RV & Trailer Discussion

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nobbie48

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If you think you're getting screwed by bad decisions, the used RV market has slammed the back-to-the-land types on the west coast USA.

During Covid used prices tripled from $4K to $12K but if you lived in the thing, the numbers worked. Now the numbers have changed and the prices have gone back to pre-covid. Some cities don't want them parked on the streets and tow after three days, no sanitation facilities and after five years of full time living the units are falling apart. Rent prices are a driving factor as most of the RVers are employed, not bums.
 
We're in the market for a used small travel trailer, and I'll tell you, RV prices haven't dropped as much as I'd like. Sure, they're down from peak Covid insanity when you'd struggle to find a new one, but they've been pretty flat over the past couple years and are still well up from pre-Covid prices. Like houses, they're still selling steadily but not being snapped up instantly like they were.

If you could find anything you could actually live full-time in for $12k, you'd be laughing. The price of motorhomes is so high that I struggle to understand the business model. Just how many people are out there who are dropping $150k plus on a badly built campervan?
 
Priller said:
We're in the market for a used small travel trailer, and I'll tell you, RV prices haven't dropped as much as I'd like. Sure, they're down from peak Covid insanity when you'd struggle to find a new one, but they've been pretty flat over the past couple years and are still well up from pre-Covid prices. Like houses, they're still selling steadily but not being snapped up instantly like they were.

If you could find anything you could actually live full-time in for $12k, you'd be laughing. The price of motorhomes is so high that I struggle to understand the business model. Just how many people are out there who are dropping $150k plus on a badly built campervan?
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I've been following the class b market for a number of years. I'm stunned by the used prices. If one can afford it, it's better to buy new. Real selling prices are about 15% to 20% less than list. Anything built by Thor would be even more % off.
I'm looking at Pleasureway specifically.
 
AllistonGT said:
I've been following the class b market for a number of years. I'm stunned by the used prices. If one can afford it, it's better to buy new. Real selling prices are about 15% to 20% less than list. Anything built by Thor would be even more % off.
I'm looking at Pleasureway specifically.
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Holy ****. I'd fancy one of those but new they are hovering at $200k and used around $130k upwards for something with 100k kms. Wow, I never knew they were so pricey.
 
AllistonGT said:
I've been following the class b market for a number of years. I'm stunned by the used prices. If one can afford it, it's better to buy new. Real selling prices are about 15% to 20% less than list. Anything built by Thor would be even more % off.
I'm looking at Pleasureway specifically.
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I paid under $100000 Canadian for ours new in 2022 Winnebago solis 59P. Bought it new flew to New Mexico picked it up and drove it home. Couldn't find a used one in Canada for close to the same price.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk
 
Scuba Steve said:
I paid under $100000 Canadian for ours new in 2022 Winnebago solis 59P. Bought it new flew to New Mexico picked it up and drove it home. Couldn't find a used one in Canada for close to the same price.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk
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What sort of paperwork did that involve?
 
Priller said:
We're in the market for a used small travel trailer, and I'll tell you, RV prices haven't dropped as much as I'd like. Sure, they're down from peak Covid insanity when you'd struggle to find a new one, but they've been pretty flat over the past couple years and are still well up from pre-Covid prices. Like houses, they're still selling steadily but not being snapped up instantly like they were.

If you could find anything you could actually live full-time in for $12k, you'd be laughing. The price of motorhomes is so high that I struggle to understand the business model. Just how many people are out there who are dropping $150k plus on a badly built campervan?
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No idea where you live, but if you're in the west end (or don't mind the drive) go see Calvin at Ruston RV in Burlington...family owned business since 1968 and we had a great experience when we bought ours back in November 2023...we picked up a 2019 for $19,999 while there were three exact same units at other dealers for $5-10,000 more...Calvin spent two hours after they closed with us and then Ethan did a fantastic job with the walk through...no issues at all other than some minor wear and tear inside...
 
Scuba Steve said:
I paid under $100000 Canadian for ours new in 2022 Winnebago solis 59P. Bought it new flew to New Mexico picked it up and drove it home. Couldn't find a used one in Canada for close to the same price.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk
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I've checked US prices on Pleasureway's. We get a better deal up here. They are built in Saskatchewan.
Plus I want the warranty.
 
