Still Thinking of Buying a New RV? Here’s Some Things We Got Right!
One of the things on our punch list when buying an RV was, room for the grandkids.
This is written for those who are considering RV ownership for the first time, although for you seasoned buyers, I think there might be some information of note given the ever fast changing Recreational Vehicle times we are currently in.
When my husband and I first decided to actually take the plunge and buy a new RV (we had never owned one before) it was March 2020. Before we stepped foot onto an RV lot, I then embarked on a vigorous and I mean pretty much daily search for the “perfect RV” for us.
One bonus we did not pre-plan was having an inside social area. Many RV floorplans tend to have the seating area all on one side. We love that there is a dinette right across from this couch for comfortable socializing when the weather won’t allow us to be outside.
People will tell you, there is no perfect RV. There isn’t. But I will tell you, you can come fairly close with a lot of research, planning, and patience. Not one of my virtues, but we paid cash for our rig, and given the budget my husband gave me, this was a boat load of cash. I was not going to be frivolous with that amount of money. It was just shy of the cost of our first home. I was going to do my very best to make a careful and thought out decision. So I stepped outside my comfort zone and patiently researched from March 2020 until October 2020 before pulling the trigger. As it turns out, it was worth it. I’ll get into some of the reasons why later on.
My son and grandson checking out The Blast with slides out, when we first arrived home with it.
Advice out there is, pay cash as we did so of course I lean toward that option. If this is not what you prefer to do, I personally see nothing wrong with financing especially given today’s climate. When our rig was delivered, our dealer told us we got it just in time as the MSRP literally increased 10K the month it was delivered which was April 2021. So it is a whole new world out there. RV’s aren’t depreciating nearly like they were when you drive them off the lot. RV dealerships can’t keep inventory for motorhomes anymore, so financing an RV isn’t what it was even when we bought our RV in October of 2020.
This is the floorplan for our 2021 Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31FP
So right now, if I wanted to sell our RV privately, I could potentially make 20-30K cash. Unheard of when just two or so years ago you lost thousand of dollars just driving the RV off the lot.
However, given the fact it is literally a six to eight month wait for new RV’s, our RV is a bit of a unicorn in our area of Michigan, no one has on on any lot, it has to be special ordered, it is a popular model, we could actually make some money on it.
Not selling but I am saying financing in this case might not be the worst idea these days.
Whether paying cash or financing, you have to determine what it is you want for your family. I made my list.
I wanted the option for our grandchildren to be able to go with us on trips.
I wanted to be able to drive the rig and not have to always rely on my husband to drive it.
I did not want to tow something, I wanted the vacation to start from the moment we began so that meant, no towing RV’s, it would have to be a motorized RV of some type.
We wanted the rig to have a usable bathroom and main bedroom even with the slides in.
It could not exceed 35 feet.
We wanted a rig capable of withstanding a drive through winter weather because we live in Michigan and planned on snowbirding it to Florida during winter months.
Our little guy Levi was with us the day we picked up The Blast and these are some of our first photos of that day with the dinette that is directly across from the couch in the living area.
Some things we inadvertently discovered but didn’t plan for and happily received with the rig we finally did purchase was, a social area. Many floor plans have all the seating capacity all on one side making the social area awkward. Some models come with “swivel front captain and passenger seating.” Check this because while we are very happy with our Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31FP, if we had to rely solely on this option for socialization, we would be pretty sunk. While they technically do swivel, they are not only difficult to get into this position, you need to use these lap pads and/or butt pads provided because the seats are sunken. My husband and I are in our 60’s and trying to maneuver those seats to swivel around is a chore. We are glad the floor plan already allows us to entertain without making it necessary to have to swivel these seats.
So something we did not realize as it happened one camping excursion and it was literally pouring rain with high winds and family stopped by, sometimes it’s not optimal to be outside when people are visiting. If we had had to rely on those swivel chairs in front it would have been a pain. We did not as we have a front coach dinette seating area as well as an across the aisle couch that seats three adults. Something that wasn’t on my list but an important consideration when thinking about your purchase.
I realize there are some models of RVs that have these seats that are not sunken and swivel with ease. In our case they do not. Just saying to keep this in mind if this is of importance as it turned out, it is for us.
I put one of the options in bold because this was an absolute deal breaker for us. Before we had decided, Class A, B, B+, C, whatever (most B’s do not have slides) if the rig we chose had slides, the access to the bedroom/bed would have to be accessible with the slides closed and this would also mean the bed could not be folded.
In addition, we would have to have access to the bathroom as well.
We knew we would be using boondocking opportunities and this could mean truck stops (see my earlier blogs about RVers using truck stops, we are not as forbidden, given some guidelines, as some have previously been warning). Using your slides is a no go at truck stops in particular so we needed a coach that would allow us full use of our entire rig without use of our slides.
