Buying That First RV

So, you think you want to buy an RV? From the moment the idea was first presented to me by my brother I was hooked! Of course not having any idea what to look for or how to go about it the first thing I thought about was the RV shows on television so I started watching them every night. After watching a couple shows I decided that I needed to narrow down exactly what I was looking for, what I could afford and probably most importantly what I was willing to accept since I had decided that I was going to sell my house and become a full-time RVer. After all, I was moving from a four-bedroom house to something about a quarter that size or less. So I grabbed a notepad and while watching the shows I would make lists, mainly what I thought was my must haves and what I was willing to do without or settle for.

It didn't take very long before I had a pretty complete list. I had gone to a couple local RV shows and had actually met with some sales reps at my local RV sales outlets My idea was to find a sales rep I was comfortable with and when I was ready I would present them with my list and see what they could find for me. I knew right off that I wanted a Class A RV and had decided that I didn't want to spend the kind of money it would take for a new one so I was looking at pre-owned. Since I also didn't want to finance my purchase it came down to timing because I needed to sell my house to purchase my new house on wheels. Anyway, it was a little tricky but I managed.

When looking at used RV's there are some things to consider, primarily age vs mileage. It's not like looking at a used car where the primary consideration for most people is low mileage. Think about what most people use their RV for, once or twice a year vacation trips of maybe moderate mileage but with lots of sitting idle at their favored destination and then returning home where they park that $100,000 rig someplace until the next trip. Take it from someone who spent more than two decades working on or around machines of all types, MACHINES DO NOT LIKE TO SIT IDLE! The longer a machine sits around the more it ages. Also remember to consider not only the running machinery like the engine and the generator but you have to take into consideration things like rubber seals that dry out, bearings and bushings that get dry, etc. Do your research! There are dozens of websites dedicated to beginning RVers. I also recommend taking an RV maintenance class. No, I didn't because I have a strong mechanical background and was willing to learn from online sources and to learn as I went along. Don't forget U-Tube. Just because I have a mechanical background doesn't mean I know all about RV's. For example when my toilet bowl seal started leaking and I had to learn how to dismantle an RV toilet vs your standard home toilet.

While allowing one of the local dealer sales reps to find some potential buys I was also looking online for pre-owned units, rvtrader.com. Did you know that there are five states with no RV sales tax? Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon. That's important when you consider a possible 6% tax on $85,000-$100,000. Of course the RV I found in my price range and that I fell in love with at first sight was in Florida (yep, 6% of $82,500.00) so don't be afraid to hop a plane or drive a few states away. That's a lot cheaper than $5k in taxes. I drove about 100 miles to look at the unit that I eventually ended up buying. Also you might want to consider renting your RV for that one-time big family trip or just to see if the RV life is what you want, rvshare.com is one of the better sites.

I kept looking for pre-owned units everywhere I was willing to travel to, I actually found a very nice class A in Georgia and since I lived in Florida that was a pretty close trip to drive up and look at it. Well of course there's that timing thing again and when I called the seller to say I was coming up he said he had just sold it an hour before.

So anyway I finally found a nice unit in Florida, a private sale on consignment to a dealer. I traveled about 100 miles to look at it and fell in love with it right away. It was in beautiful condition with very little tire wear, which is important when you consider having to replace six massive RV tires for around $3K. It had only 58,000 miles on a rear engine Cummins diesel. It needed a few minor things repaired that I could find visually that they agreed to fix. They only drawback was that it was 12 years old and with only 58K miles that means it had sat around idle quite a bit. During the initial test drive I found a few other items that needed attending to which again they said they would repair. So I made an offer, the owner countered with his offer and I signed off on the deal. On July 1st I became the proud owner of my new home on wheels. My friend right across the street agreed to let me park it behind her house until I was ready to hit the road. The people that bought my house had very graciously allowed me to keep all the stuff I wanted to take with me in one room of my old house because when the sale of the house closed I had not yet bought my RV. I also wanted to have a little time living in my RV to get used to things before I left.

On August 15th I finally hit the road for my first destination which was across the state to visit with my two sisters for a week. See my next blog post for what happened next.