Need advice on motorhome purchase please

[okcnewbie]

Originally Posted by DurangoNick

We love our Bounder that we've been traveling in for over a year. Get an inspection. You're buying a house.
https://nrvia.org/locate/

Which inspection did you go with? How much and what findings?

[leslie1988]

Thank you everyone for the advice. I decided to go with a 2000 damon intruder 36ft. I got a better deal on it. It also only has 60,000 miles on it. How hard is a motor home to drive? What is the best type of gas to us? Is regular ok or should I use mid grade or premium?

[TonyMac]

Originally Posted by leslie1988

How hard is a motor home to drive? What is the best type of gas to us? Is regular ok or should I use mid grade or premium?

A motorhome is easy to drive, an F-4 is easy to fly, once you know how to. A motorhome is easy to learn to drive, but unlearning all your car paradigms, ways of thinking and doing things, is hard. Think of it as a school bus full of kids, and drive accordingly. You need to square your corners; pull far into an intersection before turning or you'll run your rear wheels where you don't want to. Increase your following distance; when someone pulls into your following distance, increase it again. Pick a lane and stay there until you have to change.

Read the books and use whatever octane is called for by the manufacturer. You cannot save money using cheap fuel.

[TonyMac]

For fuel, I think cents per mile, not miles per gallon.

[okcnewbie]

Lazydays and others have driving videos on youtube. You should watch them and then drive like suggested. (School bus full of kids)

[Isaac-1]

It probably depends on the engine in your coach, in the case of my coach I have the 8.1L V8 which was introduced in 2001 for the Workhorse chassis, and find that I need to run 87 Octane or higher, and start having issues when in the mountain states which sell 85 octane as their base octane level.

[Waiter21]

MH is different to drive with its own unique set of parameters.

Watch carefully when turning, 2 items;


1) Its a lot longer so I need to account for the length, where are the rear wheels when I make a turn.

2) Watch the rear end swing when making slow sharp turns. Mine will swing almost 2 ft.


Fuel, I burn whatever is the least expensive..

[Mudfrog]

Ours has the Workhorse 8.1 and runs fine on 87 octane. Never a ping or any other issue. But as suggested above, read the manual to find out what's recommended. Also, I've been using cheap ole Murphy (Walmart) gasoline for as long as I can remember and have never gotten bad fuel. It's pretty much all we use in all our vehicles.

Driving the rig is fairly easy. Just have to remember it's bigger all the way around and thus requires adjustment of your driving technique. Not only wider and longer, but taller too.

I'd say it'd be best to start out taking your time and getting to know how everything feels by practicing driving in areas with little traffic. A deserted parking lot is a good place to practice turning and backing.

[Isaac-1]

I was just about to mention that bit about being taller too, which comes into play far more often than you might think, particularly when dealing with tree lined streets, as some cities are much better than others about trimming trees, also just because you made it down a street yesterday does not mean you will make it down fine today. I ran into this problem after getting the front end aligned on my coach last year, the only alignment shop within 70 miles that will align motorhomes is located on an oak tree lined street. The day I took it in to get aligned a quick moving cool front with rain was on the way, it started raining just after I arrived to get the alignment done, and by the time they were done an hour or so later the rain had stopped, but the tree limbs were all sagging from the weight of the water. Making the half mile drive back to the main highway a real adventure, where I had to cross over back and forth from lane to lane to weave my way through the drooping limbs, some of which were now 2-3 feet below my clearance height.

[leslie1988]

I ended up getting the damon intruder it's a 349 model with 60,648 miles. It has 248 miles on the generator, 36 feet long. When I pulled out of the lot today and was driving home I was scared to death!!! But I did pretty good.

[marjoa]

Originally Posted by leslie1988

I am thinking about buying a 1999 Fleetwood bounder 32ft for $13,000.

Wow 13K. That's about the cost to replace a roof on the average size house in US these days. Maybe a tad more. Tough call.

Originally Posted by leslie1988

I ended up getting the damon intruder it's a 349 model with 60,648 miles. It has 248 miles on the generator, 36 feet long. When I pulled out of the lot today and was driving home I was scared to death!!! But I did pretty good.

Whoops...never mind.

[Isaac-1]

Congrats on the purchase, don't worry it gets easier with practice. The first hundred miles or so is the hardest, the next couple of hundred get a bit easier, and by the time you hit the first thousand miles, it will start feeling almost natural, though still very stressful.

[timjet]

No matter how much you inspect or how good the inspection results are, on a 21+ yo rv there will be things to fix, always. Think of it this way, something right now on this rv has broke or is breaking and it doesn't matter who built it.

If you aren't handy you better have a big wallet.

[DurangoNick]

Originally Posted by okcnewbie

Which inspection did you go with? How much and what findings?

The inspector found everything to be working correctly with no apparent leaks. It was back in 2017. Use the link I provided to find a certified inspector in your (or the RV's) location.