Class A Gas Motorhome or Class A Diesel Motorhome?

hey everyone i'm matt welcome back to another video today i'm super excited we're answering a question that i get every single day at the rv dealership which one is better a class a gas motorhome or a class a diesel motorhome well in this video we're gonna answer that i'm gonna go over all the differences we're gonna go over the positives and negatives of each and i'm gonna tell you my personal recommendation of which one you should get we're starting in three two one hey everyone again welcome back to another video my name is matt from matt's rv reviews on this channel we do reviews of brand new rvs from class cs all the way up to class a diesels and the question that i get every single day is which one's better a class a gas motorhome or a class a diesel motorhome well i'm going to make that very easy the answer is the class a diesel that's not the question you should be asking yourself the question that you should be asking yourself is is a class a diesel worth sixty to a hundred thousand dollars more than a class a gas motorhome so let's get into the differences and let me know at the end of this video what opinion you have on which one somebody should get by leaving down in the comments below let's begin and just so everybody knows i'm only sticking to seven key points and each key point every single one of them has an exception so this just appeals to the masses okay so the very first point i'm gonna make is price okay again we've already answered the question the diesel is better but is diesel worth the 60 to 100 000 price increase from a gas motorhome so to generalize it gas motorhomes start anywhere from a 79 9 entry-level basic class a gas all the way up to 159 for a class 4 luxury level gas motorhome i do have a video going over the different tier levels of level one through four i will link that in the description below also at the end of this video you're gonna want to watch that if you don't know that that goes over the differences between an 80 000 motorhome in a hundred fifty thousand dollar motorhome okay whereas diesel motorhomes diesel motorhomes really start at about 160 000 sale price for a cheap cheap not cheap but for an entry-level one and they go all the way up to 2.5 million dollars now for those of you who don't have the 2.5 million dollars generally the most common price point of diesel motorhomes like this one fall in between 200 to 400 000 for the diesel so price is definitely number one thing to consider number two is going to be the length of the motorhome and i don't mean the length of the number that you see on the side of it i mean the true length so a class a motorhome what defines it is any motorhome that's built on an f53 chassis that looks like this okay the smallest one that i know of is about 28 feet true length tip to tip so that's going to be the smallest length class say you can get and again those are generally the ones in the lower price points all the way up to one of the biggest class a gas motorhomes like this one here this one here is a 36 h but it's actually 38 feet tip to tip making this one of the longest classy gas motorhomes that you can get whereas a true class a diesel the shortest one that i'm personally familiar with is going to be 34 feet tip to absolute tip again there might be some that will call themselves shorter than that but really they start at the 34 feet length and then they go all the way up to a 45 foot tag axle motor home but that's the absolute biggest motorhome that you can get so number three is going to combo with number four it's going to be the ride and the noise okay so first let's talk about the ride a little bit a gas motorhome has spring suspension generally okay and so it rides great we're gonna drive this in just a few minutes but it still rides just fine but part of the difference is with the f53 chassis is also going to be the wheels the wheels for a gas motorhome start at the 19.5 and they go up to the 22.5 wheels but another thing to consider is the actual tire size which is going to make a difference while you're driving this is one of the biggest tires on a gas motorhome and it's a 255-80 r22.5 where diesel motorhomes diesel tires get a lot bigger now this one isn't too much bigger it's a 275-80r 22.5 but i've seen them all the way up to 315s and the bigger the rubber the bigger the tire the better the ride's going to be great so number four is the noise okay right now i'm sitting in front of a v10 motorhome okay and the reason why i want to do that is because they're both integrals and they're both around the same size i will have another video comparing the ford v8 engine the new 7.3 liter v8 to this ford v10 but not this video because that it's gonna be so close so right now i'm standing outside with a decibel reader and i'm averaging about 87 decibels being right out front of the motorhome now if i hit the reset button and i sit inside this is just while it's idling we're averaging 85 decibels that's not bad at all this is just us idling oh we are gonna drive this in a few seconds but really not that bad so now we're at the diesel