RV Buying Tips: What to Look For When You're Buying An RV

[Music] hey everybody Tom Lenglen here and Stacey langland from RV Texas all calm and welcome indoor RV we're here today to talk to you about you know the things you want to think about when you're looking at maybe making that RV purchase maybe it's their first RV maybe it's not but some of the things that we've seen and heard from other people and learn from experience learn from experience and tips that that might help you out and so I'm going to let Stacey start with the first one far away honey okay well you know first of all you know it's really looking at RVs can be overwhelming and you see something and you love to floorplan and you love the colors and it's real easy to get pulled in too oh my gosh this is it I have to have this based on what it looks like and there's so many things that are probably more important than that definitely equally as important so you know the first one being it's amazing how many folks and we were among those folks when we first started RVing don't think about the total picture of weight and weight as such it's probably the most important factor in what RV that you choose and and buy it's all class of RV these by the way everything everything behind all the way up to a diesel pusher of it wheels and every kind of everybody what does it matter weight is probably the number one issue that's most important but that probably the least amount of people know anything about yeah I like so and and part of that is there's a there's a yellow sticker on every RV and it's I guess required by law yeah and it tells you the dry weight of that RV so you know how much does that RV weight just by itself when it comes off the manufacturers floor no water no propane no nothing just the bones of the RV how much does it weigh on top of that how much can it carry you know weight wise what can you put in it how much you'd be amazed if you really stop and look some things that they look like they're phenomenal and then you realize they can only carry maybe 300 pounds well when you figure in if you put water in the tank and propane and then you know your stuff that you're going to take your chairs your barbeque pits whatever that goes by pretty quick well the the biggest misconception is people think oh look at on fifth wheels they have huge storage bays at UM down below usually right and they think if I can fit it they said I can take it yeah but that's not always the case and in fact a lot of times it's not the case that's right and that happens with motorhomes too and it happens with trailers pull behinds bumper pulls it's you have to really pay attention to how much does the RV really weigh now how much does your dealer rip save it it weighs how much does it really weigh how much are you going to carry if it's a towable what can your truck actually pull yeah in fact we met a couple just this week that great people we sat down had breakfast with them and they didn't even realize when they they finally got all excited they went out and got a great deal on an RV and they did they got a great deal on a pull behind and their truck should have should have been plenty to pull that RV but they when they got it they were they weren't even thinking about how much they were going to pack in it and they told us the first time they put it out he's going down the highway and he could not even get faster than 55 miles an hour right and he had a pretty big truck it was a gas truck but it was a pretty big truck so they instantly realized they had to buy a new truck right and so what they think is going to be you know one purchase turned into two donated to a lot more money than they thought they were going to spend the still happy they love the RV but something that you should know before you make that decision and I and don't just trust the sales guy you know you gotta realize those guys want to sell RVs and they sometimes just don't even realize they don't realize and and so you need to do your own research make sure you know what your truck can pull or the truck that you're thinking about buying and and look at the top weight of the RV loaded down if you were going to have it totally loaded do you and you know what if you can pull eight thousand pounds I wouldn't suggest getting something that you're pulling exactly eight thousand pounds right you know you you should have room there wiggle room so that is that's a that's a great tip I think it's by far our number one tip and we I mean we see it happen all the time and get your vehicle weighed get your RV weighed if you don't know how to do that we've got a video that shows the method we use it doesn't mean that's the only method but we'll link to that in the description yeah that's a good idea but you always should know how much you're me your your RV weighs how much you can tow behind it if it's motorized yep how much you need truck you need to tow it if it's not motorized and how much you can actually physically put into Eddie's is funny when it's motorized I think people forget is the you being in it yes and you can your wife and your kids and your dogs and your cat yeah all that counts towards that white so I mean you could instantly be it you know three four hundred pounds before you put anything in it right so um you really got to check it because you know some we've even seen some that only have a carry weight of about six or seven hundred pounds you can put on it so you it doesn't take a whole lot of stuff to people and that's it that's it dog scene so it's worth checking into because that's where you have most your blowouts and stuff on the roads because rigs are over there too heavy too heavy or the truck can't pull it that's another problem so no your wait no yikes the next