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RV Shopping Tips (Live Replay)

4,711 views · Published 2 February 2018 · 28:47 · Indexed 29 October 2026

Channel: Moving Forward Adventures · 2018 · People & Blogs

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The RV shopping experience can be great fun but also overwhelming. We would like to share what went into our thought process for choosing our RV. Hopefully it will help you determine what is important to you for when you are  ready to make a purchase. We decided to go with the Class A and here are the reasons.

We chose a Motorhome over a tow behind because
we wanted two vehicles. This way if the motorhome broke down we would have our tow car to go and get help and we would not feel stranded.
We also like the idea of when pulled over we do not have to go out in the elements to use a restroom or make lunch lunch and that our home is already at a comfortable climate.

We choose a gas engine because we felt the gas coach would be easier to service while on the road  full time, we knew where ever we traveled to there would be a Ford dealer that would be capable of making repairs on the motorhome and we worried that with a diesel finding a certified diesel mechanic would be fewer in between.

Diesel pushers are more expensive, but your are getting more than just an engine. You get a better ride quality along with an upgraded transmission and a much higher tow capacity, all of these things are nice but since we never owned one before we felt like we could not miss what we never had.

Ok so now we knew we wanted a gas motor home, now we had to decide on what type and size. We wanted to go as small as possible but still feel comfortable. We wanted something small which sounds like we made the wrong choice already by picking the Class A, but we wanted to be under 30ft. When we went into other drivable vehicles that were under thE 30ft mark, they did not have the same open feeling as the Class A did, not to us anyway.  To be honest that huge windshield was a big selling point for us too. When we sat behind the wheel and looked out the windshield it felt like a movie screen and we were ready to watch America through it. The original reason we wanted to be under 30ft was so we could get into all the National parks, we have not been to one yet,  but Being under 30ft still proved to have advantages for us. We move around so much being in a shorter rv has helped us maneuver and has made daily driving easier. We can get in and out of gas stations relatively easy and RV parks is a breeze.

Now we had the big choice of which brand do we go with, It took us a while to figure this out but when we went to the Winnebago factory tour and saw how they were built we were sold that our RV was going to be a Winnebago. Our best suggestion for everyone is go to factory tours if you can, this will allow you to see them being built and feel the materials they use in areas that you will not be able to see after its finished.  If you can not go to the tours in person see if the company has a video version of their factory tour.

Read the forums, all motorhomes have issues, but you can find out what those issues are in the forums. The forums will allow you not only to look up brands but the exact model you are interested in buying. You will be able to read what other owners are complaining about and then decide if those particular issues are things that you will be willing to deal with. Really all RV’s have issues, there is just too much that goes into them to be flawless but at least by using the forums you will have a heads up to what they are.

When shopping around we always were on the look our for large fresh water tanks, but what we should have been looking at is how large the holding tanks were. We actually got lucky with this one and our Vista LX 27N had large holding tanks. A large fresh water tank is great but you can always add more fresh water as you run out, but when your holding tanks are full they full and you may have to do all kinds of traveling to find an area to safely empty them.

We also wanted large cargo bays and large doors. You would think this would be a given but just because an RV had a large storage capacity it does not mean it has large doors capable of passing large items past them, so just take a look at those doors when shopping.

A way to keep our tanks warm in the winter. This can be done in several ways, our RV has what is called a freeze line all of our plumbing and tanks sit above this insulation and as long as we keep our motorhome living area warm our tank area stays warm also. Another way this can be done is with the heated basement method, warm air is forced into the cargo bay area with the use of duct work and one more way is with tank heaters, these are electric heating pads that are placed on the tanks to keep them warm.

Wardrobe closets, when shopping around we would pretend what a typical day was like and one of the first things we noticed in some RV’s was the lack of wardrobe space for sabrinas work clothes and dresses. I think this is because most if not all RV are made for vacations and weekends they are not designed with the idea of people living in them.

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