5 Reasons I Regret Purchasing Our Class A Motorhome

everybody Chris here from Kristin G travels today we are going to be talking about why I actually regret getting this class a Motorhome so to start off this video I want to say that I am very thankful that we got this RV it's not that you know I'm in a situation where I'm so sad that we're traveling around this RV or we have it now this is more of a video in context of if I could go back sit down with myself like if I was telling myself three or four years ago when we were thinking about getting this RV up till the day that I actually signed to purchase this RV this video is in that context so it's essentially me sitting down if I could talking to myself back in the day there's no I think this video be helpful is because I know there's a lot of people in that situation right now a lot of people watching these videos a lot of people watching these vlogs where they're you know on the fence they're thinking about doing it so hopefully it's will be very helpful for you so if there was one big thing that I wish I would have known or done more research about or somebody would have told me about or I should have listened to people who remember actually people mentioning this earlier but the thing that really got me was the depreciation I had no idea how much this RV would depreciate over time as one of our friends mentioned an RV is never an investment I mean maybe not never you might have a time or two where it is an investment but overall typically an RV is not an investment he said it's a chain pull investment where essentially you just pull the chain and then your money goes straight down the toilet throughout the three years that we've had this RV it's depreciated about ten thousand dollars and that that's even including all the upgrades that we did you know so for example typically with a home if you put solar on a home it's going to increase the value of that home typically we're with an RV year after year mile after mile the value of the rig just keeps going down and down especially if you buy a brand new RV you know revenue drive that thing off the lot it loses five to six thousand dollars but even if you buy from a private seller as you use it as the years go along typically the value goes down unless you know you could flip RVs unless you find an amazing deal you can get them in an auto option or something then yeah of course you can mitigate that risk it's just like for example get into real estate you could be able to find this great deals it's foreclosure that's an awesome house has no issues but typically it's completely different because again a house the value retains in that house or with an RV it just appreciates no matter what so I wish I would have really understood what depreciation was in RVs and how rapidly it happens I mean ten thousand dollars in three years is not a good investment and you know for for associative in Alaska being that rent is so much in sewers the place we go to each summer you know that a depreciation kind of evens out and you know that that's our own situation but just be very cognizant of the depreciation this is fairly closely related to the depreciation aspect this is the financing aspect so we ended up financing this RV I saw the little monthly payments what I thought was a little monthly payment of you know around three to four hundred dollars what I didn't understand was at the time is how much of that will go with four hundred dollars is to make it easy how much of that four hundred dollars is actually going to the bank for interest and how much was actually being paid down on the interest so if I only did four hundred dollars for example for the entirety of the loan I think it's 15 20 year loan the RV would actually end up costing seventy thousand dollars so to put it you know in practical terms not only is the RV depreciating over time you're also paying more when you finance it so when you get one of these newer rigs like for us when we financed it not only has it lost ten thousand dollars in three to four years it's also going to be costing more because it's financed so knowing how that process works I probably would have got an older Class A because my assumption and you know this is kind of leading up to the next point is if you get a newer RV you're going to have less problems and that is completely not true talk to anybody that's bought a brand-new RV and they drive it off the and essentially every RV that I've heard of them uh somebody gets incredibly lucky it has its factory fixed time which means that it has to go back to the factory get all this work done because they're just pumping them out the RV sales are so hot right now they're literally just getting those things out of the factory as quickly as possible in dealing with the costs and the troubles later on because they know they are still going to be making money what they're doing is passing those problems on to the consumer even if you buy it brand new you're going to have you more problems it's you know a lot of people say it's better to buy a rig that's one or two years old but somebody's been traveling a lot in because they've taken care of all those problems they've gone through the headaches I really think there's there's two main reasons why you encounter problems with an RV number one you're essentially subjecting a home to an earthquake every time you drive social in the roads we go on to the alkane through backcountry doing boondocking I mean just the bouncing is incredibly hard on these rigs and that compiles with the problem because these rigs aren't built that one and you know this this is not very solidly built I mean this is a monocle and I do my research you know they're they're known for being built fairly well but still it's not built with the highest quality gear and it's made to sway back and forth when we first got this rig I remember hearing all the cabinets like kind of rocking back and forth I thought the whole back was going to cave in and people were commenting on video saying no that's fine that's just how it works you know with with the class a Motorhome it's made to kind of sway with the row and absorb the abuse and you just