Motor Homes of Texas has Newell 581 for sale for 189,000. Quite different inside, especially the shower. Walking though it I ask my wife, where is the shower. Finally found it behind two doors and the granite floor is air operated that slides open and reveals the shower floor.
Chester, it was an expensive coach to build. What frightens me is my wife really loved it. About the miles, my coach shows only 54,000 when I bought it, but was told it was more like 125,000. After connecting silverleaf to it, it showed 130,000. The shower what get me. I've never see anything like this. One will really have to need to take a shower to go through of it takes to get the shower ready. The photos don't really show it. It is complicated. The coach has a NC tag on it.
Went back over this morning and took some photos of the shower. You are correct Chester it is a very clean coach. Mel told me it is a one owner. Here are the photos.
(11-13-2015, 10:22 AM)qcj Wrote: Went back over this morning and took some photos of the shower. You are correct Chester it is a very clean coach. Mel told me it is a one owner. Here are the photos.
Hello All! I am brand new to Newell and this is my first post to the forum. We have been looking/narrowing down what we want for over a year as we get closer to going Full-Time. We thought we had our minds made up on a new Entegra Anthem until we got to talking with someone over Christmas. He is a seasoned RVer. He strongly suggested we buy a used top-end coach over a new mid-ranged one. He has a ForeTravel. We've looked at used RV's and were always disappointed. But it's clear we weren't looking at the right ones!
He sent a link this weekend to a ForeTravel at Motorhomes of Texas. We were impressed looking at the pictures. Very clean but a bit outdated. That could be fixed. I looked further at their inventory and saw this Newell #581. It is very unique! But now we are thinking Newell.
Any thoughts from anyone on the forum? Things to be careful about buying a used Newell. Things about this particular coach we should be aware of. Any helpful thoughts at all! We are open to listening. I've spent a long time on the Entegra forums. The idea of a 2 year warranty was appealing. But the idea of having a one-of-a-kind coach that wouldn't plummet in value is even more appealing.
" Things to be careful about buying a used Newell."
My only concern when I was looking was condition of the coach. If I was looking again that would be my #1 concern. I've owned my first Newell for six years and have absolutely no regrets! Newell is quality--period. Since I do my own work on the coach I am very familiar with all systems and there are no disappointments.
You need to remember the first law of Newell ownership--"no two Newells are the same". Much different buying a custom coach from a production coach as you can never assume the features of a coach without seeing it first hand or the build sheet. On a production coach items are located in the same place. On a Newell something as simple as the thermostat is probably located in ten different places on ten different coaches.
The most expensive part of coach ownership is depreciation. As an owner of five used coaches, buying an older coach makes sense to me from a depreciation perspective.
Good luck in your search & welcome to the forum............................
Steve Bare
1999 Newell 2 slide #531
(This post was last modified: 01-18-2016, 06:25 PM by rheavn.)
After much research and owning a several motorhomes it seems to me that once you get past the first couple years the value of pretty much every motorhome will drop 50% every 10 years. The higher end units tend to drop more in the first couple years and settle into the 50-10 pattern.
While every Newell is unique I can say I was surprised by how much was similar between the 77 and 93 coaches I've owned. If you walked into the two of them without being told they were built by the same company you would very quickly conclude that they were just by looking around. Newell gradually evolves the basic design of their coaches and then adds a layer or two of custom features at the request of the initial owner. The implication of all this is that there are enough similarities in the coaches for this group to provide enormous insight and support to owners of these coaches even though each coach is also unique.
The more features and complexity a coach has the higher the overall maintenance will be, there is just more that can go wrong. The Newell factory has slowly, cautiously, and conservatively evolved the technology incorporated in their coaches so, given the complexity of the coach's systems, these coaches are less prone to failures than similar coaches. However, there will be problems and you either work on them yourself with the help of this group, or you pay someone $100+/hour to work on a generally strange to them coach. It behooves you to know how the maintenance will be handled. With a new coach with a 2 year warranty your maintenance cost is minimized but your depreciation is maximized or you can trade off to a lower priced used Newell and flip those dynamics. Just where the break-even point is depends on who is doing the bulk of the maintenance. If you search this site you will find quite a number of reports regarding costs.
My point here is to point you in the direction of being able to understand your visible and invisible (depreciation) cash flows so that you can make a decision that fits who you are and how you want to manage things. Once you figure this all out for yourself you can purchase the best coach for you and go have the best possible time of your life.
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That is very helpful information - the 50%/10 year guideline is good to use. I never imagined considering a used motorhome so old until I started looking more at Newell. I did check on the #581. It sounds like someone has put an offer on it contingent on their financing going through. Apparently they have this week to get it together. Otherwise it will be available again. It seems very clean. We'll see.
I'll continue to watch this forum for others that become available.
I agree with your numbers for a quality motor home, but there's some brands out there that come off the assembly line worthless. The really nice thing about Newells is that you can fix up an older Newell and have a better motor home than 90+% of any new motor home out there. Has anyone out there heard of a Newell being scrapped because it was wore out?
just my two cents,
jon
Jon & Chris Everton
1986 40' Dog House #86
450 hp ISM 5 spd ZF Ecomat 2
2004 Range Rover L322 Toad
Hey Jon: I agree there are exceptions to every "guideline" I provided. Guidelines are no substitute for thinking, my guidelines are more for perspective than for solid assurance in every particular case.