thing we wanted to talk about is in Texas it's a big thing and that's ACS and yes you want as much AC as you can get in the state of Texas because a lot of the most of the time that if you live in Texas and that's when you're going to do most you are vain most people can RV during the summer even though those are the hottest months RV we actually preferred to RV in the spring in the fall and the winter and we don't really have winter but you know what we call front us yes winter for us um which is that yes which is that and so as much ACS you can get a lot of these models sometimes let's say it has one AC on the roof some have two ACS on the roof you might ask what size is that AC you know thirteen five is the most common size they'll put on them but really you need a 50 in Texas for sure and anywhere else that you have any kind of heat you got to have a 15 and the 15 doesn't cost you a lot more than 13 five just people don't realize about realize it and if you buy one or the 13 five and then you got to upgrade to a 15 then it will cost you a lot of money but Esther you know if you find a model that you like and make sure you ask what a C's does it have on it right now and if they are 13 fives ask him what it would cost you to upgrade to a 15 before you finish the deal right now if that if the RV's small enough and it has two ACS I mean two thirteen fives might be sufficient or if it's very small with one AC right yeah very small right but but anything I would say over fifteen seventeen feet with one AC I would make sure it's a fifteen and and if it has two ACS my preference I would always say have fifteen if I can get it I mean some bill you may not be able to but most of the time you can 3ac is even better yeah so that's just something to think about just cuz it has AC you don't assume that it is the most powerful way see it can have another thing when you're talking about the ACS I'll just bring it up real quick a pet peeve of mine it's a problem we have in our RV right now is that the ACS or loud and I think it's a good idea that when we go and look at new RVs is I want them to turn the ACS on and I want to hear how loud they are or how quiet they are there's different ways that they duck the ACS and stuff to make them quieter and do an insulation and everything so not all ACS are created equal on how loud or quiet they are yeah and the same brand of AC might sound completely different on different RVs you're getting on how its installed and like you said the ducting system thank you some you probably don't have a choice but it's others you do so it I'm going to think of something to think about I mean I'm sure thinking about it now that the next RV we get I can guarantee you it's going to have quad or a C's I mean because then ours or when we go down the road and we're on a long road trip you can't hear the TV our son tries to watch a movie and it didn't do him any good he couldn't even hear the sound from the movies so even when yeah I mean not it's going down away just when we're parked you know sitting in front of the TV at night and the AC is on you get okay you have to crank it up all the way it's a problem so it's something worth looking into you got another one I do the shower okay so I you never RV shop before if you've had an RV you might think heck yeah this this makes total sense if you never had an RV before you might be thinking I'm crazy but first of all there are different sizes of showers there are different types of showers some of them have a curtain some of them have a curtain with a little flippy thing that comes out that gives you more space some of them have doors that slide or come that open light you know back and forth our burglars or some have tubs check the shower and not just look at the shower and check what kind of door it has or curtain it has make sure you're happy with that get in the shower and the reason I say that is because you're going to know if you've got space some of these RV showers are very small and even for a regular-sized person they can feel really tight for a bigger sized person it's a real problem and then I mean that width wise and height wise you know we've we've stood in some RV showers when we've been doing our RV tours we do actually we do videos where we film different RVs so you might want to check out our playlist on RV tours but we'll step in the shower and I'm five seven and sometimes the shower head is right here well that's not good for me I don't want to be hitting the eyeballs by the by the water is it's coming out of the showerhead so it's good to know how high it is how much room you have can you physically turn around and move and do what you need to do in the shower and how big of a step up do you need to make to get into the shower yeah you know and that's that's something to definitely consider because like when our parents go with us my mom or his parents you know our shower has a pretty significant step up to get into it and so you know that's something we're always kind of worried about with them is the safety of getting in and out so just something to consider don't ignore the bathroom okay my turn okay uh now one for us guys uh on that outside of the RV we don't have it on this one but I had it on my wonderful this is a quick disconnect for the propane you know so when you want to want to cook outside with your propane it's so nice to have a quick disconnect right out there that you can connect right into and and cook on the outside which we do 90% of our cooking on the outside of the RV and so I have to bring the propane tank with us we do have a propane tank with the unit but we don't have a quick disk so so I have to bring a separate bottle and that that's more white that I'm adding well and I think to where