Do Retired Full timers have 2 vehicles or 1? - RV-Dreams Community Forum

tktoth · RV-Dreams Family Member

Do Retired Full timers have 2 vehicles or 1?

SuzieQ · RV-Dreams Family Member

We're about 18 mths out but our plan is to sell my car and reduce to one. We're planning on getting a TT and trading hubby's F-250 for a new F-250/350 (depending on TT). Although I prefer the idea of a fifth-wheel, hubby hits his head going up the steps on all we've seen. (6'7" is a challenge). Class A's are beautiful but there are lot's of con's. Insuring two motors for one.

-- Edited by SuzieQ on Friday 9th of October 2015 07:17:29 PM

lmcallis · RV-Dreams Family Member

We've full timed for 8 years. At about the 3 yr point, we were getting reluctant to go do all the sight seeking we wanted to because of added wear and tear on the truck and the cost of diesel fuel. We were putting 25K miles per year on the truck (towing about 8K miles and sightseeing/trips to the store/living for another 17K miles per year). We made the decision to buy a Prius and have not regretted it. We trade off between driving the truck/5th wheel and driving the Prius when we move from campground to campground (we relocate about 15 times a year). But once we arrive, we've got the Prius and 50mpg to do all the sight seeing/trips to the store/living we want. Now the Prius has 75K miles and the truck has only added about 20K miles. The Prius will be a lot cheaper to replace in another 3 or 4 years than replacing the truck. Of course the Prius works out really well financially because of it's high mpg. A lower mileage car may not. But it's also just nicer to drive around in a car than a 1-ton truck. Your mileage may vary.

Lance

Ford 350, 40ft 5th wheel, Red Prius

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

Gave my car to our daughter when we started fulltiming 9+ years ago. Never had felt that we are missing something with only one car. We have towed her over 100,000 miles and put another 100,000 miles on her.

Barb

tktoth · RV-Dreams Family Member

I should mention that we have a fifth wheel, so plan to just use the truck. It does get decent fuel economy (20+ highway when not towing). Not like a Prius, but good for a truck. I guess I never thought about MH owners really only have one car!

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are not on the road yet, but the decision for us will be purely economic.... up to a point. We haven't got a good handle yet on our potential "touring" mileage yet but if we were to use Lance's 17,000 as a base line(which seems like a reasonable amount of miles for touring), and 16MPH for a truck (to use a conservative number) and 40MPG for a second car (again a conservative number) and using 2.75 gallon for fuel ( a real wild card guess with gas at 2.54 and diesel at 2.79 here in SW Chicagoland) we come up with fuel savings of $1750. If you use Lance's 50MPG Prius number and your 20MPG truck number that would drop to $1400. As you can see, the difference in mileage ratings play a big role in the savings. Can you cover your other operating costs with that amount? Extra insurance might cost you 600, assuming you pay cash for the car you will not have associated finance costs, but you'll still have depreciation and even a conservative estimate would be $2000 in the first year. Plates & emission certs could cost you 150. Maintenance should more less be a wash from reduced costs on the truck vs added for the second vehicle, so nothing there. So what do we have 600+2000+150=2750 less 1750 = 1000 dollar real expense per year. Mind you this is a crude calculation. Is roughly $80 per month in costs enough to justify the additional mobility and flexibility? To each his or her own. The higher the number of miles driven the better the value and the easier it is to justify it. You can plug in your own estimates for everything and come up with your own number. Anecdotally, Howard and Linda have two vehicles and they admit it does cost them more, but it suits their lifestyle goals and so it is worth it to them according to his blog posts. Howard may chime on this to either confirm or disprove this thesis. We like some of the things they are able to do with a second vehicle, so who knows, we may decide it's for us too. We have room in our budget plan to do it... everything is still on the table.

One other factor to consider is the cost of the money to buy the car. If you pay cash(usually the best choice) you'll lose the potential return on the invested $18,000 or so on a new Prius (a guess) so at a conservative 6% return (think fat dividend paying stocks like Chevron or AT&T or Altria) that's roughly $1,100 per year you could have otherwise have had. If you finance, you'll incur those charges so either way there's a hit to your total economic picture. Still worth it? YMMV as the say.

