Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Quality Fifth Wheel

This is the best advice right here. If you cant turn a wrench, you better have the coin to pay the dealer to fix your chit. There are rv dealers out there north of $250 an hour. Let that sink in a bit

Bought a new jayco eagle. Like it alot. I think grand design makes a great trailer as well.

Grand designs manufacturing plant is the cleanest, well oiled machine in the business. You can walk through at the end of their day and the place is spotless. Pretty impressive facility

Of those built today…..Arctic Fox is a good one, and does cool temperatures better than most. I haven’t been keeping up rv like I did for many years……but, last time that I studied, Arctic fox is only one of 2 or 3 that built their own “in house” frames.

Around 80% of the rv’s sold in America are produced by 2 cooperations. Most use the lowest quality components that they can get by with. Most of the rv’s produced by these two corporations use Lippert components from wheels to lighting. Lippert is a huge cooperation, which has bought out many small companies that built rv components and had built good reputations for quality. Lippert buys them out, then lowers the quality to satisfy the “bean counters”!

Most of the best quality rv’s folded during the market/economy crash of the late 2000’s….when the demand for cheap crap dominated the rv industry. These two huge cooperations were more than happy to comply!

I wouldn’t trade my 19 year old Teton Homes 5th wheel for anything built today with the exception of a New Horizons 5th wheel…… I’m about $200 K short of being able to buy one! memtb


Addendum: This describes much of the current rv’s produced, “ you can chrome plate a turd…..but, it’s still a turd”! memtb

Yup, lippert owns most of the industry and thats not a good thing. They make alot of poor quality chit and often do not back the product

If you're going to buy a new RV go to the dealer and sit in it - uninterrupted - for a least one hour. Because that's what you'll be doing after you buy it and you'll see, before you sign on the line, all the problems and misalignments of the coach that are missed in the excitement of buying something new.

Not all New Horizon in Junction City, KS is warranted for full time living factory direct sales the cost is $150-250k and most need a big truck to tow it. A few of the others I mentioned allow full time living also.

Another thing……DO NOT BUY NEW!!! Rv’s depreciate very rapidly……let the first “sucker” take the big financial hit! memtb

Fontaine. Always liked their jaw mechanism better than a Holland.

I respectfully disagree about the New Horizons for full time use! This from New Horizons home page! memtb


https://horizonsrv.com/about/

We have a Grand Design Solitude 5th wheel (bought new in Nov 2020, 21 model).

Minor issues so far that got resolved under warranty. Good manufacturer support. Dealers suck and in TX you are required to return them to the dealer where sold for warranty support.

GD has yearly rally’s where they support with field techs and some (Lippert, Morride to name some) to educate owners on how to maintain their unit.

Arctic Fox is a division of Northwood Manufacturing. You can not go wrong with any of their products: Arctic Fox, or Fox Mountain in 5'th wheel; Nash, Desert Fox, or Arctic Fox in bumper pull trailers; Wolf Creek or Arctic Fox in Campers.

Doesnt matter what they say. My point is some will not warranty if they find out the owner is a full timer. Any rv manufacturer states they are desgined for 4 seasons or full time use, its a selling point and a lie lol. Ive seen them all and none stand up to that abuse. None and i mean none can safely be used in the dead of winter in minus temps without a perm setup, skirting and torpedo heaters firing into the enclosed underside

Those rallies are pretty awesome. Gd has been known to fix many issues in their campers even out side of warranty at those rallies. Like i said, shop the manufacture, not so much the product. Gd is a great company

I sold RV's for 25 years here in Mass. Cougar and Montana were the most trouble free. Sold Arctic Fox in the early 2000's, but had lots of issues then, mostly roof leaks and delams, but they were put together strong. Visit some dealers and look at the used models 5,6,7 years old of the ones you are considering. That will tell you more of how they hold up. They all have the same furnaces, refers, water heaters, usually 6 or 10 gallon, stoves, microwaves, ect. An $80K Airstream has the same water pump as a$25K Springdale. Pick a dealer with a good service dept, they should be proud to show it to you. Don't drive to Michigan, or someplace to save a couple bucks and expect your local dealer to take care of you . At the dealership I worked at we had a couple hookups and would let first timers spend a night and get familiar, take care of any questions the next morning. Look up the dealers BBB score before you buy. Its been five years since I retired but the above is pretty basic.

You must be relatively new to rv’ing! While none could compare to a quality brick and mortar home……there were a few makes of yesteryear that did a pretty good job! memtb

I have a 2021 F250 with the 7.3 and 4.30 gears. It's rated for 18,500 on gooseneck or 5th wheel, 3k+ payload. Most 3/4 diesels will run out of payload being that the engine package weighs 600-800 lbs more than the gassers.

A lot of rvs are the same manufacturer. Different badging and a few changes. Arctic fox is decent. If you’re looking for four seasons quality I would at least take a look at outdoors rv. A little more but from everything I’ve looked at or owned (which has been several dozen) outdoors rv is a far superior product

last time i checked THOR ownes most of the RV manufactors,

And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the similarities of various models.

The biggest difference I've found is price and the capabilities of the salesman you deal with.

There are far too many barely used RVs on the market to ever consider paying the price for a new one.

Prices on used RVs vary considerably in different parts of the county.

They stack up in Florida and sell cheap, old fu_ckers buy um new, drive to Florida and either die or buy a winter home and dump the RV.
I could shop Craigslist in Florida, buy RVs and haul them to Montana and easily turn a good profit.