Community Forums

Booberboo · 03-25-2019, 12:20 PM

Hello all,

Just joined and wanted to introduce myself.

My husband and I have made the decision to sell our home in South Florida and leave the craziness for a more relaxed lifestyle. We have a summer home in Canada that we escape to to avoid the excessive heat and humidity.

We are looking at property and hoping to build a home with an RV garage in the Ocala, FL area.

Once the home in South Florida sells, we will be looking at purchasing and living/traveling in a Diesel Pusher while the home is being built.

With have ZERO RV experience, but are looking forward to traveling North America by RV.

We have spent ALOT of time looking at RV sites on line and have a list of needs and wants for our RV.

We have attended the Tampa RV show and were not impressed by alot of the coaches as they were all decked out and were just too gaudy. We have found a couple coaches that we found to be simple indesign aesthetics and clean lines and will pursue the purchase of one of them when the time comes.

The biggest concern we have right now is actually being able to drive one prior to purchase. I have read many comments/forums regarding dealers NOT doing a test drive PRIOR to purchase.

Having zero experience, this is a bit of a concern for us.

Any recommendations regarding a test drive and/or useful tips to consider regarding purchase?

We have a budget and are willing to consider used and new coaches.

MSHappyCampers · 03-25-2019, 12:45 PM

Hi ! Welcome to IRV2! We're sure glad you joined the gang!

Hope the plans work out. Better get busy, you got a lot of tire kicking to do!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

PNWGirl · 03-25-2019, 04:43 PM

WELCOME!!

Just like with a car there are pluses and minuses of buying used or buying new. The same thing is true with a motorhome as it is with a car, as soon as you drive it off the lot you're going to depreciate by thousands.

Another plus, on a new rig is if you are getting a RV loan, the rates are generally much lower on new than used.

As you do not have any experience with an RV you might want to consider getting a new one so that you have a warranty.

However, should you purchase it from a private party, you can make the sale conditional on it going through an RV shop.

As for your being able to test-drive, I have a suggestion. Look on Craigslist and find a DP. Then ask to see it, test drive it. You may also find that you really liked the one for sale on Craigslist. I have purchased a travel trailer and two motorhomes from Craigslist.

Also a used one will be less expensive to insure.

Again, welcome!!

PNWGirl · 03-25-2019, 04:48 PM

P.S. Join the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association). They have tons of great info plus discounts. They saved me a nice chunk of change on my MH insurance, much better than the local brokers could.

momdoc · 03-25-2019, 08:36 PM

Welcome to the forum.

You are joining a good group of folks here with good info to share. Most bigger dealers will have rigs you can test drive. It is not as hard as it looks

Good luck and enjoy the adventure!

Pilot2Driver · 03-26-2019, 12:05 AM

Welcome aboard!

I lurked and browsed for years while renting and shopping to buy. Excellent resources and people available on this site.

You will find enthusiasts for every variant of the RV lifestyle and every price point.

Regarding test driving, all the dealerships we visited welcomed us to test drive brand new high end diesel pushers. Others with whom we communicated, but did not visit, also indicated that it would be normal that we test drive. These dealerships were in (alphabetically) California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, and Texas. We test drove eight separate motorhomes after having participated in four factory tours, three at Newmar and one at a competitor.

BodieJames · 04-02-2019, 06:55 AM

My DW and I had the same problem. We took the RV driving class at Lazy Daze RV in Tampa. It is a 1 day course. The first half of the day was classroom where they show you the logistics of maneuvering a class A motorhome. The afternoon is spent driving around the Lazy Daze campground. The instructor showed us how to position the RV for turns, and how to back in to parking spots.

After doing this we were able to confidently drive our new coach. We both have also taken a drivers class at the Spartan factory in Michigan after taking delivery of our coach.

Good luck and enjoy your new memories.

Teamfoxy · 04-06-2019, 08:50 AM

We bought our current RV from Lazydays and agree the driving course there was excellent. We have been driving RV's for 15 years and still learned a lot of tips to make it easier.

We made our purchase offer on our current RV contingent on driving the RV with the deposit refundable if we were not happy with it. Lazydays was happy to do that. Nancy drove first because if she couldn't drive it, I wouldn't buy it.

My guess is that most dealerships don't want to be giving test drives to people that probably are not going to buy anything. But if you are a serious buyer and willing to put up a refundable deposit, I'm thinking they would let you drive it. If not, I'd walk away.