Some of the problems that older RV's is termites or other infestations getting into the wood. There were some that were made from wood from the Pacific Northwest, wood that had been harvested after the post beetle killed off thousands of trees. It was poor quality wood.

Another innovation the industry came up with around 1990 was a solid rubber sheet spread across the roof, supposedly with purpose of keeping out leaks, because RV's spring leaks easily. However it proved out that those roofs were expensive to replace, didn't last that long and could get torn if driving under low hanging trees.

A steel or other metal frame RV would seem to be the better idea. Edey

Thank you elovestea and daylily. If I end up buying a travel trailer at all it is still a minimum of two years out so there is lots of time to read and study about what to look for. I've spent quite a bit of time on rv.net forums and will continue to do so, and listen to other people opinions and experiences.

I get the impression that while some makers are better than others, none makes a really bad product anymore. Lemons do happen just like with cars but that is one of life's risks. I read of a ball player once who bought a Rolls Royce car that was a lemon; he replaced it with a Chevrolet that he was happy with.

 

Walt, it seems that most makers have their quality line and their "economy line". Don't be fooled by the brand name.

onlunchbreak:

Nowadays, with the extremely short life span of electronics, and again, the preceived notion that you've just got to have the latest gadget, the pressure on moms to work so more things can be bought is greater than ever. 

I am suprised no one ever says this. In my generation (34 yr.), most girls worked in high school. Left home, worked, went to college, and supported ourselves, either alone, or with a boyfriend or husband. So when we had children, we (meaning myself), don't really want to give up supporting ourselves. Alot of women in my generation come from divorced families, so we don't really see the Daddy as a reliable source of income. We were not raised to rely on my men to support us. We were raised to support ourselves.

Thank you for bringing this up.  I know it sounds like I am totally naive but this really has never occurred to me.  I am 36 years old and grew up in an upper-middle class home.  Until I graduated from high school, I only knew one family in which the parents were divorced.  And almost all of the mothers stayed at home, like mine did.

I absolutely agree with you that their are wives and mothers who want and need to be in the work force. But, what comes to mind are friends and aquaintances who say they WISH they could stay at home with their children but they just can't afford it, when actually they are very frivolous with their spending.  They don't see how they could stay home if only they didn't have a new-clothing habit, Disney World twice-a-year habit, new car every couple of years habit.  Maybe they don't really wish to stay home and rock their own babies but they feel like it's not socially acceptable to want to work.

I've just had to many experiences where, when I reveal that I am a SAHM, the response is a snap or a sneer: "Lucky!"  "Wish I could!"  "Must be nice!"  I used to feel like I almost had to apologize for it.  Now I just say plainly, "Well, I do feel lucky but we make plenty of sacrifices in order for me to be able to stay home."

Anyway, thanks for showing us this other side of the coin.  Staying at home is not for everyone, just as working outside the home is not for everyone. 

dolly77, that's the issue right there - making those choices. Before I retired I worked with a fellow whose wife also worked for the same employer. She was lobbying the employer to furnish on-site day care for children so she and others wouldn't have to make their own arrangements and was a bit upset when I declined to write in support of it.

The reason I did that is that I feel that raising children is the parent's responsibility. This couple had a more-than-adequate income. I bought and owned my own house, by myself with no assistance from anyone. But it was a more modest home than theirs, and I drove a 15-year-old vehicle. In contrast, they had made the decision to buy a larger home and lot, kept a horse on it (for recreational purposes) and drive a new Ford Expedition. They wanted that lifestyle and were working to sustain it and that's fine. But I felt that it was presumptuous of them to ask further assistance of the employer to, in effect, subsidize their expensive tastes by providing on-site daycare.

Walt34:

I feel that raising children is the parent's responsibility

Yes, Walt, I agree.  I guess I haven't said so plainly because I have been afraid of negative backlash.  Yes, there are situations where both parents, or single parents, have to work.   But I have never understood why a mom who can stay at home taking care of her own children, albeit living modestly, would choose not to in exchange for working for a few extra dollars and placing her precious children in daycare.  There are so many expenses associated with working (daycare, gas, clothing, lunch, convenience food for supper, etc.) that hardly make it financially worth it.  And the joys and blessings of being at home with one's babies are immeasurable.

So, no negative backlash, please.  What I have said certainly does not apply to every person in every situation.

