recently sold so between that and building at a frantic pace to keep up with demand isn't helping matters. I always cringe when I see smaller manufacturers being sold out as more often than not it does not end well. Anyway, the Indiana way of building sucks. If I had to pick a favorite that I seen yesterday it would have been the Cedar Creek followed by Montana
Not a fan of the two door bathrooms in fifth wheels. That's always a deal killer for us, such a inefficient use of space. Why do we need a separate door into the bathroom from the bedroom just to save 1 step? I'm not saying all are this way but i'm talking about the ones that leave you with a small corner shower and a poor placement of the tv in the bedroom because of the bed/bath door. It's a popular design among manufactures. Thats one of the reasons we ended up with what we have, a real shower with a true pocket door into the bath from the hall.
So there you have it, a snippet of my $.02 and ramblings of my likes and dislikes at the show this year.:B
Dan
2019 Chevy crew LTZ 2500 HD Duramax
2017 Wildcat 29rlx fifth wheel
