Fifth Wheel Shopping? Watch this first!

[Music] hey everyone so today's video is all about RVs and you know I get asked a lot of questions about RVs which ones people should get if they should opt for a travel trailer or a fifth wheel so I'm going to attempt to make this video as concise as possible because I just want to show you some differences between build quality as well as similarities a lot of folks think just because you spend a lot more money on a fifth wheel that you're really going to get a better quality unit but the reality is the price you pay for a fifth wheel is generally going to be more related to the amenities inside as well as maybe some of the upgrades that you get to interior components but not so much the construction so we're going to start by kind of going over some of the things that are pretty much similar amongst all of them so first things first when you start looking at fifth wheels that are under a hundred thousand dollars not a whole lot changes when it comes to the overall interior and exterior construction for the most part your frames are going to be i-beam frames and here's an example of an i-beam frame [Music] usually the frame is going to be anywhere between eight and twelve inches tall depending on the length of the fifth wheel you buy on travel trailers that can be anywhere between six and ten inches tall that particular frame was on this grand design reflection but now we're going to go to a much higher and unit and I'll show you it's not much different so the reflection right here is the one that we just looked at the frame on now we're going to look at it on the solitude which is a higher-end grand design one way you can generally tell between a little bit higher end or more expensive fifth-wheel and a slightly more entry level is if you look at the actual bottom of the fifth wheel body right here this one has what's called a Z frame design and you can tell by those little angled lips right there and this one you can see how it doesn't have that the main difference between the two frames is that the i-beam frame on this one extends all the way back as one solid frame or one solid i-beam the i-beam frame on this one actually drops down right here and then the frame attaches to the top of it going back right here what that does is it gives you a much deeper and usually larger basement storage area as you can see on this one it actually has a much taller frame section so the frame on this one is a 12 inch IBM frame but it's still an i-beam frame it still uses the same type of slide system as the lower-cost unit as well a lot of folks ask what's the best slide system out there and there's really no clear answer for that because they all have their own pros and cons they all have different ways to adjust them or to pull them in if you know the system breaks one popular one that a lot of folks are moving to especially on the Wardrobe and bedroom slides is what's called the Schwinn Tec system which is this system right here and it uses small motors on each side to actually pull the slide in so an example of where you might see big quality differences are if you look at say this Elkridge right here as well as this big horn that's next to it the Elkridge is more on the entry-level line but if you look at the outside of them they look relatively similar but let me show you a few construction things that are different first of all this one has the Z frame so it has a drop frame right here so you have a much larger storage area if you notice the belly of it sits lower to the ground also versus this one which has a straight frame going back another thing to note on your more entry level you're going to have steel steps it's usually going to be three in some cases you'll have a fourth step but on your higher-end model you'll have aluminum steps and here the aluminum steps on the Bighorn and as you can see there's a fourth step oftentimes most fifth wheels will have an option for a leveling system the leveling system simply eases the setup process whenever you pull into a site to make sure that the RV is perfectly level that's incredibly important if you want your refrigerator to cool properly if it's a gas electric refrigerator another thing you'll notice is as you get to your higher and fifth wheels such as this Bighorn you're actually going to have a higher end tire usually the tires that come on them will be a Allsteel radial tire in this particular case it actually comes with a saloon tire which is a relatively low cost tire but it's considered to be a very high quality tire on your more entry-level units like this Elkridge it's usually going to have some Chinese brand tire like power king or trailer king or tow master things like that they're not necessarily bad tires but they're not that great so usually you can expect to get about five thousand miles out of these tires before they really need to be replaced one way you can generally tell of course you can't tell while they're on the vehicle but if you took this tire off the rim and put it next to one of those say lune all steel tires this tire would feel extremely pliable and rubbery whereas the Salem tire would feel extremely stiff it would feel like a commercial grade tire other things to think about you know you can see these little stickers on the side of pretty much all RVs that talked about weather guard and all these different things much of the difference there when it comes to the insulation of these RVs what thermal layers they've put in the roof fit in the walls in the floor to prevent heat or cold air from either escaping or coming in now a big difference between your higher-end units and your lower-end units is simply the r-value what they're actually using for insulation on some really high units they'll use residential insulation all the way throughout maybe sometimes it's a combination of foam and regular insulation or maybe it's a combination of foam regular insulation and what's called Astra foil or like aluminum bubble wrap type material it's going to be pretty much the same on all units regardless of how much you pay are going to be the walls so these walls are generally going to be back with what called Luanne backerboard which is essentially 1/8 of an inch thick wood board that is really cheap and really lightweight and it's used all throughout the industry one of the challenges with it is it does not hold staples glue or nails very well so what you tend to see are these strips across the top start to fall because the nails and screws just don't hold it in and other fixtures in place tend to come out relatively easy just because this backing material isn't the greatest or they don't use screws that go too deep into whatever they're securing it to so the trim falling off of your RV would actually be relatively common regardless of what RV you get now we're actually going to walk into a Bighorn so again you're going to get aluminum steps and four of them on this so it'll be a little easier to get into now if you look at the ceiling on this particular unit you'll see all this trim finished out very nicely that's what I'm talking about when I say some of the amenities that you get on your higher-end units it's not necessarily that the build quality of it's going to be any better it's just you're going to see a lot more details like a lot of this wood trimming and paneling on the ceiling keep in mind they're still generally adhering it to the same type of wood backing surface so whether it's plywood or even luan backer board when it comes to all of your interior walls like this portion right here this is all the same material that's in all the RVs regardless of the price you pay sometimes you're probably going to have a higher end AC unit you'll have a call to whisper-quiet unit and many of your higher-end models whisper-quiet simply means you're not going to see the AC unit itself come through the roof it