Please Help-getting weary! - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Morelostthanfound · RV-Dreams Community Member

Please Help-getting weary!

RonC · RV-Dreams Family Member

This is a very personal, and therefore difficult question to respond to. I don't know your financial situation, but I assume that is contributing to your anxiety. A 5 year old rig can be a very good purchase or a money pit ... but truthfully, the same can be said for a new one. Although new rigs come with warranties, getting warranty work done when you LIVE in the rig is a major hassle as all dealers want you to take your rig to their repair facility and that will often require that you move out temporarily. So no magic advice from me. Listen to your instincts as they are usually right, besides ... no one has to live with the results of their advice, you do, so you might as well make the decision.

Sorry for your trouble ... hope it gets back on track soon.

Morelostthanfound · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thanks Ron, appreciate your input.

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

As Ron said, it's a personal decision that only you can make, my hope is that by venting you have helped yourself identify what you want to do.

As much as I'd love to say getting a new rig would solve all your problems, that is sadly untrue. If having the warranty would give you peace of mind - it may be worth it.

Good luck in your decision.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hard question to answer and one we've yet to answer for ourselves.

We bought a 2 year old DRV Mobile Suites and thought that by buying a high quality, late model, lightly used unit it might spare us from some of the grief of a new unit. After all, it made sense that someone else would have found the bugs and fixed them, right? No, fridge failed on the trip from the RV dealership to our then home location while we were trying to get the house on the market. And I have to say, RV repairs just haven't stopped.

In 4 years we've had it in the shop or had a mobile tech for more than 10 repairs, some of which only took a day but at least 5 of the repairs left us "stuck" for anywhere from 1 week to 6 weeks. And none of those trips in the shop were for any routine maintenance, we've had a few of those as well. Like you, we're not retired, both of us are still working so it all becomes a huge pain in the neck.

And oh yeah, our truck engine failed resulting in another 5 week delay of plans while waiting for the engine to be replaced.

We've actually considered buying a park model or something similar just to have a place to hang out when the next major repair strikes, haven't done that yet but 1.5 years ago when we were in and out of the same shop 3 times in one month I was totally ready to strongly consider our next rig or house.

Last winter in Quartzsite we sat around an RV Dreams campfire and of course, the RV repair stories started. New units, used units, high quality, entry level, didn't matter, we all had mechanical failures, we've all wanted to ditch our rig at one time or another. Some have traded in and had stories about all the things now wrong with the new rig, etc.

For us it came down to a decision, it's the devil we know vs. the devil we don't know. After 4 years Dale has gotten really good at fixing and diagnosing some repairs, we have a short list of RV repair shops we trust and we LIKE our rig. I've yet to see a floor plan that would work better for the 2 of us while we're both still working, so even though we could financially afford to trade this in for something newer, we're sticking with what we have for now, hoping it lasts until we retire and then we are already having discussions on what we want our retirement rig to be. Plus we'd rather save the money for the new rig we want for retirement vs. buying one now. Our decision, not everyone would agree with it, but it's right for us at this time.

Lil ole lady · RV-Dreams Community Member

We are new to the forum but we're hoping someone can help us.. we purchased a 2012, 42' Pheaton last spring. Things were going well until the last couple of weeks, we like to boondock, the problems started with our power, everything would go off during the night, we thought the batteries might be the problem since they were the original ones to the coach, so we bought 6 new ones, all seemed to be ok but last night everything went off again, then this morning we had no hot water, things continued to get worse and now the dash a/c is not working, and the holding tank gauges are not working, what's next?? We could us some help if anyone has a suggestion.

Morelostthanfound · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thank you soooo much! Your post and others have really helped! I guess I'll bite the bullet and get the repair work done. What has been your experience with mobile RV technicians regarding competency, quality of work, and costs?

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Morelostthanfound wrote:
Thank you soooo much! Your post and others have really helped! I guess I'll bite the bullet and get the repair work done. What has been your experience with mobile RV technicians regarding competency, quality of work, and costs?

Those are also an unknown commodity. We have been fortunate with the few occasions that we have needed one. We've had good ones in both Colorado (Colorado Springs area) and Oregon (near Grants Pass.)

But, I'm sure that there are probably others that aren't so good. If you can, "Google" the company's name and see if there are any online reviews of said company.

Terry

Lynn and Ed · RV-Dreams Family Member

Aaron (Morelostthanfound),

RVServiceReviews.com is where I would start, if I did not already have a recommendation from someone that I knew and trusted.

As Terry shared, google can provide assistance when trying to identify vendors. Another information source is RV blogs, some blogs we follow will mention positive (and sometimes negative) experiences they have with service providers. For example, we found a good service company in Oregon, based upon positive comments about the company made in a blog we followed – before calling that company, we looked at their reviews on RVServiceReviews.com and searched for their name on various RV forums. All the reviews were positive, as was our experience using that company.

