Noob with some questions about pop ups
All this is my first post here and I am looking for a short bed pop up camper. In my area I am seeing two pop ups both between 1500 and 2000 dollars. There is a 1996 eagle light and a 2005 bronco po...
Forum Discussion
....another way to look at this is:
-if you buy a used pop-up that appears to be in good condition for $1000/$2000 and put absolutely no money into it, if you get to use it for just 2 years (say you discover some part of the camper is in horrific shape, like the structure), and discard it, it cost you just $500/$1000 per year (if you manage to go 3 years, then it only cost you $333/$666 per year.
-we look at it thus: we paid $16,000 for our pop-up brand new, and had originally planned to use it for 10 years (the effective lifespan of a typical 100% wood structure truck camper; however, ours is about 90% aluminum structure and 60:40 fiberglass to wood exterior, including roof structure ratio); so our cost of ownership works out to $1600 per year (or, if we sell it at 10 years at "projected market", it would have cost us only ~~$600 per year out of pocket: assuming we put nothing into the camper but time/sweat, and special post-purchase electrical equipment we can repatriate before selling it).
So concluding, if you just get 2, 3 or even 4 years out of a $1000/$2000 used pop-up in decent shape, and you put not one cent into maintenance (why bother?), it will only cost you $500/$1000 or, best case 4 years of use: $250/$500 per year, then you scrap it (or, sell it for parts for $300), this is fantastic!
*We have been in several Broncos when we were out researching pop-ups, and if you can get one used for a few dollars, and can get 2, 3 or 4 years out of it before scrapping it, then great. A Bronco pop-up that is 10+ years old (in any condition) I would expect to be in the $500 ~ $1200 range ($500 range being a max 1 year usage; $1200 range being max 2~4 years useful life-- before substantial structural repairs need to be done).
-if you buy a used pop-up that appears to be in good condition for $1000/$2000 and put absolutely no money into it, if you get to use it for just 2 years (say you discover some part of the camper is in horrific shape, like the structure), and discard it, it cost you just $500/$1000 per year (if you manage to go 3 years, then it only cost you $333/$666 per year.
-we look at it thus: we paid $16,000 for our pop-up brand new, and had originally planned to use it for 10 years (the effective lifespan of a typical 100% wood structure truck camper; however, ours is about 90% aluminum structure and 60:40 fiberglass to wood exterior, including roof structure ratio); so our cost of ownership works out to $1600 per year (or, if we sell it at 10 years at "projected market", it would have cost us only ~~$600 per year out of pocket: assuming we put nothing into the camper but time/sweat, and special post-purchase electrical equipment we can repatriate before selling it).
So concluding, if you just get 2, 3 or even 4 years out of a $1000/$2000 used pop-up in decent shape, and you put not one cent into maintenance (why bother?), it will only cost you $500/$1000 or, best case 4 years of use: $250/$500 per year, then you scrap it (or, sell it for parts for $300), this is fantastic!
*We have been in several Broncos when we were out researching pop-ups, and if you can get one used for a few dollars, and can get 2, 3 or 4 years out of it before scrapping it, then great. A Bronco pop-up that is 10+ years old (in any condition) I would expect to be in the $500 ~ $1200 range ($500 range being a max 1 year usage; $1200 range being max 2~4 years useful life-- before substantial structural repairs need to be done).