actually sets on top and they use a return air system very similar to residential construction the challenge with it is it's much more difficult to work on if there's any problems or if there's a blockage your higher end fifth wheels are also generally going to have a one-piece shower which means this whole shower assembly is one piece on the more entry level you may still have a large shower like this but it will generally have a divider right around here where it's two pieces that were brought in this generally indicates that you have a slightly higher and RV by a one-piece shower like this also it's pretty much standard across all price points with 5th wheels are porcelain toilets porcelain toilets are a must-have I believe if you're going to get a fifth wheel mainly because it's not going to have that plastic feel that you're going to normally get from you know your cheaper and toilets but again these are pretty much standard now across the entire industry regardless of what price you pay for a fifth wheel another indicator that you have a slightly higher in fifth wheels if you have frameless windows you can't tell from the inside but I'll walk to the outside to show you what I'm talking about frameless windows can be had on pretty much any fifth wheel or travel trailer nowadays except for your reel entry level but even on some of your higher end like this big horn right here you can see that it still has non frameless or your standard windows frameless simply means if you look at the edge right here there's no frame going around it it's simply a piece of glass on the edge and it sticks off of the actual body of the RV and it just gives it a much cleaner look generally as you move up in models you're also going to get more of a residential refrigerator option sometimes they'll claim that the refrigerator is residential simply because it's an electric refrigerator only but this is a true electric residential refrigerator because of its size many times they simply put a really compact electric refrigerator in in this case it also has a much higher in stove and this one actually has a really nice residential style oven so this is another area where as you move to a higher-end unit you're likely to get a better amenity another area where a more expensive unit will benefit you is with these fixtures on many RVs these fixtures are super lightweight plastic but as you move to your higher-end units that have frames that are able to support more weight they don't care so much about the weight of some of the appliances so they'll actually give you a steel residential style faucet versus a little plastic one that's colored silver of course your higher-end models will have things like 50 inch TVs fireplaces are pretty much standard in all fifth wheels now and you're even finding more and more in travel trailers the quality of the seats and the leather is probably going to be nicer and generally going to be more of a name-brand as well when you move to a higher-end unit another way and this is kind of a subtle way to tell if you have a higher-end unit is the thickness of the actual walls this one appears to be about two and a half to three inches thick where on your lower end ones it might only be an inch and a half to two inches thick this generally means they have room to put more insulation in which would make this a better unit for full-time living so this big horn actually has a price tag of around seventy five thousand dollars it has nicer tires the suspension system on this particular one is still leaf sprung suspension some of the failure points on these suspension systems aren't necessarily the suspension itself but it's this weld where the hanger is as well breaks loose and it can cause all sorts of problems other times these components right here are still relatively cheap so as you upgrade suspension usually this whole part right here becomes more robust this is actually considered a fairly high end suspension system for you know the under hundred thousand dollar RV system but as you get over a hundred thousand dollars you actually find some RVs that have fully independent suspension you can see the frame on this particular unit and the slide system again don't focus so much on slide systems only because you know it really is up to the manufacturer which slide system they use they sell hundreds of thousands of these systems every year and for the most part they're all pretty reliable now one big difference in exterior material that some RV manufacturers use and others don't are the use of what this actual fiberglass is adhered to in the case of coachmen they use a material called Osdol which is a composite material it's almost like a super lightweight aerated plastic but it's completely 100% moisture and waterproof and it's also mold resistant so the chance of any leak forming and getting water between the fiberglass and the as Dell layer is virtually impossible and even if water gets back there it's not going to go anywhere or permeate into anything whereas pretty much all the other RVs in the industry utilize luan backer which is that real thin cheap wood backing board behind the fiberglass and then they simply laminate it through a vacuum process so throw a pinch process or sometimes both to the actual luan which means that if you get any type of water intrusion from the roof it can get between the fiberglass and the backer board and you can get what's called delamination where the actual fiberglass starts bubbling off of the Louanne backerboard everyone's probably seen an RV at some point in their life that's had delamination it's very expensive to repair so as you get into your lower-end travel trailers and travel trailers in general you'll notice several things first of all it's very rare that you'll get aluminum steps usually they're always going to be free steel step system generally the tires as well it's very unlikely you're going to get high-end tires the suspensions are going to be leaf sprung in for the most part as you can see they're still offering frameless windows pretty much on travel trailers now a lot of them don't offer it but a lot of them do the actual material here it's still going to be LuAnn with the fiberglass layer covering it it's still pinched or vacuum rolled on so you still have the same possibility that you could get some type of delamination if water gets between it another thing you might see on your lower end units on travel trailers and 5th wheels is the use of underrated axles essentially axles that barely meet the load capabilities of these fifth wheels and travel trailers so it's important that you look at your axle rating and then you look at the total weight rating or the gross trailer weight rating of your actual trailer you're looking at because the last thing you want to do is have an axle failure because they put axles that are barely able to support the weight of the trailer underrated axles can also cause premature tire wear because it actually bows and it causes a tire to camber out like that and the problem is it will start eating up your wheel bearings as well as the side of your tires this is a really good example of what I'm talking about look at the actual difference and how these axles are pitched so that front tire could very well have a real bad wear on the inside of it plus the wheel bearing because it's tilted out so much anyways I hope this video is informative I plan on making more videos like this so if you like my channel I'd appreciate it if you subscribe and like my videos thanks everyone

Channel: Big Truck Big RV

Views: 1,387,203

Rating: 4.9013257 out of 5

Keywords: fifth wheel camper, buying a fifth wheel, new fifth wheel, travel trailer, fifth wheel vs travel trailer, towing a fifth wheel, hitching a fifth wheel, forest river, Montana, heartland rv, columbus fi

Id: e6nlnInrxgg

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2016