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AllistonGT said:
I've checked US prices on Pleasureway's. We get a better deal up here. They are built in Saskatchewan.
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Similar for the Canadian-built trailers. We've looked at Safari Condo (best in the business, but pricey, especially when you option them out), Prolite (interesting designs, extremely light and reasonably priced, but a bit small for us bar one model nobody carries), Escape (nice fibreglass units but no dealers), and General Coach (too big for us). There's also the super old-school Taylor Coach from nearby Millgrove who do custom units. All are light years ahead of the Indiana brands, some for not much more. Unfortunately for us, that reputation for quality also translates into high resale, so deals are a lot harder to find.

ifiddles said:
No idea where you live, but if you're in the west end (or don't mind the drive) go see Calvin at Ruston RV in Burlington...family owned business since 1968 and we had a great experience when we bought ours back in November 2023...we picked up a 2019 for $19,999 while there were three exact same units at other dealers for $5-10,000 more...Calvin spent two hours after they closed with us and then Ethan did a fantastic job with the walk through...no issues at all other than some minor wear and tear inside...
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We've actually been to Ruston a few times as they're just across the bridge from us, and seen them at a couple RV shows. We've also rented RV's bought there, and you're not the first to speak highly of them, which is unusual in an RV business that seems to specialise in disappointing people. Unfortunately, they haven't had anything that was a fit used, and the Coachmen lines they carry new haven't ended up being our first choice.
 
@Priller actually, there are a few good dealers around who have a good reputation...Niagara Trailers, Smithville RV and Keith's Trailers (but they're north of Erin) are some other places we visited and had they had what we wanted, would not have hesitated to buy from...we (well I) actually found ours on Marketplace (Ruston had it posted Saturday around midnight, and I messaged right away, then called first thing Monday to set up a time to go see it)...the brands you chose are great Canadian builders and we're looking to hopefully get either a Northlander or General Coach park model in a few years once we retire...good luck!
 
Priller said:
We're in the market for a used small travel trailer, and I'll tell you, RV prices haven't dropped as much as I'd like. Sure, they're down from peak Covid insanity when you'd struggle to find a new one, but they've been pretty flat over the past couple years and are still well up from pre-Covid prices. Like houses, they're still selling steadily but not being snapped up instantly like they were.

If you could find anything you could actually live full-time in for $12k, you'd be laughing. The price of motorhomes is so high that I struggle to understand the business model. Just how many people are out there who are dropping $150k plus on a badly built campervan?
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Google RV delamination and you get lots of hits. A friend has a trailer / RV and his supposedly "Higher end" one was delaminating in a few years. He shrugged it off as an acceptable evil and does his own fixes by pouring epoxy into the wall and squeezing the wall back together.

It came with an undersized axle that stranded him in the USA until some good old boys bailed him out.

IIRC he bought his in the USA because the Canadian dealer was either messing up or thought that having that line was a license to print money.
 
nobbie48 said:
Google RV delamination and you get lots of hits. A friend has a trailer / RV and his supposedly "Higher end" one was delaminating in a few years. He shrugged it off as an acceptable evil and does his own fixes by pouring epoxy into the wall and squeezing the wall back together.

It came with an undersized axle that stranded him in the USA until some good old boys bailed him out.

IIRC he bought his in the USA because the Canadian dealer was either messing up or thought that having that line was a license to print money.
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Might as well continue the full derail at this point...

They're mostly all built like crap, especially the volume brands out of Indiana, which is 95% of the models out there. It used to be there were a few brands that stood out, e.g. Winnebago, Airstream, Grand Design, but consolidation and the ravages of Covid greed have meant that even those brands are now junk. Cheap-light-good is an impossible Venn diagram. Azdel in place of luan has helped delam somewhat, or at least it makes repairs a bit easier, but

The light-good ones (Safari Condo, Escape, Oliver, Casita, General Coach, etc.) are 3-6x the cost, so definitely not cheap. That adds up fast for something we'd only use 5-7 times per year, especially when it takes us from paying cash to having to borrow with the associated interest, even at HELOC rates. At the moment, we have our eyes on a pre-Covid 2019 Winnebago Micro Minnie 2106DS that seems well maintained, is up for <$20k and ticks all our very specific boxes (tandem axle, <4000 lbs, sofa, 7' wide). Definitely not a top-drawer model, but as long as it has been and will be maintained, should do what we need it to do...
 
Priller said:
Might as well continue the full derail at this point...

