10 Tips for buying a used MotorHome/RV

hi there this is Gemma Verde with this old coach this is our very first video of what to do when you're getting ready to buy a Motorhome and there's a couple things that you really need to know before you go ahead and you make the purchase the first thing I always tell people is to check out the tires now when I bought this coach this is a 2001 Allegro bay and it's an old one but it's in pretty good shape for its age so the first thing you want to do is you want to check your tread make sure you got good tread but the most important thing is you want to make sure that the tires are five years six years at tops because what happens is that they will begin rotting from the inside and you don't want to be driving down the road and have one of these front steer tires blow out on you so check your tread check the date before you even think about putting the money down on a on a coach you just want to make sure that your tires are in good shape inside and out and that they're less than five years old because replacing these with a set of michelin's can cost you $3,500 all the way around that's a good bargaining tool and that's our first tip the second thing you want to check after you check for your tires for age is you want to come inside the coach and you want to make sure that there's no leaks in the ceiling that's your first and most important thing is you want to check around your AC vents right here for any kind of stain or discoloring on the roof you want to check around every single window if you've got any kind of wallpaper and the coach that you're getting ready to buy that's got crinkles on it you're gonna want to check that when I bought this coach and had a leak in the window I didn't check because I didn't know but I had to replace this whole bottom panel right here because this window was leaking in a later episode we're going to show you how do you take the windows out and to put the tape around the outside so it can stop leaking so make sure you check in every single cabinet look in take a flashlight make sure there's no discoloration in there make sure all even in your antenna area make sure there's no leaks there's no leaks around your vents we had also had a leak that was coming through some of the cable wires up for the TV antenna and I've been dealing with that trying to fix the leak on that so you just want to go through methodically go take your time and when you buy your coach do it during the day don't buy it at night when you can't see things around the coach I made a mistake by doing that so check all the way around make sure that there's no leaks all the cabinets all the vents and and that's our second point so one of the things that you definitely need to check before you buy your RV is you need to go and take a ladder bring a ladder with you and check all the rubberized seams all the way around your RV to make sure that the windshield hasn't popped out one of the mistakes that I made when I bought this RV is that I got at home and the windshield was had popped out of its rubber seal up at the top there cost me $500 to get it fixed and had I known that was there it could have been a good bargaining chip for when I bought this RV so make sure that all your window has got the seal around it bring a ladder with you like I said before it'll be your best friend and checking around the perimeter of the RV one thing that you should always do with an RV is taking a ticket on a nice 10 or 20 mile even 30 mile trip on the freeway to see how smooth the RV is at speed you don't want to be driving this thing for 2,000 miles and had a chimney all the time when I bought this RV I didn't do that I got on the road and my way to California one time the whole front end checked the whole time back and forth and so taking on a my salon drive make sure that it's nice and smooth if you buy an RV and it's got that shimmy in it it's probably because the wheels are out of round or not balanced you can take your RV to a tire place and they can do they can shave these wheels perfectly round so I took this thing in I had them shaped down perfectly round and it completely drives differently it's nice and smooth it doesn't shake me up and wear me out after two hours of driving okay one of the other things is step number four you want to check for is these Class A's all of them come with self leveling jacks and so you want to go around you want to make sure that they all operate and are in good working condition when I bought mine the right rear would not fully come up and so a lot of times I'll be camping and then go to retract the jacks back in and that one gets stuck so you want to make sure that they all work and that they all hold the RV up and in do proper leveling make sure that when you retract the jacks at every single jack especially the ones in the back go all the way up it should take about five seconds or so for all the jacks to come up and sometimes the backs because there's more hydraulic fluid back there take a little longer to retract so just make sure that they were trapped step forward there's a little quick tip that you may want to do as you're negotiating to buy brand new our new the used RV is go around and check all of your cabinet doors to make sure that they open it closed properly and then on mine every one of these shocked whatever these things that are called that hold these store open they're bad each one of these are twenty bucks and that's you know if you've got ten of them that aren't working right that's a good bargaining chip make sure that every cabinet opens and closes properly also inside these though a lot of times there's life make sure that all the lights work on the inside tip number five okay this is tip number six this is your generator that we're going to be talking about this one has the Onan Marquis I think 7000 and it has enough power to