Great Expośe on the Quality of Camper Trailers and RV’s Today

[Treefarmer]

Yep, just RV builds in general. Oh well, "I guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!" ?

 

[Paddler Ed]

An interesting watch here on how the Europeans (Germans) build their motorhomes; Knaus are decent quality (my parents had 2 of their caravans for about 8 years each, in contrast a British (where they're based) caravan lasted 3 years before problems) .


Check out the QC at the end, and notice that even a small scratch is a remove and replace job, as well as the intensive water tightness testing (which is why my parents could keep a Knaus for many years more than a British 'van).

 

[calicamper]

Taxa is now upping the factory discounts $2000 on Mantis lower $ on smaller units.
This is a small non Indiana/ non Thor builder viewed as being semi modern and bought by 20-40yr olds typically with sizable above average income. Its an interesting yard stick to watch Taxa pricing games as they are probably a leading indicator for the more pricy stuff in the “off road” modern compact non Thor produced stuff.

 

[cruiserdude80]

I spent a lot of weekends of my youth, tent camping, and travel trailer camping with my family. I have no complaints of trailer camping based on my experience. That being said, the most I would involve myself and my family in RVing would be to rent for a week or so, turn it in and let the myriad of problems that seem to go with RVs be the rental company’s. I don’t think I have ever been on a vacation, that I didn’t see 2-3 RVs broken down beside the road. Friends of mine own RVs, and they all have experienced problems with their RVs that stem from poor design, workmanship and durability. One friend of mine bought a new RV and fairly quickly started having problems. The dealer was no help, referring him to the manufacturer. The manufacturer was no help, saying the dealer should be fixing it. In short, RV ownership is not in the cards for me. The article pretty much echoes the experiences of friends who own RVs.

 

[TGK]

I'll say it again, I've had a 51 year old Airstream for 17 years, which had a complete interior restoration done by a hardcore Airstream guy 18 years ago. Surfing this forum and other RV related sites over the past few years, I've come to appreciate that maybe Airstream did make a better product back in the day (aside from transitioning to the horrid faux wood interiors and plastic "tabor" doors of the day in 1969). Kudos also go out to the good man who did the interior renovation circa 2004. I'm not saying we haven't found screws on the floor, particularly after jaunts off pavement. And yes we've had some leaks develop, but it was 35 years old when we took possession. The original furnace still works and the new appliances put in 18 years ago have worked flawlessly without needing to be serviced, with the exception of the refrigerator which after maybe 3 routine service visits finally died after 17 years. We put new axles, brakes, hubs and shocks on it 6 years ago, which raised it up an inch and gave it a much smoother ride, with less screws on the floor after a long tow. While I'm not an expert on all of this stuff, it seems to me that the quality control for automobiles has incrementally improved over the decades with vehicles seeing much higher mileage than back in the day. Unfortunately, it appears the same can't be said for RV's. I will say that my 23ft Safari sold for about $3,500 new in 1971, not exactly cheap when the minimum wage was maybe around $1.60 ($11.25 in 2022 dollars). As far as today’s Airstream, not interested.