They're mostly all built like crap, especially the volume brands out of Indiana, which is 95% of the models out there. It used to be there were a few brands that stood out, e.g. Winnebago, Airstream, Grand Design, but consolidation and the ravages of Covid greed have meant that even those brands are now junk. Cheap-light-good is an impossible Venn diagram. Azdel in place of luan has helped delam somewhat, or at least it makes repairs a bit easier, but

The light-good ones (Safari Condo, Escape, Oliver, Casita, General Coach, etc.) are 3-6x the cost, so definitely not cheap. That adds up fast for something we'd only use 5-7 times per year, especially when it takes us from paying cash to having to borrow with the associated interest, even at HELOC rates. At the moment, we have our eyes on a pre-Covid 2019 Winnebago Micro Minnie 2106DS that seems well maintained, is up for <$20k and ticks all our very specific boxes (tandem axle, <4000 lbs, sofa, 7' wide). Definitely not a top-drawer model, but as long as it has been and will be maintained, should do what we need it to do...
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The video puts the blame on the city of Eugene Oregon, about the size of Barrie or Oshawa. It claims that the city spends more on enforcement than it would on improvements.

At around 12:35 the video mentions a 2019 Mini Winnie with an original price of $78,000 selling at auction in Sept 2024 for $11,000 All will be USD.

A 2021 Keystone 5th wheel at $52,000 new went for $7,800, under the hammer. If the units were repo'd it's unlikely they were well serviced as the crunch came.

I knew a guy that lived in a RECREATIONAL trailer for years. Recreational trailers do not stand up to full time living and the way they are built, proper renovations are more work than building from scratch.
 
Priller said:
Might as well continue the full derail at this point...

They're mostly all built like crap, especially the volume brands out of Indiana, which is 95% of the models out there. It used to be there were a few brands that stood out, e.g. Winnebago, Airstream, Grand Design, but consolidation and the ravages of Covid greed have meant that even those brands are now junk. Cheap-light-good is an impossible Venn diagram. Azdel in place of luan has helped delam somewhat, or at least it makes repairs a bit easier, but

The light-good ones (Safari Condo, Escape, Oliver, Casita, General Coach, etc.) are 3-6x the cost, so definitely not cheap. That adds up fast for something we'd only use 5-7 times per year, especially when it takes us from paying cash to having to borrow with the associated interest, even at HELOC rates. At the moment, we have our eyes on a pre-Covid 2019 Winnebago Micro Minnie 2106DS that seems well maintained, is up for <$20k and ticks all our very specific boxes (tandem axle, <4000 lbs, sofa, 7' wide). Definitely not a top-drawer model, but as long as it has been and will be maintained, should do what we need it to do...
Click to expand...
FWIW Syracuse NY, $11,849 USD


Sorry for the hijack but with a few more years of brain dead voters we could be looking at the same options.
 
nobbie48 said:
The video puts the blame on the city of Eugene Oregon, about the size of Barrie or Oshawa. It claims that the city spends more on enforcement than it would on improvements.
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That's AI. I couldn't find anything from a real news source that said anything similar. Coastal Oregon, like Washington and BC, does have a serious issue with homelessness, that much is true. Temperate climates and port access to cheap drugs means addicts tend to congregate there, and there's long-running accusations of other states bussing addicts in.

But like Vancouver, Portland, Victoria, Seattle, etc., the cities are still beautiful, very livable, and a far cry from the hellscape described by fear-mongering videos. To stay somewhat on topic, that's reflected in the sky-high property values.

nobbie48 said:
FWIW Syracuse NY, $11,849 USD

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That's a very good price if that trailer hasn't had issues, but as @ifiddles notes, that particular chain of dealers is notorious. One of their many scams is advertising super low prices to get you in the door, but then tacking on all sorts of mandatory charges to balloon the cost. I also prefer to stay in Canada these days...
 
ifiddles said:
And the Canadian version of Camping World is Camp Mart...stay FAR, FAR away from them...friend bought a $20,000 trailer there a few years ago and still owes $34,000...sheesh...
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Oof. Yeah, we went to the Camp Mart in Hamilton, immediately got the heebie jeebies, and backed out as fast as we could. Only talked about bi-weekly payments, and sold only junk brands. One thing I appreciated about Ruston was the sales guy was super up-front about how brutal the depreciation can be.

The world of RV financing is truly bizarre and can be hugely predatory, but I suppose it props up one end of the industry. They will try to talk you into 25+ year loans on a massively depreciating asset. 10 years down the line, the RV is worth 25% of the sale price and you're deep underwater. We went to a show last fall, and lots were advertising decent interest rates, 3.99% and even lower. But when you do some digging, those rates only apply for a limited time, then they spike, and there can be early payment penalties. It's not a universal problem in the business, but it is a common one.
 
Leisure Travel Vans ( built in Manitoba) makes some really nice units. My wife and I picked up a new Unity Rear Lounge on a Mercedes chassis about two years ago and have been very happy with it. Definitely better quality and reputation than most. Also have a pretty good resale value especially in the US where they have a cult like following.
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