run everything in the RV but you want to make sure it's in good working order so after you buy the RV one thing that's really great to do is to run the generator about every four or five weeks get the stale gas out of the carburetor and and make sure you put a load on it meaning that you know run the heat pumps and everything so when you're buying the RV the first thing you want to do is make sure that this thing is working because generators are great for when you're dry camping so on our generator it's a pretty good shape it's all dirty we just take it on a trip up to Maine but it has a on and off switch right here start switch and it also has a start switch and remote on the inside come here on the inside and fired up and this one should start right okay so tip number seven is we're back inside the coach now is you want to make sure that before you buy your RV or purchase on your way down there have them turn on the refrigerator before you even get there 12 13 hours beforehand this right here if it goes bad it's about a two thousand dollar bill for you so you just want to make sure that this thing is nice and cool on the inside that the inside isn't pretty is in good shape that the freezer is working and and you can definitely tell mine you can put food in it after about 12 hours or so started off camping you want to come inside also make sure that every burner on your propane works this one's got three burners just mean this things work great the whole time and that's that's a really good to make sure that this work also every RV is gonna have a pump on and off make sure that there's water hooked up to the RV or if there's water in the holding tank go around and check every single faucet the toilet the shower the faucets in the bathroom and if there's an external water supply out there make sure everything works make sure everything goes on and off that's tip number seven tip number eight when you're buying an RV is every RV is gonna come with a hot water heater our hot water heater you can either run it with gas or electricity also have them turn on the hot water to make sure that your your hot water heater is producing hot water and it's a very easy thing to do just on a couple on an off switch another thing another tip when you're in the bathroom make sure you open up the commode throw some water in there and make sure that that seal is holding water inside the toilet bowl I'll tell you why if you're driving down the road and there's no water in there the smell from the septic tank will come up and it will be really bad smell inside the RV as you're going down the road so make sure that the that the bowl holds water because if the seal is bad again that's a three to $300 fix or 200 to buy a new part in new seal so make sure that your toilet is holding water make sure your hardware is working properly tip number eight tip number nine go to your thermostat and turn your thermostat on make sure your air conditioners are blowing cold air and run it until they work even if it you're buying something in the wintertime make sure you listen for the condenser to come on and the pumps to come on and that both of the or if you have one or two make sure that they're cooling properly ours comes with a also a heat pump make sure your heat pumps are working and make sure you run the generator or plug it in make sure both of the the heat pumps are coming on this is also this coach also has dual thermoses or thermos but furnaces there it is and they've got one in the back one in the front make sure both furnaces are working properly again when I bought mine the back furnace makes a terrible squeaking noise that I could have used as a bargaining chip to get a better deal on the RV so just make sure go through all of the heating in there that's really important for summer times you don't want to be in your coach during the summertime and not have air conditioning that can be a very sweaty experience you don't want that so go ahead and check your HVAC make sure it's all working correctly tip number ten and this will be our final one for our segment is make sure that your that your engine battery and your coach batteries are in good condition when I bought this coach again both coach batteries were in pretty bad shape so what I did was I bought two brand new coach batteries their Trojan six volt batteries two of them and I ran them together so that they're producing between the two six volt batteries 12 volts I have never had a trouble one bit of issue with both of these batteries they've been great I've had them for probably four or five years and these batteries will run all the lights on the inside they'll run a bunch of things you know the fans any lights the pumps and anything like that so you just want to make sure you want to surface these things about every two or three months just pop the lids off and make sure that you've got distilled good amount of distilled water in there that that they're at the level and keep your batteries in good shape because that's really gonna help you out especially if you're dry camping so again tip number 10 make sure your coach batteries are in great shape and alter your starting battery for your anything that's tip number ten this is Jim Liberty again with this old coach I just wanted to say thank you very much for watching this video hey and feel free to comment and bring up some topics that you'd like to talk about concerning the RV that you're getting ready to purchase or maybe one that you already have and again thank you very much and we'll talk to you next time I'll switch it also has a remote on the inside and let's start it up

Channel: This Old Coach Everything Rv

Views: 44,686

Keywords: buying used rv tips for buying used rv rv tips motorhome tips repair tips, recreational vehicle, buying a motor home

Id: 0PzFjJdK0Tk

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 19 2019