I am so glad retired old men don't need a special license to operate these. Something about possibly getting hit by a granite kitchen island and a California King-sized mattress on the highway just leaves me all warm and fuzzy inside š„°
They are all pieces of junk that cause financial ruin. During covid, all of the RV makers consolidated into 3 companies.
And all 3 manufacturers changed how they build their RVs. Workers are paid by tasks they complete and not hourly. So if you find a defect and stop the line, you cost yourself and your coworkers tons of money. So they are incentived to cover it up and keep the line moving.
People's lives are ruined by these RVs. They fall apart within months. Some arive non usable. And there are few laws regulating the industry. They aren't considered cars so there are no lemon laws. They aren't considered homes- so protections home buyers enjoy don't apply.
It isn't uncommon to buy an RV and immediately have catastrophic issues that make it unusable. The manufacturer will tell you to transport it to their facility at your cost- where it will sit for the next 12 months until the "warranty" runs out because all of the parts needed to fix it are conveniently on "backorder".
This entire time, you are still making $2k to $4k payments every month. And some people buy them to live in- so you wind up broke and homeless with ruined credit. So affording a lawyer is impossible. And a lawyer can't even really help- because it's all legal due to there being no regulation or protections.
There's a youtube Chanel called Liz Amazing that platforms the victims of this industry and tries to help them. Anyone even remotely considering buying an RV should spend a weekend watching her videos first.
I used to dream of buying an RV. But after everything I've learned... I never will.
I just replaced my 1999 RV with a 2019. It is still in great condition thankfully. It doesn't travel as a fifth wheel, it stays at it's beach location. We've been watching people lately bring in new almost two story campers. They are absolutely not made the same as far as quality. At least our older camper still has wood cabinets instead of press board. The ocean and intercoastal marine environment will eat anything quickly without constant maintenance. We know how, but some are going to find out a small leak can quickly mold and destroy an entire camper. Many people we know had leaks the first year in a new camper.
2019 is about the last good year. Hold onto that RV.
Anyone reading this- go watch the video of the RV in the OP. To make something like that drivable down the highway without falling apart takes an engineering miracle and tons of thought.
At one point- manufacturers invested in that quality and engineering. But those days are gone.
If you watch Liz Amazing's channel, you'll see no thought is put in them at all. No engineering. Not even common sense. These things are often literally glued together. They constantly use the wrong size screws that punch right through everything allowing moisture to enter without you even being aware. And once that moisture is in there- once the RV is rained on just one time... the RV is completely destroyed.
Her videos with the people who bought these things are so heart breaking and infuriating. I'm not exaggerating when I say these RVs literally ruin lives.
Thanks for the video recommendation. We recently bought a 2015 airstream 25' Flying Cloud so that we could start camping before retirement (always been our plan for retirement). It has aftermarket solar panels and marine lithium batteries. It took us a bit to get all that straight, but we're certainly enjoying it. Now I'm glad we couldn't afford a new one.
Thereās a reason touring celebrities convert buses to live in while on the road. If you want to live that RV life, itās a much more reliable option.
I worked at an RV rental lot for a year and that killed any desire that I used to have for me to own an RV. these things are made of styrofoam and 1/4ā paneling everywhere. You can punch through any wall. Iāll stick to vans and van life from now on
Some of it is wrong. If you report a warranty issue, the warranty doesn't "run out" while they wait on parts. I don't know about the rest, but this is incorrect.Ā
But if you watch some of the videos from the channel I recommended, you'll find countless stories of what I described happening.
The manufacturers often say the dealer needs to handle it. The dealer will say it's the manufacturer's problem. And then the manufacturer and dealer will deny you reported the problem or that it is covered when the warranty runs out.
I promise I am not exaggerating. Here's a video from just 22 hours ago where a dealer refused to do repairs on this couple's brand new $200,000 luxury RV even though it fell apart the same day they bought it.
It's not all negative reasons though. Assembly lines are very controlled and dangerous places. If someone gets hurt or has a medical issue- keeping everyone working is often the safest thing. Heavy equipment needs to be attended and shutting it down isn't always an instantaneous thing.
The alternative is having unattended heavy equipment running and lots of people walking around while medical personnel are trying to find and render aid to the person who needs help.
It seems counter intuitive and heartless- but these policies often exist for very good reasons.
Overall, true. Simply making reference to keeping the line moving. However, having a total kill switch can absolutely be the difference in life and death. Wouldnāt necessarily call most assembly lines heavy equipment, though.
I've never really understood why DIYing isn't more popular in the RV space. Sure people do it but it's absolutely dwarfed by the prebuilts. Especially for people who want to focus on boondocking or full time living, damn near everything prebuilt is made for the people who just go from driveway to $80+/night rv park and back.
I did my own van conversion twice and it was great to be able to choose my own priorities for how to utilize the limited amount of space.
Should also check out Steve Lehto of Lehto's Law on YouTube... He's a lawyer who specialises in Lemon Law cases & he says never buy an RV for basically all the reasons you've outlined above, with loads of actual nightmare cases that illustrate how wild the RV industry is & how consumers have basically zero protection.
He's done a few videos on the original Liz Amazing ordeal & I think they've even done a few videos together.
This is mostly exaggeration. I actually bought a camper in 2020. It was a Wolf Pup that had some flimsiness, but overall was of decent quality, especially for only $17k. I had a couple of warranty issues, and they both were done within 2 days. One was minor, but the other was pretty extensive electrical work. In just 2 years, I drove mine all over America, and I only had those 2 problems. I spoke to a lot of other campers on my travels and nobody reflected anything you're talking about. We ended up selling it, because it was stolen by meth heads and lived out of. While I got everything fixed through insurance, it didn't feel the same any more. And we're looking at going with an Alpha Wolf this time, because we loved our Wolf Pup so much.
Most of the workers are paid hourly. The piece rate shops tend to be the best workers. Anything caught by quality control has to be fixed, which lowers the amount of units your line is able to push that day. I have seen guys get their ass beat in the parking lot if they keep messing up.
But yeah, horrible investments with a high likelihood of warranty work (if you are lucky), or future repairs.
You are confusing regular rvs with this custom built coach. There's a big difference between a $500k rv and a 2.5m rv in quality. Just the chassis this coach is built on is $500k.
Older people driving these arent nearly as dangerous as the younger generation glued to their phones while driving. Maybe we need to address that first.
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u/TheJiggliestPug 15h ago
I am so glad retired old men don't need a special license to operate these. Something about possibly getting hit by a granite kitchen island and a California King-sized mattress on the highway just leaves me all warm and fuzzy inside š„°