Pros & Cons About Our 2021 Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31FP Purchase!

We took delivery on our Class C Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31 FP (bunkhouse model) in April 2021. We are newbie RV owners but for eight months prior to actually buying, (for cash), we researched what we wanted to be our perfect, for us, dream rig.

I detail our process in trying to determine the perfect RV for us in previous blogs, but a quick recap here is, a pull-behind was never in the running for us. I wanted the fun to start the moment we stepped into the RV and for me, that is with a motorized Recreational Vehicle. We did consider a Class B+ size but determined the small size would leave out trips with our six grandchildren and decided to go larger.

We almost pulled the trigger on a Class A. In fact I was in love initially with the Holiday Rambler because I wanted a washer/dryer and even fireplace however, I began to worry about driving such a beast. I understand they drive like a dream, and they do, but inadvertently when watching an industry video about tire blowouts for my husband’s company, I watched a Class A have a tire blow out and saw it roll over.

I could not un-see that.

We tried going with Thor’s Vegas - a Class A/Class C hybrid according to Thor, but did not like the huge RV chain selling them here in the Michigan area. It is definitely a sellers market and we were treated like cattle. While the Vegas seems far less top heavy, and not so daunting to drive, the way we were treated gave me time to ponder the lack of space in the Vegas and the reviews which while not bad, the reviews for Thor, not good.

Which brought me to reevaluate Class A’s altogether.

Of all the Class C’s Entegra and Jayco were at the top of my list once I narrowed down my must-haves and Jayco had a Dealership in my area that was thankfully not the chain I refused to go back to and are we ever happy with Tradewinds RV Center in Clio, Michigan.

It is so important to not only find a great Dealership, but also one that will repair your RV. I can not stress that enough. You will find that you will want to go back to your Dealership and sometimes it will be for just minor things.

We looked into (for example) Leisure Travel Vans. While we could have found a dealer 1 1/2 hours away, what I did find out was two things. At the time we wanted to buy, the wait time was a 1 to 2 year wait time. No joke. Now at this writing that may have changed, however, when we were ready to buy, that was what I was told and I called Dealerships that weren’t even close to us to verify.

The second thing is, they are made in Canada. This may not seem like a big deal, but I watched a video of Robin on Creativity RV waiting on a part for her shower (she lived in her Leisure Van full-time) that rendered it unusable without that part and she could not get that part anywhere in the U.S.. However - at that time, Canada was not able to ship it to her Dealership and so she waited….and waited… And waited and while some people who live on the road don’t care that they could not use their shower (I watch #Vanlife videos all the time and am astounded how many builds don’t even have showers or even toilets…), this mattered a great deal to her. So much so, after she got the part, due to some other issues, she traded her Leisure Travel Van in for an American made RV.

So keep that in mind. I absolutely fell in love with this Class B+ and can say for at least three weeks of my search because of the amazing videos by the manufacture and obviously lovely high end build of these rigs thought, this is the one for us, but rapidly changed my mind after watching Robin’s journey on Creativity RV. I think I dodged a bullet on that one.

While I did consider RV’s in Florida and even Elkhart, IN (we live in Michigan) and other distant places to include Texas, remember, if you need repairs, almost without exception, you are going to have to drive back to these places for your in-warranty repairs.

At Tradewinds, we are treated like family, and it is not that far from us here in Michigan.

Also a shout out to the RV Odd Couple. They saved our bacon. While seriously considering a Thor Vegas and waiting for a call back because on our first visit to test drive it, the awning on the only one they had on the lot would not close prevented us from test driving it. So while we waited for a call back that we never received even though I called them back to ask when we could test drive another one in any one of their numerous franchises in the Michigan area, I began to rethink our wanting this rig. To this minute, no one called us back ever from this nation-wide Dealership. We were at one time very interested in the model and since it was in our price range, if the test drive had gone well, we probably would have bought it.

Thanks to the RV Odd Couple, and John and Mercedes’ warning about the fine print in many Dealership’s contracts, we never got that far (regardless of the no-call-back, I probably would have mistakenly hounded them but for the Odd Couple’s great advice). So that was God looking out for us in many ways. We are thankful the big Dealership let us fall through the cracks.

Come to find out, in the chain’s contract (and this is now happening big time across the nation when ordering RV’s) no matter what the agreed price was/is in that contract with the Dealership, if the manufacture has to increase the price before delivery the customer will be stuck with the price increase no matter what that increase is. Period.

So say for example we bought that Thor Vegas for 100K which at the time was around the MSRP, and we signed that contract with the big Dealership and six months later Thor had a part that cost them 3K or more unexpectedly. This is happening now due to shortages on parts. They substitute and sometimes that substitute part is substantially more costly.

Upon delivery, we would have been stuck with paying that price increase. When I asked that Dealership if I could have then gotten out of that contract and gotten my deposit back they said, nope. And they were asking for a 20% deposit at the time!

I am forever in John and Mercedes debt!

At Tradewinds RV, we signed an invoice. When I asked if we would have to suck up a price increase for our Jayco if this same scenario happened upon delivery they said, no. What we signed is what we pay.