motorhome and you know it's funny because the diesel engine is louder but because you can see right here that uh the engine's in the back and you're not driving up front you know we're averaging 58 decibels and then here's what makes the real difference we're averaging when i'm quiet 60 decibels on the inside again uh diesel motorhome motorhome's gonna be a little bit better insulated the engines in the back and everything great so now we're gonna drive both of them to see how they drive and to listen to the noise while we're driving down the road and before we do that i have a huge favor to ask everyone if you could please leave down in the comments below and smash a thumbs up on this video the more people who do that the more youtube likes to promote videos like this to other rvers and we appreciate it and right now we're at like 93 000 subscribers and we really need your help and support to hitting our goal of a hundred thousand subscribers by the end of the year so make sure you do that we're gonna drive the gas one first and then we're gonna drive the diesel are you ready now i know we're not going super fast but i was revving up the rpms pretty high now what i will say is with driving this motorhome you know it's kind of like you know it's springy you know what i'm saying whereas when you're driving a diesel motorhome it's it's like sitting on a cloud so there is that difference as well let's drive this one down that same track okay so we're gonna do the same thing with us um making a u-turn and then driving down the straightaway something to remember as well with a gas motorhome your tires are above you right here like they're more right here whereas with the diesel they do kind of sit behind you so the turning radius is a little different as well here we go with the straight away so there you go and then believe it or not when you're driving on the highway they don't both do a pretty good job when they get up to speed it's not necessarily once they're going 50 60 miles an hour it's more about getting up to that speed so number five is exterior storage okay with a class a gas motorhome again they are built on an f53 chassis so you don't get the same type of storage you don't get what's called pass-through storage okay now this motorhome's a big one again it's one of the biggest class a gases so it is going to give you the best storage on a gas motorhome now check this out this is pass-through right but this is not what somebody would consider pass-through storage okay but you can technically pass through but the storage is always gonna be a little bit more limited still pretty darn good but it's not gonna be the type of storage that you'll get on what's this is called a raised rail chassis now there is some diesels with a straight rail chassis some of the more entry-level ones but when you get to the next level up you get what's called a raised rail and that's the chassis right there and so you're able to get a very nice slide out tray now this particular model is a very small class a diesel so it only has this one tray but there are some of them that gives you like four bays with two sliding trays and it has massive exterior storage we only have two more so stick around and then i'll give everybody my closing thoughts number six is going to be towing okay you're towing hitches gas motorhomes majority of them are rated for 5 000 pounds they have five thousand pound hitches and they can safely tow five thousand pounds now in a few exceptions could you ever tow more than five thousand pounds some manufacturers will put an eight thousand pound hitch on that motorhome but you have to be careful with your cargo carrying capacity and everything on the gas motorhome if you did want to tow more than 5000 pounds my recommendations that you never do um also cargo carrying capacity has a big deal gas motorhomes because it's an f53 chassis you can only you can only have so much cargo whereas so you know you'll see these with 1500 to 3 000 pounds cargo carrying capacity depending on the floor plan and the actual chassis size you know the chassis weights vary from you can get as low as 18 500 all the way up to a 26 000 pound chassis whereas the diesel motorhomes you can get 45 50 60 000 pound chassis um and so they can carry a lot more cargo on it and then the towing capacity for a diesel now check it out just because it's a diesel pusher does not automatically mean it can tow 10 15 000 pounds in some entry-level motorhomes they can still only tow 5 000 pounds because they have a smaller horsepower engine with a smaller transmission you are still going to get that nice ride of a diesel but it can't tow it so a very few diesel pushers can tow 5 000 pounds also very few diesel pushers can tow 20 000 pounds there are some out there but the majority of class a diesel pushers it's they're easily capable of towing 10 000 pounds some of them able to tow 15 000 pounds now listen this part's very important always weigh your motor home always calculate the gvwr in the gcwr yourself before you tow anything finally number seven is going to be ownership cost okay it will always be more