have to get comfortable that you have to realize that they're not built you know all that great so that's just part of being on the road with these those two things together pretty much guarantee that things are going to be happening with your rig and you're going to be comfortable wrenching on your own vehicle I have a whole Bay dedicated to tools and I've mentioned before you know working on these rigs give you immense self-confidence to try and get problem solved and you know actually get things done but that's something that I didn't realize as well that you are going to have to be working on your rig unless you have a lot of extra money sitting around the next aspect it's not so much researchers no way I could have researched this really it's something that you have to learn by living in the RV and that is I wouldn't have got this RV if I would have known that we were going to be doing so much boondocking it was in the back of my mind I knew that we would be doing some boondocking but I didn't realize for example on our last trip from Texas up to Alaska we only stayed in two RV parks and both of those times is because we couldn't find any boondocking spots anywhere close to the town we wanted to explore so now knowing how much we love boondocking and how awesome is to be out in the country and camp for free and be able to go out and explore and hike and run in those areas I definitely probably would have suggested to myself just our own situation probably getting a fifth wheel with giant holding things probably go with a composting toilet and delete the gray tanks so that's just our own situation and again it's nothing that you can watch for like you can watch all the videos you want you can have this idea that boondock you might be perfect for you but until you actually get in the RV and live full-time and get a real true understanding of what your actual needs and desires are you're you're just not going to know and the very last reason why I regret getting this RV is the cooking space for this RV I didn't realize that would be doing as much cooking as we do I knew we'd be doing some just having the option to have an actual oven and also having a spot to prepare food you know some of the fifth goals have that little island where you could prepare your food and then cook on one side that would be awesome because we go out to eat you know maybe 10 to 15 times a year rest of time were right here in the RV cooking our food so I do wish we would have got an RV with bigger cooking space those are a few reasons why I kind of regret getting this class a again it's all going to be up to your own personal preference just because my experiences like this doesn't mean that financing might be better for you or staying in RV parks might be your thing go for it for us just for example again we didn't realize that we would not like being cramped into RV parks like that it just kind of feels like you're packed in there like sardines you don't have that much space there's I don't know we just like going out boondocking getting all our gear ready and just being on nature rather than being an RV parks and there is no videos there's nothing we could have done beforehand until we started living this life to truly understand that but again it's a huge blessing to be in the situation with this class a this class a has opened up so many doors to us and you know the last three years have been you know the most amazing three years of my life is because we've got an RV and went out there and started doing this it's just now that we're living in the in the RV we just have different priorities so hopefully this this helps a little bit something to look out for as you're planning to get an RV just keep these things in mind you know especially that the financing part do your research on that and then also as you're getting your rig if you're thinking about even the remote possibility that you might be boondocking a lot definitely look into getting larger holding tanks maybe a rig that already has solar installed a rig that you know has the option to add a lot of batteries for your battery bank so this is a very subjective very conditional upon us but if I could do it all over again for what we've been doing I would probably get an older fifth wheel I saw one there was a CEO model I'll see if I can find it again him link it in the description down below but it's an older fifth wheel it's carrying capacity for how much weight it could actually carry was fairly high and that would be for the battery bank maybe exhilarated tanks the kitchen had an island and had an oven as well so that would have been perfect and then if we could do it all over again probably do the fifth wheel because then we would have a truck that we could go out and explore in because when I first got this I just assumed that we wouldn't have a toque on and then later on once I realized how limiting it was to you know we realized you wanted to go out in the country and boondock but at the same time if we didn't have a car we couldn't get into town this RV is just a little bit too long to try and park in the town so we found ourselves in the situation where we pretty much had to get a tow car if we wanted to go explore cities or towns where we're at so with the fifth law we would have the truck for that and then we would have had a better living situation with the fifth wheel and you know we wouldn't have known until we actually got here and started living life on the road so hopefully this video helps thanks for watching please subscribe and I will catch you all later

Channel: The Off Grid Skoolie

Views: 1,882,417

Rating: 4.3487215 out of 5

Keywords: used rv, diesel rv, diesel pusher, toy hauler, small travel trailer, travel, travel blog, rvs, truck campers, 5th wheel, travel trailer, rpod camper, rpod, travel camper, best rv tours, rv tour, camper, Camping, family camping, small living, simple life, camper van, urban camping, Mobile living, Class A, Class A RV, Motorhome, Recreational Vehicle, RV, on the road, boondocking, Boondocker, tiny home, tiny house, tiny home on wheels

Id: 4DUz0OO1T2g

Length: 11min 11sec (671 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2017