In addition, when we ordered our Jayco, we had just a regular hot water heater. Upon delivery, they threw in a tankless hot water heater at no extra charge.

Who does that?

So getting to the pros and cons — starting out my list of Pros — that would be one of them. I am very impressed with Jayco’s professionalism and overall build.

They said when we ordered our rig in October of 2020—expected approximate delivery date mid April.

That rig was delivered to the Dealership April 15, 2021. The industry has had tremendous set-backs. COVID-19 hit supply chains hard, yet Jayco delivered as they said they would, no excuses. I found that commendable. Our Dealership rep Brandon always kept us informed with periodic calls to keep us updated too and we appreciated that.

PROS

A Pro is I had read and watched countless videos that swore, all new RVs would essentially be piles of junk (so to speak) and we should expect to have a laundry list of major and minor problems.

Not so with our rig. As it turns out, I think this tends to be common with Jaycos. While we did have some problems with our Jayco, they were minor fixes that my husband was able to take care of in many cases, or something that did not interrupt our camping excursions in any way before our first trip back to have it fixed under warranty at the Dealership. To me that is important. We did have a list, but nothing that stopped us from going to Iowa, Manistee, Michigan and our daughter’s wedding in New Jersey before we had our first warranty fix date.

While the closet wasn’t long enough to accommodate my mother-of-bride gown this area was and it is where I placed it going to our daughter’s wedding affording us plenty of space for it to lay and not be wrinkled for the trip.

A Pro. We looked at Class A’s because of all of the outdoor storage which our Jayco Class C does tend to lack. But it does have an outdoor TV and what it lacks in outdoor storage it has in indoor storage. We found we really don’t need all of the outdoor storage we thought we’d need. Because we have the bunk model with one slide-out, we have plenty of storage that we haven’t even used up entirely even when we went to my daughter’s wedding. If you are organized and think it through, you’ll actually end up having empty space inside as we do on our trips and I over pack, especially my clothes!

The bunk area is another great spot for storage. When my husband wants to get up especially early, old habits for an old soldier…he leaves his change of clothes out if I sleep in and doesn’t disturb me in the morning. I also tuck away our dirty clothes sack when we camp in a corner and close a curtain to keep it neat looking in our living space.

A huge Pro is entre access to the bathroom and bedroom even when the slide is closed. We would not have gotten any coach that did not have this feature. This is vitally important if staying overnight at a truck stop or quick one nighters where opening your slides is not an option.

A Pros— I can drive this rig. I will discuss a Con related to driving though later on, but being able to drive this rig was a must because I didn’t want my husband to be the only one to have to be stuck in the drivers seat all the time.

A Pro is the upgraded Prestige mattress which did not disappoint, understanding this is a very subjective thing, and also my husband and I like firm mattresses. I was warned both in blogs and vlogs that almost without exception, all RV mattresses were simply below subpar. We vowed to try the Jayco mattress out first and I will say that we don’t even have a special mattress pad on it and sleep just fine. In the prestige it is supposed to be upgraded. I did notice that it looks like an upgraded type of mattress by eyeballing. Admittedly it is not very thick, only eight inches. I include a photo here. It does not appear to be made of high end materials, but we are talking about an RV mattress and can upgrade down the road if we want. For now it is suitable for us.

A Pro But also a Con- the con of this will be discussed later. The driver and the passenger seats turn around to face inside the living area which makes it really nice if you need extra seating.

Note these photos are with the slide out. Not sure what Levi sees or hears outside. He’s not tellin’.

A Pro- This pro actually was not planned, but the social area is situated so that there is seating across from each other. In many rigs, you may have the ability to turn the driver and passenger seat around for socializing. But what about if you just have one seating area inside your living area across from your kitchen? We noticed this one day when it was not only pouring but the winds made it impossible to be outside when we had family come visit us at our camp.

Slide is out in the living space area but even with the slide closed, that door into the bathroom leads through to another door that goes into the bedroom.

I recognized that we had a couch that was across from the dinette which made it quite comfortable for the four of us to sit without having to turn the seats around in our rig for hours of talking and snacking/enjoying adult beverages and visiting while it was nasty outside.

Yet I had looked at many lovely models of RVs that had all of the seating on one side of the rig. So essentially you’d have to look sideways to socialize.

This is an example of an Entegra, Class C, one of the models we were very interested in, a great rig, but it has all the socializing area on one side. Something we realized after owning the Jayco that wouldn’t have worked as well for us.

This isn’t a big deal, but ended up being a big deal to us and one we are so glad we accidently ended up having in our rig as it made a difference to us. I know this meant probably not having a huge kitchen as a result but for us, we’re fine with that. I’d rather the social space inside in case outside gets rainy because we plan to camp in inclement weather as this camper is equipped for cold weather too.

A Pro- Now while I can not verify this, I can tell you that I believe because our particular Jayco model is equipped for cold weather travel and camping that the sound proofing and insulation is amazing. It saves us on air-conditioning as well as heating (some northern areas can get chilly in Michigan at night even in the summer). Plus, staying at truck stops as we do in-between camping, it is noisy. I can not tell in our Jayco. I sleep like a baby in our RV designated paid spot even though we are surrounded by trucks at night running their generators. When you open the door it’s loud, but with the windows closed it’s an amazing quiet sanctuary when you need it.