money to own this diesel motorhome than this gas motorhome okay oil changes are more expensive but you have to do them less fuel is generally more expensive than the fuel on gas motorhomes but that fluctuates all the time and then something else i do want to get out of the way a lot of people will say diesels get better gallon miles per gallon than a gas motorhome i don't see that being true i feel like they all get you know the same it's horrible miles per gallon i call it smiles per gallon because you're having a good time and yes technically one is going to get better gas mileage than the other but it's so close even myself i've been in the industry for seven years i would not feel comfortable telling you one's getting more than the other a lot of it has to do with how you drive also when things go wrong with these diesel pushers you know i i mentioned a minute ago about the cargo carrying capacity a diesel motorhome is going to have a nicer interior than a gas motorhome because when you get the corion countertops the porcelain tile floors the nice veneers and everything quality equals weight and a gas motorhome can just not support the weight of that like a diesel motorhome can so with that said that's another reason why the price is going to be a little bit more money also the tire size i mean to replace a 255-80 r16 or r22.5 it's going to be a lot cheaper than to replace a 275-80r 22.5 let alone if you get the 315s and let alone if you get the tag axles you know you get the tag axles you're going from six tires to 10 tires okay um diesel's always going to be more money to maintain and that just kind of wraps up the whole video the the real thing is money again if you're watching this video and you just want to know which one's better the diesel motorhome is always better than the gas motorhome my opinion on the matter what i like to ask everybody keeping price points real okay so let's say you're looking at a class a gas motorhome like this call it 150 in a class a diesel motorhome like this call it 250. now these aren't the real prices i'm just throwing numbers out there the real question isn't which one's better this one is better it tows better it looks better it drives better it sounds better okay but the real question is is it a hundred thousand dollars better than this motorhome because here's the deal folks you can still go camping you're still getting bad gas mileage you still have your sofa your bedroom your toilet your shower and you can still tow a jeep or something lightweight behind your motorhome and you still have plenty of storage and at the end of the day you're going camping my philosophy i personally and this uh coming as an rv salesman i want everybody to understand please i want to disclose something for you i make a lot more money selling this one than i do selling this one but even with that i personally prefer the gas motorhomes the only reason in my opinion i can justify somebody spending that more money on this if they're full timing in it and or putting 10 15 20 000 miles a year on that motorhome then my opinion the ends justify the means but trust me here's what i want to say this video is not to tell somebody buy the gaso motorhome over the diesel motorhome this video is just to educate you let you know the differences in whatever you decide me i will be here at general rv or any of my comrades or whatever you want to call them will be here at general rv and we'll be here happy to assist you on whatever path you decide for yourself the one thing i like to tell absolutely everybody there's not a single rv that's ever been made that hasn't not been sold there's a lot of people that prefer the emblem there's a lot of people that prefer the riata xl so it's just completely up to you it's all about how you camp and how you plan on rving the one thing i recommend don't buy an rv based off of what your friends are saying oh my friend said i have to have a diesel no watch this video go to a dealership figure out how much time you're going to be spending in the motorhome and make the decision that works best for you your family and financially thank you absolutely everybody so much for watching if you did enjoy it again please smash that thumbs up button and subscribe we're trying to hit our goal of a hundred thousand subscribers also this is a new segment on our show the frequently asked question segment so if we hit 750 comments last time it was 500 comments so this one we're gonna go up a bit 750 comments i will make a video comparing a class a diesel pusher to a class super to a super c diesel motorhome and i will go over all the differences with you and if you find to wrap it all up so sorry everybody if you have a question that you want me to answer on the show and make a video for you just send me an email everybody go to matt's rvreviews.com sign up for the newsletter join us on facebook thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Matt's RV Reviews

Views: 147,970

Rating: 4.9745779 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: wGkv_SkXotc

Length: 19min 4sec (1144 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020