 

DH and I have owned just about any and all the types of campers you can name. 5th wheels, trailers, truck campers, pop-ups, A-liners, tents, motor homes, etc. We now own a Dodge Mini motorhome which is just a very nice glorified van. I use it to go to the store most of the time, and we use it on the weekends to go fishing, or overnight camping at our favorite primative camping spot, Spruce Knob. We also owe a 19.5ft trailer by Palomino, and it is very nice, but we would rather be in the van or a tent, than the camper trailer. We bought it brand new, in "05, and it still smells new too. It sleeps 7, but there is only the two of us, and our cat and dog who go with us when we go.

The new campers are a lot lighter than the older ones, so Walt34 if you are going to buy, be sure to check out the total weight, and the tongue weight as the laws governing the towing of these are really changing and the laws will probably stipulate that you must have a vehicle large enough to tow this camper trailer with electric brakes and the GVW will also have to match the trailer too. Have you noticed the changes that all the newspapers and TV reports are reporting? They are now building new trucks, with a prohibitive price I might add, that can tow these campers, horse trailers etc, with not problems, but can you afford the truck to tow it, that is the big question? We can't so the mini motorhome will have to do, as I just can't rationalize the cost of one of those big rigs to go camping about three or four times a year.

I do understand why the laws are changing tho, too many people towing trailers that actually look like they are dwarfing the truck that is towing  it, have you seen that on the interstate too? We have friends who have campers that they can't take anywhere else except the campground they have them set up in, because their trucks are too small for the job.

We once had a one ton truck and towed a 28ft 5th-wheel camper but only took it out about three times, it was too large for the one ton dually truck that I drove. So we traded it for something else a bit smaller, that I felt more comfortable towing.

The newer campers are made with aluminum beams instead of wood too, and that makes them lighter, but if you are towing them I wonder if the screws in the walls will start to loosen up, from the constant movement that the trailer makes as you are towing them. Also another thing to think about when looking to buy a camper is  does it have aluminum siding, or fiberglass on the sides? The fiberglass is supposed to be better than the aluminum but it does tend to make the camper heavier than the aluminum or plastic that is on a lot of the campers now adays.

These are all just my opinion, but we have owned campers for almost 37 years and have quite a bit of different experience with a lot of different ones.

Good luck hunting and having a camper Walt34, you will really enjoy it, and getting around town towing one of them is a big experience too, but there are a lot of folks who do it without a thought and never have any problems doing it either. We don't travel a lot thru a lot of towns, but sometimes it is scary, but when I drove the dually, and towed the camper, I usually was given a lot of leeway, because most men think that if a woman is behind the wheel, they should get out of her way, for she is an accident waiting to happen, and they don't wish to be in the middle of it. LOL

 

wvtrailseeker:

but when I drove the dually, and towed the camper

When we had our pick-up and camper I drove it around town most of the time, it never bothered me to. But when it came to pulling the trailer, that thing just scared the heck out of me so I never have. I knew my limits. Edey

wvtrailseeker:

 

The new campers are a lot lighter than the older ones, so Walt34 if you are going to buy, be sure to check out the total weight, and the tongue weight as the laws governing the towing of these are really changing and the laws will probably stipulate that you must have a vehicle large enough to tow this camper trailer with electric brakes and the GVW will also have to match the trailer too. Have you noticed the changes that all the newspapers and TV reports are reporting? They are now building new trucks, with a prohibitive price I might add, that can tow these campers, horse trailers etc, with not problems, but can you afford the truck to tow it, that is the big question? We can't so the mini motorhome will have to do, as I just can't rationalize the cost of one of those big rigs to go camping about three or four times a year.

Thank you for your advice!

(Note for those who don't know, "GVWR" is "Gross Vehicle Weight Rating", or the heaviest weight the trailer is allowed to be towed.)

Yes, I've been careful to watch the weight. What I have is a GMC Sierra (full-size) 4WD 1/2 ton pickup, with a rated tow capacity of 7,400 lbs. Consistently on rv.net and other sources what I have read is that it is best to stay at or below 80% of rated capacity, which in this case is 6,600 lbs. GVWR. I'm not going to tow it empty, it's going to have water and propane in the tanks, "stuff' inside etc. I have a full 8x11 sheet of paper that I "did the math" on and I keep that with my stack of sales brochures. When looking at a trailer the first number I look at is the GVWR and if it's over 6,600, I'm done looking. And before I go anywhere I'll load it up and take it to a scale to make sure.