This is a photo with the slide closed (there is only one slide in this model, it is to the right) and the arrow is pointing to the door to the full bathroom. Inside the bathroom, on the other side of the full bathroom is another door that goes into the bedroom where a queen bed is accessible from the bathroom.
Our Class C Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31FP is perfect for this and we are thrilled with it. We slipped right in there in-between the truckers in our reserved, paid for, designated RV spot, slide in, and yet had access to all parts (save a few drawers) of our RV. If needed, we actually could even have used our bunk beds, albeit with some difficulty, if we really had needed to. I was able to use the corners where I store our coffee maker in a plastic tote with handles in the corner, slides closed.
So those are some of the things we did right. We actually expected, as newbie RV owners to have a laundry list of terrible regrets and forehead-slapping moments. Come to find out, we absolutely love our Class C Jayco. It checked everything on my list. While I will not drive it anywhere on a long distance camping trip without my husband, with him, I will drive our affectionately named, “The Blast.”
It is 32 feet long, and while the outdoor storage isn’t as much as a Class A sports, we have ample indoor storage, more than we actually need, and we have an outdoor TV with speakers which we love.
It has tons of room room for the grandchildren capable of sleeping 10 if they’re not all adults, eight adults comfortably.
It is a winter capable RV and I think that explains how quiet it is which was amazing at the truck stops along with keeping the need to running the air conditioning to a lull so far this summer.
Since it is a Class C, there’s no towing involved unless we want to tow our car.
Would I change some things?
Yes I would. Like the dinette cushions aren’t attached too securely, the Velcro disks are a bit lame, and the cushions come loose while driving.
As mentioned previously, I would fix the ease of turning the front seats.
We are going to add a Lagun table on the side of the couch but this of course is strictly a personal preference.
Many people bitterly complain about RV mattresses. We like firm mattresses and this one is very firm. We did not even put a mattress pad on it other than a protection mattress covering with no padding. We were told that in the Prestige Jayco upgrades the mattress and my husband are fine with it. However, what I would have done was make it thicker. We will someday replace it with a thicker, firm mattress. It is a bit on the thin side, but otherwise not nearly as terrible as is usually the case in RVs.
I would have made all the drawers soft close and the top cabinet above the kitchen stove one that stays open. It just flops down when open and since this is the “Prestige” I thought that to be a pretty lame design flaw.
I would have also allowed more options for décor with the Prestige which was not allowed. There were only two interior options, and my favorite one is only allowed with the Jayco Greyhawk, not the Greyhawk Prestige which I found a tad annoying as the prettiest option was not one I could choose for our Prestige.
The drivers monitor that hooks to your phone will not move. It will only go up or down and at that barely, not left or right. This is the biggest design flaw that Jayco should address and that we are eventually going to have to have fixed on our own. It is otherwise unmovable, completely non-adjustable and while large, gets washed out in bright sunlight and will not move left so that the driver can see it better. If it were recessed like, for example my Tahoe screen, it would be protected from light. But it is not so it needs to be capable of adjustment to face the driver, but can’t be.
Overall though, these are issues we can live with and we are extremely happy with how solidly made this coach is plus it runs great. It has great pick-up and drives very smoothly for a Class C. In fact we stay to a strict top highway speed of 64 mph and it is easy to go faster because of the way the rig drives.
By no means is this a comprehensive list but here is my suggestion.
Make your list. Put your deal killers on it. My original list had washer and dryer on it. That was when we considered a Class A RV, but the fact that they had a high propensity for roll-over with tire blow outs made me reconsider, go back to the drawing board and consider Class C’s. The type of rig we wanted and the fact that most Class C models just do not have a washer/dryer combo made me take that off my list. My husband is in a specialty wheel manufacturing industry and that’s just a fact about those types of RV’s.
Do your research before ever going onto an RV lot. Unfortunately where we are in Mid-Michigan, there is essentially only one huge RV super seller and as it turned out with outlets all around us but we did not like their contract as it was not buyer friendly at all.
There were other smaller RV dealers to choose from thankfully, and though it was about an hours drive away, that is where we went and we are very happy with that dealer, Tradewinds RV in Clio, Michigan. However, we were prepared to go out of state if we had to because we were not going to sign a contract we were not happy with. Plus, their customer service was sub-par. At Tradewinds, they treated us like royalty.
Be patient. We started in March, and did not actually walk onto an RV lot with intent to buy until five months later. This is for newbies. For seasoned buyers, patience is still a virtue, but of course you do not have to wait so long.
The important thing is, we have zero regrets. I thought my expectations would be so high I would be let down with the ideas I had about glamping. It is quite the opposite. So before prices go up even more and the supply chain clogs even more, take that first step and go for it. We are so happy we did!
Until next time!
Duty, Honor and Seeing the Country RV Style!
Here we are the first on the day we picked up our 2021 Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31FP which was a dream come true for me!