As to having to walk further in parking lots, unless you have mobility problems this should not be an issue, after all you're retired... what's the rush? Just sayin....

FWIW, Brian

-- Edited by biggaRView on Friday 9th of October 2015 11:11:44 AM

igotjam · RV-Dreams Family Member

Agree with Imcallis. Fulltimer for 8+ years with Truck, 5er and car. The car makes things so much easier. (parking, fuel, extra storage, one to use when the other gets serviced etc) We did fulltime our first year with only the truck and trailer. Using fuel costs only having the car in year 2 saved us money on total fuel used enough to pay the extra insurance and license costs. I know the reduced mileage on our truck has allowed us to keep it longer. We travel a lot (yr 1 56000 on truck alone, yr 2 60000 adding mileage on truck and car. I understand the argument for each case. If we were to start over I think we might consider a motorhome and toad instead of a 5ver so we could travel together. We looked at hooking the car to the 5ver but that presents a bunch of other concerns.

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

And yet, one of the main reasons that is often touted for why a 5er is better than a MH is that you only have 1 drive train. When you have a car, in addition to the truck, then you are dealing with 2 drive trains - just like those of us with MHs.

Barb

lmcallis · RV-Dreams Family Member

Let me just add, that if I were doing it all over again......I'd go for the nicest, affordable, toy hauler 5th wheel I could find in the 40 to 42ft range, and put a little smart car or fiat in the garage. Then we could ride together, could buy a beefed up truck to haul the extra load, and avoid some of the issues that toads cause. Of course I've never used a toy hauler, so there are probably new, unknown to me, issues with the this plan. Again, your mileage may vary.

Lance

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Jack and others go the Volvo with a Smart car on the back in front of the hitch.

I have met motorhome couples that drive separately to have two runaround vehicles. Sometimes the motorhome tows an enclosed trailer with the toys, which often includes a sports car.

There have been a few times over 12 years of fulltiming it would have been nice to have a second vehicle. But, we have made do and we have been OK.

-- Edited by bjoyce on Friday 9th of October 2015 10:37:14 AM

Second Chance · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are new full-timers and asked the same question on this forum and of the Escapees group prior to launching. The answers ranged much like those here. It was suggested to us that, since we already had the small car and it was paid for, go ahead and try it for the first year or so and see how it goes. So far, it's been mostly positive. A couple of our stops have included visiting with family and LOTS of driving around; I'm sure having the small car saved us quite a bit in fuel costs during those times, but I'm not sure that these savings would offset the extra costs of owning and operating the car and "driving double" on moving days.

The small car is much easier to maneuver and park in congested urban areas (such as downtown Baltimore where we visited my brother-in-law recently). Another use we have found is to park the rig at the entrance to a campground and use the small car to scout spaces we would like. If you like to bike long trails (or kayak, for that matter), it's very handy to be able to pre-position one vehicle at the end of the trail so you can get home. The main "con" either of us can come up with is not being able to ride together on moving days. We enjoy conversations, listening to audio books together, etc. That being said, we keep our travel days short which minimizes the time we have to drive separately. We'll see if we still feel the same at the end of our first year.

Rob

tktoth · RV-Dreams Family Member

We want to thank all for their input. We think that specific situations drive the decision in addition to economics. We tend to go with one vehicle. One important factor is health of both spouses. She has medical issues which are a worry when we drive 4-6 hours a day. That in addition to considering expenses lean us in the 1 vehicle way. Our second paid off vehicle is a larger vehicle which gets 21-25mpg, and we are not big on small vehicles.

As many posts show, we all have unique situations.

We appreciate all the input!!!!

Thanks!

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

I did a short write-up about this very issue recently on my year end blog post. Check it out for our opinion:

bkamericanodyssey.com

You can click on the 3 lines in the top right and look it in the archives in Aug 2015. Sorry I couldn't put an exact link to that page, but I'm on my phone and don't know how to do that.