Part of the problem is the salespeople. I went to look at some today and the guy started off telling me that gross weight doesn't matter, it's the empty weight. Horsefeathers! That's why so many people get in trouble - not knowing any better they buy based on the empty weight, load it up with stuff, fill the water and propane tanks, and are then an accident looking for a place to happen because they're way overweight. Other salespeople have been honest about this and it is one of those who I will buy from, assuming I buy a new one.

Even some of the brochures are obscure about it - they don't list a GVWR separately, they only list empty weight and carrying capacity, making the customer do some arithmetic to find the GVWR. And NONE of them show the carrying capacity with water and propane tanks full, so you have to find out how much a gallon of water weighs (~8.4 lbs.) and know what size your propane tanks are. Those totals are then subtracted from carrying capacity - what's left is the poundage of "stuff" you can carry.

There are a lot of the "lite" trailers and a few of the regular ones that will meet my weight restriction and those are what I'm looking at. There's only DW and me, I'm 150 lbs and she's about 120, no pets, no kids, so we don't need a lot of room.

When I bought the truck I had no plan to look into travel trailers, mostly what I was going to use it for was sometimes power lawn & garden tools and radio control airplanes that are huge, bulky, but weigh at most 20 lbs., and sometimes general personal hauling, so all I needed was a 1/2 ton truck. Now I'm wishing I'd bought the 3/4, but that was about $5k more and I didn't see a reason for it. Hindsight is 20/20!

I know what you mean about the price of some new ones. Saw one on the lot last year, a nice 2007 GMC 1-ton, diesel, all options, had a sticker of $54,000! That's out of my league.

None of this is going to happen for a couple of years at the soonest, I have to start the job, save the money, right now I'm just thinking out loud and it's fun to gather the information and dream about hooking up and "just head west" until we hit the Pacific. Dreams are frugal, they're free!

 

I understand about knowing your limits Edey. I used to be the wife who sat in the passengers seat, let DH do all the driving and towing. When he started the job he now works at, he drives 57 miles one way and rotates every week, so.. I either had to start driving us to where we were going, or have to wait for a day after he got off work, so he would be rested enough to drive. I am always in a hurry, so... I started doing most if not all the driving when he is on vacation, long weekends etc. So when we bought the dually, it was mine, my dream truck, so I usually drove it, and when it came to towing, well, DH said, it is your truck, so you do the towing. Short story, the first time I towed a camper, we were going from our house to Spruce Knob, and I had a 23ft Prowler camper hooked up behind me, and since it was my first time DH just sat in the seat and dosed, he was just coming off of midnight shift. By the time I got to Philippi and was going thru the Covered Bridge I looked behind me and couldn't figure out what was so close to me that I couldn't see the lights, then I finally thought, Oh I am towing a camper stupid. I then decided to slow down some. DH later said he was wondering why I was going so fast, and then slowed down, I had to admit that I had forgotten the camper that was hooked up to me. LOL I was lucky that I didn't need to stop in a hurry? I never have had a lot of trouble with towing and have even mastered the art of backing them up as well if not better than DH.

I am the kind of woman who if I make up my mind to do it, and I want to do it, I WILL DO IT. LOL but, there are a few bad things that go along with that frame of mind, DH thinks that if he wants me to help him, and using the dozer is on his mind, then I should and will do it, so if I want to I do, but if I don't want to, we do get into a few screaming matches over my not wanting to do what he thinks I should do. He is almost as much a Hard Head as I, but... not quite.

Walt34, you sound like a lot of thought is going into towing a trailer, and that is a good thing. A lot of those folks who sell them, will tell you anything to makde a sale, and if you get into trouble after making the purchase, your tough luck. We have always thought we wanted to go out west, but... since we bought the mini motor home, we don't seem to have the same desire to go, I think that deep down we know it isn't going to be the same as what we see on TV, unless we discover old lost roads to get onto, for most of them seem to lead mostly to the Malls and the big city, which neither is on our list of places to see.

Good luck in the camper search, or rental. There is a place in Elkins that rents Campers, Motorhomes, etc. You may look into that before buying one. I know it was on your list of "maybes" so rental may be the best thing to start with, you will know more about whether you want to own one of those " danged things." LOL