Things You Should Know Before Purchasing Your Recreational Vehicle
Best times of the year to purchase an RV are Winter and Summer because the highest demand for RV's is in the Spring and Fall when people are purchasing them for summer vacations or snow birding. Make a list of thinks your RV must have. The key words are "Must Have". This should be a short list. For example, my wife had washer and dryer on our list but we only used it once during the time we owned the RV. It took 3 times as long to do a small load of cloths as it did to do a large load in a laundromat and a lot of RV Parks have laundromats.
Purchase New; Heed the following:
- If you do choose to buy new, realize driving off of the sale’s lot; you are leaving 20 percent of the value upon the pavement.
- If you are going to purchase new, make sure you know the dealer’s invoice price. The MSRP on average is roughly 33% higher, but this number is not a hard rule. Typically, the RV dealers will mark up the sale price by 30 to 35% with the expectation that there will be a decent amount of negotiating.
- All RV's have problems and that includes new RV's they are not made upto the standards you have come to expect from the automobiles industry. I once camped next to a new Prevost Motorhome (Million plus RV). It had automatic freshwater hose reel had failure I helped him with.
Purchase Used; Heed the following:
- A 5 years old RV will have the new RV bugs worked out of it and will have depreciated 35% to 45% in value. After 10 years a new RV will have depreciated 47% to 56% from original purchase price.
- There are lots of places to search for used RV's but the best place to start is PPL used RV sales. They are a consignment dealership.
- They provide information on used RV's. Including pictures, interior layout diagrams, and good prices.
- To learn more about them? Then check out this video.
- Provide an insurance department that offers wonderful RV insurance even if you do not purchase from them. Get an insurance quote from PPL RV Insurance agent they can connect you to good RV insurance provider.
- You are making a significant purchase so spend a little money to get educated. Check out RVReview.net books on the subject. I used them personally and found them to be really helpful purchasing our RV. I used these books for my purchase.
Travel Trailers
Travel trailers are the most economical of all RV’s. They come in two basic tow packages: fifth-wheel and bumper hitch.
The fifth-wheel trailer coach allows people to ride in the trailer provided audio visual communications with the towing vehicle are available whereas a bumper hitch trailer does not allow anyone to ride in the trailer while it is under tow.
Fifth-wheel trailers must have a specially configure heavy duty truck while a bumper hitch trailer depending on size can be pulled by a car, SUV or truck.
A big advantage is you do not need to tow a car for transportation once you arrive at your destination. You just use the vehicle you were towing the trailer with as your local transportation.
Things to consider before shopping for a RV
It all depends on where and how you vacation. The more time you spend parked the more advantageous an RV is.
RV park, or campground is less expensive than in at a hotel room. But driving it cost you at 2 or 3 times as much as driving your car.
For every $1000 you spend on an RV you could stay at medium hotel 6 or 7 nights. If you purchase a used RV diesel pusher motor home for $100,000 you would need to be on vacation 111 weeks to make up the difference from staying in motels.
I know I did not count the saving on food, but I also did not include the cost of the RV park or campground and I did not figure in the extra you will spend on fuel.
If you have 2 weeks of vacation each year, it will take you over 50 years to break even for every $100,000 spend on an RV.
Everything said my wife and I loved our RV. We purchase a 40ft diesel pusher used it for five years. Every spring and autumn we took off someplace for from 5 to 12 weeks. We had to sell it due to health reasons. Our personal saving over traveling by car and hotels was around $69,000 and our purchase cost was $55,000.
We spent close to $15,000 in maintenance over that time and sold it for $13,000 less than we paid for it. Owning a RV is expensive.
If you decide to buy check out the used prices best place to do that is PPL in Texas. I recommend you track how quickly a specific manufacture sells. Some do not sell well that is a hint they may be known to have issues. Mine was an American Dream and they normally stayed on the market less than 20 days a couple were sold the same week they were listed.
With an RV we saw things we would never have seen without it. We retired when my wife and I were in our late 60's. We would have used it more except our health did not hold up as good as we had expected it would.
I’m very pro-RV just purchase it intelligently.
Motorhomes
The biggest advantage a motorhome has over a trailer is it being all in one unit. People can nap and move around while the RV is on the road. However, I do caution that walking around a moving vehicle anytime can be dangerous.
Even in my 40-foot motorhome (on the left) I found that it was advisable to stop when someone wants to prepare sandwiches for lunch but getting a snack or something cold from the refrigerator was ease enough.
The type of RV you should be looking at purchasing depends largely on what you plan on doing with it. For instance, if you are looking at a motorhome and you live or plan on vacationing mostly in the west you will require something that climbs well. Western mountains range from 5,000 to 18,000 feet high. Gas powered motorhomes have a great deal of difficulty with steep grades. Whereas the same size diesel motorhome can climb at a much faster rate.
A RV Blog site that provides some really good information on RVing is Happy RV. I found the information provided on the purchase of used RV particularly valuable. I still believe that diesels are a better purchase except if your vacations are mostly flat land areas.