Lynn

kb0zke · RV-Dreams Family Member

Welcome to the community, Morelostthanfound. If you haven't already, I'd suggest you join the Open Range owners' forum, www.openrangeowners.com/ORforum/index.php and ask questions there. Whatever the issue, someone there has already dealt with it and can give you some advice. You also can learn what the typical trouble spots are for your year, make, and model.

You are probably wise to take care of the coach you already have, at least for now. Remember that a trade-in is valued at current condition WHOLESALE. That means that if your coach would be worth $10,000 in good condition on the lot, it might be worth only $7,500 as a trade-in if in good condition. If it would take $2000 to get it up to good condition it is worth $5,500 as a trade-in.

My suggestion would be to look at exactly how you are using your coach now, how you see yourselves using it over the next couple of years, and what you wish was different about your present coach. Take a couple of months to do this step. In the meantime, do whatever repairs you need to do to keep going. As you discuss and think about your idea coach you will soon learn whether your current rig is a keeper or whether it ought to be replaced with something that suits you better.

If you decide to trade, you can start doing some research to find the highest quality coach you can that fits your needs. Buying used can save you money or it can cost an arm and a leg. As others have said, buying new doesn't guarantee a trouble-free coach, either. If you are full-timing you can consider that NO coach has a warranty UNLESS you find a brand that will find and send a qualified mobile mechanic to you (those brands do exist, but there aren't many of them). Many people use a rough guide of $10,000 in the first year to fix and upgrade any coach. That's built into their budget.

Once you've found your next coach you can start learning about the problems of that one.

Morelostthanfound · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thank you all for the good advice. I have joined the Open Range RV owners' forum but haven't there found the answers I need. At this point, I am anticipating replacing the dining room (largest slide) slide floor and the bedroom (smallest) slide floor. Is there anyone that can give a ballpark estimate for these repairs? I'm guessing $3500 for the larger slide and maybe $2500-$3000 for the smaller slide-does this sound reasonable? One last question, is this a repair that a mobile RV tech can reasonably accomplish? I spoke to a technician who seemed to be willing to take on the job and saw no need to fully remove the slide, but I'm on the fence about this. Thank you again, Aaron

phyllen · RV-Dreams Family Member

As others have said...... its a gamble..

We have a 2016 Open Range Fifthwheel bought new on April 1, 2016 (Should have given us a hint!) So, its been in the shop 3 times for the inverter to the residential refrigerator. Still not right. We have two spring hangers break, once tearing up the tires, the other time stranding us on the Interstate in Ohio. We've had a crack under the bedroom slide outer wall repaired twice. It's split again. Our shower has come apart. A few months ago we noticed the floor was very soft by the kitchen table. Would sink about 1/2 inch when stepped on.... it's now grown to an area about 2 feet by 6 feet. Obviously the floor is rotted. Oh, and the heater has been worked on twice.

Where do we stand? The unit is under the 2 year warranty and we also bought (at $3,500) the 5 year extended warranty ) so they are picking up the rig in November and taking it to Indiana for the work. However, we have to pick it up the week before Christmas because we have to inspect it. I would rather just they junk it. We don't want it back.

We have friends with Open Ranges and love theirs. Never a problem. Yea, it's a gamble. Best of luck in your decision and hope for no further problems.

kb0zke · RV-Dreams Family Member

Morelostthanfound, the prices you mention ought to cover removing the slides. Repairs and replacing the slides will be additional to that. No, this isn't something that a mobile mechanic can do. A good-sized forklift is needed to remove the slides, and a couple of people guiding it out and then in. NOT something you want done outside.

The problem you face is that since you know about the problems, you have to disclose that to the buyer, whether that is a dealer that takes it in on trade on another rig or a private buyer. That will cut the value of your coach considerably. The other option is to do the repairs properly and then either eat the cost or drive it out.

Camper Chronicles · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are in a 2014 Open Range and have been full timing or 3 years now. We have had our share of issues, but thankfully have been able to do the work ourselves, get warranty repai, or just live with it. Mobile technicians are hit and missed, and we haven't had good luck with Service Bays at all. We also purchased an extended warranty and have had mixed luck using it. I don't think any of the problems we have had are because we bought an Open Range. To the contrary we have had friends in much more expensive rigs who had run into the same or more extensive issues.

I totally sympathize with trying to get work done on the rig while you are working and this has been a huge problem for us as well. That being said, it really is part of the deal. We are taking our home and shaking the crap out of it on a regular basis and things are going to break. We have learned to fix what we can, live with what we can, and thankfully only a couple of times have had to stop everything and get something fixed.

I freely admit though that quite a bit of that is luck, but it is also constant vigilance around the status of your home. Constant checks on your system can help stop problems prior to them occurring (we caught and stopped a leak before our slide floor rotted for example) and "babying" your rig certainly doesn't hurt. These things simply weren't made for the type of use we put them through and unfortunately repairs seem to be part of the deal.

All that being said, I [personally don't think Open Range is any better or worse than any of the other manufacturers.

Trace