[Jmueller]

Before we bought our first motorhome I did my research on what others thought of the experience of RV purchases.  The most influential article I read was written by a lady in her 80’s who had with her husband been RV’ing most of their life together.  He had passed on and she had sold their last RV.  Her article was entitled  “Buy your last RV first”.  This was in reference to the number of times they replaced their RV over their life time starting with tents to class A motorhome including trailers and campers until the last number of class ‘A’s.  

I cruised the RV blogging websites like this one and found that the biggest engines, tag axles, more slides, big trailer towing capacity, two bathrooms (for guest and when the slides are all in), 220 volt cloths dryer, dishwasher, etc etc, were many of the reasons why they bought, sold or traded into all that depreciation.  Our first motorhome had most of these features and thought we would never find something that would replace it.  And quite frankly I did not want to waste money on depreciation for the limited use we get out of it.  We are in our 50’s and not full timers.  Last year I had the unfortunate timing of walking into a Newell ‘show coach’ in Indio CA.  Game over.  I could not afford a new one but we eventually found one we could afford.  And yes, we have spent another $30k fixing and replacing items that were hidden problems or worn out in our 2004 newell.  Expensive learning curve.  But it is what it is and we are hopefully optimistic that the Newell will be ‘it’.

I have rented our other coach a few times to relatives who are financially responsible and carry additional ‘insured’ coverage.  I think they are smarter for having a relative like me to carry the depreciation and have a nice motorhome to borrow.  Would not consider this option to someone not already familiar with driving a 50,000 lb rig that can easily highcenter, bottom out, clip corners and get stuck.

We will probably get another coach in a number of years but safe to say it will most likely be another Newell and it will only be a few years old and well maintained unlike the one we just bought that we are unfortunately having to repair and replace a lot of hidden maintenance problems the previous owners caused by neglect and deception.  I do have the ability to do much of the work myself so in the end we will have just overpaid for what’s will be a good coach for us.

One big piece advice.  If you are going to live in this coach for extended time periods, you can never go wrong with more slides.  That was the advice of that 80 year old lady that wrote that article in the FMCA magazine that got me thinking about buying my first motorhome that lasted me 10 years and 40,000 miles.

Great letter and great advise! If you're ever visiting the Coachella Valley please call on me! I would love to pick your brain further over dinner and adult beverages. 
JMueller