List Your Top 10 Brands

[tomgillotti]

Here is an extensive list of brands of travel trailer manufacturers. List your top ten in order of preference. Use whatever metric you like and explain your answers, if you wish. If a brand is missing, feel free to add as necessary. If you'd like, also add the brands you'd stay away from.

A-Liner
Aerolite
Airstream
Aspen
Augusta RV
Carriage
Casita
Chalet RV
Coachmen
Coleman
Crossroads
Cruiser RV Corp
Custom
Dutchmen
Eclipse Recreational Vehicles
Escape Trailer Industries
Evergreen
Flagstaff
Fleetwood
Forest River
Genesis Supreme RV
Glacier Ice House
Grand Design
Gulf Stream
Heartland
Highland Ridge
Ice Castle Fish House
Intech
Jayco
K-Z
Keystone
Lance
Little Guy
Livin' Lite
Northland Industries
Northwood Mfg
Omega
Outdoors RV
Open Range
Pacific Coachworks
Palomino
Prime Time
R-Vision
Recreation By Design
Riverside RV
Riverside Trailer
Scamp
Shasta
Skyline
Starcraft
Sunset Park & RV Inc
T@B
Taxa
Thor Motor Coach
Trailmanor
Travel Lite
Venture RV
Viking
Vision
Winnebago

[patriot07]

Palomino - they stepped up and paid to repair a delam issue even though the unit was barely out of warranty, and everything else on the trailer works perfectly. We've been camping 3 times already with zero issues other than the small delam spots which didn't impact our ability to enjoy the camping trip and were fixed for free (FR covered half and dealer covered the other half).


I also think Coachmen and Winnebago build very nice units. Winnebago can be a little pricey and Coachmen is sometimes heavy for the size compared to a brand like Palomino Solaire, but they're both good options IMHO. Not a fan of any Keystone or Gulf Stream products. My parents had a Keystone that rotted out on the back end and was worth nothing afterwards (seals were maintained but apparently not well enough), and the Gulf Stream Kingsport trailers are the cheapest construction quality I've ever seen.

[tomgillotti]

Maybe top and bottom 3 would have been more appropriate.

Right now, for me, as a noob my top 3 are:

Outdoors RV
Lance
Coachmen(??) Not really sure about #3


Bottom 3 are
Jayco
Coleman
Airstream (LOVE them... but, COST!)


Reasons for top 3:
ORV seems to have great quality and customer service as well as best options for off-grid and all season camping.
Lance also seems to have great quality and customer service as well as better looks and extended season camping.
Coachmen is kind of an odd-ball. Seems to offer decent value and good floor plans but limited extended season and off grid camping.

Reasons against bottom 3:
My perception about Jayco is that they are too big for their own good and their quality suffers. I believe the 2 year warranty is there to cover too many mistakes. Again, just based on my perception.
When I look at Coleman, I just think, why is a cooler company making travel trailers? I think they also look cheaply built...
I love Airstreams, especially the newer ones. They are modern and retro all built into one very nice package. Not great for extended season or off-grid camping... and the cost!! Yikes!

[Acheron2010]

DRV - missing from your list, BTW.
High end construction, quality of materials, resale value, thickness of walls and R-factor in ceiling, walls and floors.

Grand Design - same reasons as above.

Heartland - same reasons, a bit more modern interior

Disappointed in almost all RV interiors. Why are they stuck in the 70's?

[guy65]

Another subjective question.
Fact is- most campers are manufactured by 5 big companies.
The trim lines represent the quality and price levels.
From this point of view, it's 50% of what design and size I like and the other 50%: what can I afford. And those answers are as individual as there are people in this world. you might find some with the same opinion, but that's about it.
I buy, what I can afford, fits my wants and needs and I can make compromises when it comes to what I get for my money in regard, what I can spend.
But that's about it.
Everything else is just a list of available brands.

[patriot07]

Originally Posted by tomgillotti

Maybe top and bottom 3 would have been more appropriate.

