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Thursday, January 10, 2008

RV shopping can be an intimidating experience. There are so many makes and models of travel trailers, fifth wheels, and motorhomes out there that you will find your head spinning after a day of RV shopping. What is the best type of RV for your needs, and which manufacturers’ products should you be looking at?

I teach a class called How To Be A Smart RV Shopper at Life on Wheels www.rvlifeonwheels.com, and one question I get asked over and over again is who makes the best RV out there.  

Nobody makes the perfect RV. There is no one size fits all RV out there. What works for Terry and I might not fit your needs at all. Everybody is different, and no two RVers have the same lifestyle.

Our good friends Dave and Sandy Baleria have been fulltiming for years now in a 28 foot Excel fifth wheel that fits their needs perfectly. It would not work well for myself and Miss Terry. Likewise, Dave and Sandywould find our 40 foot MCI bus conversion to be much too large for them. Yet, we have other friends who travel in 40 foot motorhomes with triple slides, who think our non-slide bus is too cramped for them.

I have stepped on a lot of toes in the RV industry because I boldly state that the great majority of RVs being built today are junk. There are some good units being made, but for every quality RV rolling off the assembly line, there are a dozen or more that, in my opinion, are not worth the fuel it would take to haul them to the junk yard.

I’ve been told more than once that if I toned it down, I’d havea lot more advertising in the Gypsy Journal. What some of these folks do not understand is that one reason we don’t have as much advertising as most other RV magazines is because we will not accept advertising from a company who makes a product we would not own and use ourselves.

The list of RVs I find to be substandard would take up too much room here, so I won’t go into that here. I will say that you could never give me a Fleetwood product of any configuration, from their entry level popup camping trailer to their fanciest diesel pusher. Some folks we know love their Fleetwoods, but the one we had was a total lemon, and we found the company less than helpful in resolving our problems. If you are considering the purchase of one of their RVs, I urge you to do a Google search on Fleetwood RV problems, or ask about problems with their units on any internet RV forum. 

What RVs do I find acceptable? That is a much shorter list, and I’ll share with you some of my top choices.

If I were shopping for a travel trailer or fifth wheel, I’d be very confident spending my money on a Heartland product www.heartlandrvs.com. Not because they are an advertiser with us (in fact, Heartland is the only RV manufacturer we have accepted ads from in almost 9 years of publishing the Gypsy Journal), but because I am impressed with their quality, construction methods, and service after the sale. I also like the Excel and Montana fifth wheels

For motorhomes, my first choice, if I could afford one, would be anything made by Tiffin www.tiffinmotorhomes.com. I have never met Bob Tiffin, who owns the company, but everything I have ever heard about him from one satisfied customer after another, makes me think he’s a man I’d like to know. Tiffin makes good coaches and stands behind them. Other motorhome manufacturers I have heard a lot of favorable things about, from RVers who own them, are Winnebago and Newmar.

Any RV made is going to have problems. They are subjected to the equivalent of an earthquake every time we take them down the highway. But when an RV has a legitimate problem, I expect the manufacturer to stand behind them. Is that too much to ask? 

A good starting point when you begin RV shopping is the RV Consumer Group www.RV.org. They market a series of excellent CDs that evaluate every RV made in terms of reliability, safety, value, and several other criteria. The CDs costs $78, which is a small investment when you consider the money you spend on an RV. If we had known about this organization before we bought our Pace Arrow Vision, we’d have saved ourselves a ton of money and a world of headaches. I’ve talked to some RVers who don’t agree with the RV Consumer Group’s evaluation methods, but until somebody builds a better mousetrap, I think they’re the best friend an RV shopper has.

Thought For The Day – Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.

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