Hope it helps!

fun2travel · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have a fifth wheel and a Dodge dually diesel. Our Honda was paid for, so after doing some comparisons costwise, we kept it. Figured we could sell it at any point if we changed our mind.
FYI, on our comparison with and without car, our costs broke about even when factoring in everything.
We decided it would just be much more comfortable to tour around in our car instead of the dually.
We have been happy with our decision.

mds1 · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have awhile before we go fulltime. Wife and I recently rented a motorhome and drove it 1600 miles. I've owned two pull trailers in the past. We will be going fulltime in a future fifth wheel. We decided to start off with just the truck and fifth wheel.

Main reasons include:

* We want to downsize as much as possible and having a second vehicle requires maintenance.
* Figure it is a safe assumption we will move around more our first year and want to enjoy the scenery together.
* We believed travel could be complicated by having to worry about someone following behind.
* It was nice having the second person to do the research for camp sites and fuel stops while traveling.

Once we have more experience we might consider a second vehicle for the same reasons people have been writing about.

Tom and Mare · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have a Class A gas MH. I didn't want to give up my motorcycle so our solution (after much debate) was to drive separately, towing the bike behind our Nissan Frontier on a small open trailer that folds up for easy storage behind the rig. Mare will likey be working remotely and may need to make an occasional trip back to the office leaving me the Harley to get around on. We'll see how it all works out. Our plan is to head out sometime in April.

Glenn West · RV-Dreams Family Member

All full timers not retired. DW would have no means of travel when I at work. Which is 10 or 12 hours daily and usually 7 days a week. Yes, we have two vehicles .

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

I travel in a MH.....tow a chevy hhr
and also have an electric zip bike.......

Talensnana · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are full timers and retired so there are no work issues. We have a Powerhouse Coach (super 8) and tow a trailer which holds a Smart Car. If we ever need more than one vehicle we would use a taxi if available. Our first Rv we were only part timers and did not tow a car. We would rent a car when in an area for a week or so. At that time rving was more of a vacation where it is a lifestyle now.

tnsauerkraut · RV-Dreams Family Member

DH and I are living full-time in our gas Class A. While we are still stationary until he retires in November, we sold my car and plan on flat towing our Jeep.

Everyone's lifestyle and needs are different, of course. Some couples have no choice as one or both still work and need transportation. We do not want the hassle of driving separately. This is our journey together. If we need a second car at anytime, we will simply rent one from Enterprise.

rodeojoe · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our plan includes reducing to one also. It would save money and the amount of time when we may need to just isn't enough to justify the second.

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Depends. On the one hand, 1 registration and insurance is cheaper but you have to drive the truck everywhere. Having 2 means you don't have to do that.

From a practical standpoint…assuming you tow say 12,000 miles a year and do 25,000 miles a year on the car (12,000 while following the towing rig and another 13,000 seeing stuff)…at least for us the better mileage in the car pretty much balances out the insurance/registration. For us the number came out to be a little cheaper with the truck but it was something like 50/month total…and not having to drive the truck everywhere is certainly worth it to us. So we have the 450 (soon to be replaced by a 5500HD/hauler bed) and a Mazda 6. Connie likes to get her 'alone time' in the car while we're moving.

All that said…we did not take the car with us on our trip to Alaska last summer as it's about 17,000 miles from Fort Myers there and back…we left i with the kids for 4 months. We're also not taking it to the Canadian Maritimes this year…since we didn't want to have to pay for 2 vehicles on the ferry to Newfoundland and back. Next summer we'll be back to our normal 2 vehicle lifestyle. Parking lots are bigger in Alaska as there are a lot of trucks up there. I'm sure that we'll find some of the back roads in Newfoundland would be better in the car than the truck…but we'll make do since another ferry ticket is another $500 or so.

I think you'll find that money wise it turns out to be not all that more expensive either way…so it's a lifestyle/convenience/less wear and tear on the truck/not having to maneuver the truck through tight parking lots sort of thing.

Most Class A folks have a separate vehicle…although I do know a few that have the rig and a bike. Even when you're retired there are still occasions when wifey needs to go one place and hubby needs to go another direction and while you can work around that most of the time when you're talking appointments sometimes you have to take what you can get.

When our Mazda (165K miles so far) dies…we'll replace it but won't feel like we have to do it right away…we'll take our time and find what we want rather than get one just to have one.