Community Forums

creativepart · 09-22-2019, 09:00 PM

Th is article gets the RV quality issue just right:
https://www.curbed.com/2019/9/18/208...s-poor-quality

NXR · 09-22-2019, 10:05 PM

Meh. When I read comments like this I already know the slant of the article: "The rule, typically, is don’t buy a new RV. If you buy a new RV, you’re going to be sitting in a dealership for two years getting it fixed."

And then there is this:

"They lived permanently aboard the Winnebago motorhome they purchased from a dealer for about $140,000"...

“The suspension was really bad,” Tom says. “Whenever we went over 45 miles per hour on a two-lane road, it was a challenge to keep it on the road.”...

"The trailers and camper vans they used to own tended to bounce up and down as they drove, a symptom of their leaf spring suspension systems, which is why they switched to a motorhome. Tom and Becky anticipated suspension that more closely mirrored that of an automobile: some bouncing, but certainly less than their previous units. Instead, they shelled out $2,500 to outfit their new RV with additional suspension."...

"Tom and Becky Olesh already knew that, yet they still had to re-learn that lesson the hard way. Late last year they bought a house in Florida. Now they split their time between the Sunshine State and their new motorhome. It’s a 2008 Monaco Diplomat, a unit they purchased this spring for $97,000—but not before offloading the RV that required extra suspension."

So, they had RV'd for years, knew their travel trailers bounced around so they decided to go for a motorhome, paid $140K for a new motorhome, lived in it full-time, spent $2,500 on suspension changes (1.8% of the purchase price), and decided to sell it undoubtedly at a big loss to buy a house and a 10+ year-old motorhome? Sounds like a plan to me.

Maybe they did some homework before buying the Monaco, because it sure sounds like they sure didn't do that with the Winnebago. I mean, really? What did their test drives consist of before they signed the contract?

I think many of these problems leads back to a change where people no longer want to or know how to do things for themselves. "Call the guy" is the common phrase I hear. That's akin to dropping an RV at the dealer for a non-showstopper issue and waiting weeks to get it back. What do people expect to do when they are a few states away and their dealer is a thousand miles in the wrong direction?

Ray