This is the bed stripped down for sheet and comforter washing. The bed and an RV queen with two end tables and drawers on only one side (my side).

A Pro - This is also related to how it drives. This new Ford drive train that comes with our Jayco is amazing. NOW - confession here, it’s not as if we drove a boat load of Jayco’s prior, but we did drive other Class C’s as renters and there is a difference. Our Blast drives more like a big Suburban or Truck than a beast of an RV to me and that can be a good or a bad thing. You think it can handle like a Suburban. It can not! It still has all that weight behind it so you still have to always be hyper aware of that when driving it even though it does handle so nicely and has amazing, powerful pick-up.

CONS

1 Con—-The swivel chairs are a big pain to swivel. Yes, they do swivel but they are a huge chore to get them to do just that. I do see in especially Class B vans that there are chairs that seem to effortlessly swivel around, our chairs do not do that at all. You must first push them all the way forward and this is in itself not easy to do. The lever in front, on the bottom is hard to pull up and a little awkward. Then the top must be tilted forward as far as it will go, then there is a lever underneath the seat on the inside near away from the doors, that one must have strength in their hands and wrist to push all the way back towards the rear of the coach in order to begin to turn the seat towards the living area where you want it to face before you can even begin to turn the seat.

I am 64 years old with arthritic joints. This is not a happy task for me. My husband has to do the seats for me if we want them to turn so I do not like that idea and I have tried to do this myself. So this is a fail/a big Con for me.

Another Con—while I absolutely can drive The Blast, what we affectionately named our wonderful Jayco, alas, I can not drive her on any adventure completely alone. This is tragic for me and although not the fault of Jayco or the Dealership by any means, a warning to all potential new owners. I must tag team with my husband. Maneuvering The Blast in towns, to get gas, into camping areas etc. at least right not is too daunting for me solo and this is heartbreaking for me.

On the highways and roadways I can drive for hours with confidence. Off road though, I feel more confident with my husband helping and that is something I did not realize when we test drove and ultimately bought our Blast.

Big Con—While I understand it is very popular with vlogs and other blogs to say it doesn’t matter what your tank gauges say for me, it matters. I did not realize how inadequate the tank gauges were for our Jayco Greyhawk Prestige. They are little tiny lights. You press a button several times and they will indicate how full they are by lighting up the different percentages. I mean, what the heck?

While the screen looks bright and crisp now, it is because we are parked in a shady area. Once out in full sunlight that screen totally washes out and becomes almost useless without that shade protector we added and even then it does not help much.

Welcome to the 21st Century Jayco - it’s called THE DIGITAL AGE. It’s called digital read outs, hooking up a system that would have had a tablet read out for these things that, by the way aren’t six feet up, above the stairs where you enter the rig so I must use a step stool to even read in the first place precariously perched where I can break something like an ankle or foot…Just dumb. A tablet that can be removed so I can have a read-out of everything in the rig would have been nice for what we paid for this lovely Class C Prestige would have been something way better than what we got. Which brings me to—-

Huge Con—Jayco’s navigation system screen. It is completely fixed. It can not be moved except slightly up or down. It can not be tilted towards the driver and believe me, it needs to be. Because it sticks out, the screen totally washes out in sunlight so it needs to be tilted towards the driver which can not be done. So we bought a type of device that sort of shields the screen and flips up when you don’t need it that helps but it is a very poor engineered mount. Otherwise we love the actual system. It does Apple play just right and as we understand, does well for Android devices. We plan to have it remounted in the near future but this is a wasted upgrade in our opinion.

Con- Now this isn’t a massive con, it is a con worth mentioning in my opinion. For our particular model, the TV in the main living area is situated in an adequate area but the real con is, the arm does not swing out very well at all for best viewing. I did notice in other models of the Greyhawk Presitige the TV seemed much better situated so this is a problem specifically for our model and one we knew when we did our walk-through so we went into the purchase with our eyes wide open on that one. It is tucked into the corner above the driver’s side, in the area above the cab. And when I say tucked, it is jammed in there. It does swing out but just barely. We would have liked it to have had much more of an articulating arm and will be fixing that in the near future as well as upgrading the size of the T.V.

I am going to close saying, this is by no means a comprehensive tour or comprehensive list of all pros and cons. This is just an overview of some my/our personal thoughts about our purchase, now that we’ve had it since April. We still love The Blast, we would not trade it in for the world although our dealer told us that the day it arrived Jayco said the MSRP went up quite a bit for the 2021s and for one single second I was tempted because we paid cash…

BUT, even though my expectations were very high, we love our Blast!

Thanks again to John and Mercedes! Check them out they are AMAZING! You will learn so much from them they literally saved us 20K because I was going to haunt that big chain RV place and suck it up even though customer service was awful because I thought in this climate I had no choice and thought I wanted that one particular RV. Thanks to them, we got schooled and they saved us a ton of cash in the process! LOVE THEM!!!!

Until next time: Duty, Honor and Seeing the Country RV Style!

Our beloved travel guy Levi…