Right now, for me, as a noob my top 3 are:

Outdoors RV
Lance
Coachmen(??) Not really sure about #3


Bottom 3 are
Jayco
Coleman
Airstream (LOVE them... but, COST!)


Reasons for top 3:
ORV seems to have great quality and customer service as well as best options for off-grid and all season camping.
Lance also seems to have great quality and customer service as well as better looks and extended season camping.
Coachmen is kind of an odd-ball. Seems to offer decent value and good floor plans but limited extended season and off grid camping.

Reasons against bottom 3:
My perception about Jayco is that they are too big for their own good and their quality suffers. I believe the 2 year warranty is there to cover too many mistakes. Again, just based on my perception.
When I look at Coleman, I just think, why is a cooler company making travel trailers? I think they also look cheaply built...
I love Airstreams, especially the newer ones. They are modern and retro all built into one very nice package. Not great for extended season or off-grid camping... and the cost!! Yikes!

I had the same thoughts about Coleman til my parents bought one a while back. It is somewhat more utilitarian (as you might expect from Coleman), but the quality is very good for the price point. They're at Yellowstone right now with it - zero issues since buying it new and they love it. They've got to be high on the list of decent quality at a low price point. FWIW, my parents have a 2016 2855BH.

[vanion2]

My first pup was a Fleetwood. I liked it so much that I bought a Fleetwood class C where I quickly learned that a brand name doesn't carry the same level of quality from unit to unit. My next pup was a Flagstaff HW 27 S/C. Very nice but after 3.5 years there are already thin spots in the canvass and I have had to replace the toilet valve once, fix a leak in the grey water plumbing, and plumber's tape the water filter assembly to stop it from leaking. That and they used so much fermaldehyd it would make my wife sick when the blast furnace kicked on. Once the leaks were taken care of though it was a pretty solid unit.

I personally wanted a Lance but they are pricey and the Nash line looked like a solid choice but the all wood construction made them too heavy for my comfort so I bought a Prime Time Tracer 215Air. I can't say much since I am still awaiting delivery but it comes fully loaded with all the amenities and then some at a very affordable price tag from a dealership that stands behind their products. I have talked with several reps at Prime Time and they were always informative and willing to answer all my questions. They even went down to the plant floor to look up model numbers on some of the appliances they were installing when I asked. My walk through unit at the dealership was a 2 year older model but the whole family loved it and the TT is light enough that I feel much better about towing it with my V8 4Runner.

So which are the best brand names? Go to Lance's FB page and you will see as many horror stories as ones with happy endings. Same thing with Forest River, Winnabego, etc. Your best bet is to select a dealership with a highly rated service department and start your search there as they are going to be the ones dealing with any warranty work. That's my recommendation.

[tomgillotti]

Originally Posted by Acheron2010

Disappointed in almost all RV interiors. Why are they stuck in the 70's?

THIS! Glad I'm not the only one

[Randy the sly old fox]

Any more the majority of the "brands" fall under either Forrest River or Thor parent cos. Including Keystone and Jayco. Grand Design is now part of Winnebago - so that said my top three are: ORV, Northwood, Lance - I currently have an ORV and so far the fit and finish has been good and so far there have been no major issues with any of the systems. Northwood well what can I say I had an Arctic Fox for the previous 12 yrs and it was never back to the dealer for anything during that time. While I don't have any experience with Lance I have looked at them on the lots and they appear to be well built - but expensive for their size.


My bottom is probably Trail-Lite (R-Vision) I had one that was nothing but trouble from 99-05 Now I understand that R-Vision is now part of Monaco Coach and the newer models are better. I did not like the fact that it started falling apart after a year of fairly easy use.


In my many years of RVing including shows and researching on lots I have seen everything from wet overhead cabinets to messages scribbled on cupboards like "F*** this its beer time" etc. I have also looked inside floor level cabinets and seen daylight around the fender wells. This was across several different brands. Anytime you have something fully assembled by humans there is a huge chance for errors - coupled with a diminishing amount of workers who take pride in workmanship - and you get a recipe for lots of hit and miss quality - and this is across ALL brands.