Now I'm no expert. I am strictly a consumer giving you my experience and hoping to help you from our perspective avoid some pitfalls we almost made costly mistakes with.  Just trying to be helpful here! Heck, we're so new we're still waiting for delivery of our Class C Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31FP.  Expected delivery April 2021. However, I can tell you our long process of how we came along, (we started our research February of 2020) how happy we are with the process thus far and how we dodged a huge bullet thanks to the RV Odd Couple.

Both my husband and I are big travelers. We haven’t only traveled, we’ve lived in many of the places we want to see in the RV as my husband spent 31+ years as an Airborne, Infantry, Ranger qualified Army Officer. We moved 21 times in those 31 years and lived in every corner of the USA, the middle, the south, well, you name it. Not to mention Europe for over three years. My husband did a tour in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sani and Somalia.

When COVID-19 forced us into our home in 2020, I started to think of a way to avoid the airlines and hotels and yet still get my travel bug on. I’ve always been a tad bit of a germaphobe. Have Lysol-will-travel. I have soaked my share of T.V. remote controls and hotel upholstered surfaces. I’m over even the finer hotels because I saw that 20/20 episode where they swabbed surfaces of the fanciest places and the cultures came back with monstrous, gag-worthy results. So the idea of an RV purchase popped into my cranium. The Colonel took a bit of convincing, but soon he too was on board with the idea and my course in RV buying 101 began.

I guess the number one advice I am giving is: do your research before ever stepping onto a lot. In fact, you pretty much want to be ready to buy before you actually go to the RV lots to test drive. I had no idea about this when we started our search. Thanks to those who have YouTube channels, I learned this. It is a sellers market these days in the RV world and even when we were ready to buy, you can be treated like a second or third class citizen, I can tell you from first hand experience. It actually hacks the sales people off if you are “just looking”. And NEVER tell them that you do or do not have a trade in or if you are paying or not paying cash until you are literally ready to sit down and buy the rig you want. Yeah, I KNOW! This is the cut-throat market of the RV buying world now though!

They will use all sorts of tricks to get them to tell you what you do for a living, how much money you have to spend and how much money you have in the bank. You can tell them if the rig they are showing you is more than you want to spend and to move on, but give away as little as possible until you are sitting at that desk ready to negotiate for THE rig you want. Give yourself the very best advantage. Save your bragging rights for after the sale.

We were actually treated (it was rare but it happened) a tad rudely by some sales people. We didn’t buy from them of course, but unless you live in some place like Florida, California or Arizona, sometimes you are going to have to drive long and far and the pickings are slim so bear that in mind and the sales people know it.

We also decided to buy new and to pay cash. Determine if you wish to buy used or from a private party. There is one huge disadvantage about buying new these days. There is little to no inventory so the wait is long if your dream rig is not on the lot.

However, if you find a reputable dealer who stands by the rigs they sell and they fix what they sell, then new or used, even if you do pay a bit more, they are worth going to over a dealer who gives you a better deal but leaves you high and dry once you drive off the lot. So dealer reviews are important.

For us the decision was between a Class A or C. Class A is the Bus-like RVs. Class C’s are the types that have the sleeping capacity over the top of the cab. Towing a rig wasn’t an option for us as I wanted the vacation to start the minute we got into the rig.

Thankfully we have the internet to help us do our homework for us before hand and I did it intensely. For me, I knew there were two things. I had to be able to drive it myself and that I wanted to be able to have the option of our grandchildren join us if we wanted. That’s when a class A started to be eliminated. While it has the best storage capacity and I knew drove like a dream and was powerful, I found it daunting to drive. This is a personal preference. I felt it too high up, like driving a Mack Truck or something - it was just too nerve wracking for me with taking the curves. Again, totally a personal preference. For me, driving the Class C was like driving a longer Tahoe which was the vehicle I already owned.

So choose the type you want and once you settle on that, research the brand. When we were researching, Winnebago and Thor hadn’t quite bought up every class of motorhome. Now though, they pretty much own all models so frankly, you are pretty much going to own a subsidiary of Winnebago or Thor unless you go with a few of the independent companies that are left.

All of them, and there are absolutely zero exceptions, have their pluses and their minuses. There will be no perfect coaches. Even the top, top end ones unless you’re Will Smith and have one custom made for millions, when bought new will almost always have some problems. Some of them will be minor, some will possibly be major. So remember to take some “maiden voyages” before you plan on any huge vacations with your brand new rig and and keep your expectations realistic.

However pay attention to consumer ratings when you find a rig you like and looking at their reviews. There are some real lemons out there. We were ready to pull a trigger on two rigs, but I read the reviews and didn’t even make the trip to the dealer based on the poor feedback from people who left terrible reviews about the very ones we thought could be our dream rigs.

Next, look at the ratings of the place you’re going to buy from as I stated before. The RV Odd Couple saved our bacon when they gave a dire warning about dealer’s contracts. There apparently is a fine print in there that says when a buyer signs a contract to order a new RV, the price they are paying may not be the price upon delivery. If the price is higher, the buyer has to pay the higher price! Yeah! Were it not for the RV Odd Couple, I would not have had the presence of mind to ask this huge nation-wide family owned RV company that “What if” question. They at least admitted, if there is an increase in cost of the RV, the buyer would have to pay, whether it be $5.00 - $12,000 or whatever. In the world of COVID, these things have been happening with parts and so forth. So I then said, “Well I could then just decide not to buy and get my deposit back, correct?” To which the answer was a big fat, “No.”

In the case of our RV that would have been a loss of $10,000!

Thank you John and Mercedes! The RV Odd Couple! Truly the best out there for honest help for RVers!

Also, if you are getting a class A or C and not a smaller B+ or Class B, do you have a steep driveway or any type of incline? We hadn’t even thought of this before putting down our deposit on our rig. Never occurred to us! Will it go up our very steep driveway without bottoming out? An expensive test was, we rented an identical rig to ours and voilà! Clearance! What a costly mistake if it hadn’t however!

Also, do you have HOA (Home Owners Association) rules? Check that out before hand. Be sure you have that settled if you can not park your rig at your home.

I have more ideas, warnings, dos and don’ts to follow soon regarding our very long RV buying learning curve. Stay tuned.

I hope you will join me for tips and tricks about RVing from a military perspective. Journey with me to military bases and Naval stations where I’ll share unique history that is little known about these places and how you as an RVer can visit these camping areas for yourself and take in these historic areas first hand.

Duty, Honor and Seeing the Country RV Style!

©Carol Van Drie/RVing the Military Way 2021