is that quick-connect located because if it's next to the propane tank and the propane tank is where ours is well that would be you'd be setting up to cook right next to your water and electric and sewer connections alongside generally that's not the case they have a quick disconnect it's normally on the camping side or in the back because some of these come with a barbecue grill whatever you could hook to your back bumper okay and so they'll put the quick disconnect back there or if some that have outdoor kitchens they usually have one right by the outdoor kitchen towards the back of the RV but that's something to look at I mean it's something you're not thinking about if you've never bought one before you're probably not thinking about it but you hopefully if you're getting one of these you're planning on spending a lot of time outdoors and and it's if you have propane on board it's nice to be able to have some propane propane accessories so you can easily cook because it's you know it's nice to be able to fire up that propane real quick and cook just about any time quickly so that's a nice deal yep and so okay so now let's go back to the bathroom okay let's do it and let's talk toilets oh great now that's a crappy sensor you would not believe how many people I've had this conversation with RV toilets okay this has nothing to do with how they work but you have to realize that you you know again you're in a small space in an RV bathroom so make sure that you can appropriately use and comfortably use the toilet you need to go in and sit on the toilet as if this was your time I mean go in make sure you can get in you know sometimes they're tight with the doors and everything make sure the door opens enough you can go in when the slides are in and the slides are out if it's motorized if it's something there you're going to be using going down the road make sure you can get in and out without a problem make sure that you've got enough room to do what you need to do and you fit okay on the toilet and your feet aren't dangling and bullets are up I some of them sit up high because there's tanks and things underneath them yeah like yeah okay we're dating ourselves yeah okay but yeah so I know it sounds crazy but go sit on the toilet you know when you're looking at our videos I do it really is okay now we're going to move back outside again but on the outside of the RV something I like to look at is that I've got a you know like a ladder if you got a ladder on the back so you can get on your roof and Matt or you may want to put a bicycle rack or something and the reason why I bring that up because it's also there's other accessories we always want to think about bicycles because we've got my signals that we take with us and and when we had our first RV we did have a rack that we could put on or or a bicycle rack that went on our ladder mm-hmm and it was great it worked wonderful and and I prefer a ladder on any RV we get to because I like to get on the roof to be able to do preventative maintenance or whatever you want to do on the roof and there are also like some RVs that have accessories in the back of them that that fold down and maybe you could put ice chests on there and also put bikes on those so that's something to think about because when you go camping and you're taking your kids and even yourself you won't take your toys with you right and so you want to find a way you can be able to use to take those toys easily because you may have a lot of other state let's say you've got to pull behind you may have a lot of stuff in your truck and you can't fit your bikes and everything so so you need to see if you can put your bikes on your RV if that's important to you may not even like the bike or whatever but we do and and it's something that I always make sure that we have a place to put our bikes and our toys as we're going down the road that's a really good point yes and we've done it a lot of different ways depending on the RV that we had at the time yep so definitely that's yeah that's something to think about you know when you come back inside not to the bathroom this time in the bedroom yeah I you know what's important is an RV bedroom it comes in every shape and size you can imagine you've got you know what but but what is a queen to you and me in a sticks and bricks house isn't necessarily or Queen in an RV RV Queens and dime-sized sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't so you know you need to go back and lay in the bed and make sure that you're comfortable make sure that it fits you fine and also you know if you're if you're two people is one of you gonna have to climb over the other one know to get out of bed if you got to get around you know can't how easy is the bed to make you know can you is it hard to to put sheets on because it's hard you know you don't have a lot of space or you can't get to one side of the bed just something to think about and well for us we've even had to rule out some RVs about for us because on Stacy side of the bed there was a hump there so it's a split-level thing because the the engines in the rear rear engine diesel and on her side grace here I mean there's no way we can take a chance and her in the middle of the night trying to go to the bathroom stepping down that is a disaster waiting to happen so I'm a little clumsy yeah so we we rule we have to rule those out because there's just no way we would take that kind of chance so for us we make sure that that bedroom is all one level yeah you know and that's good to pay attention to yeah and then happens you know in like a rare engine diesel even in the bathroom sometimes there's a step in a strange place or you know sometimes there's a step if it's a front if it's a motorized a that's a gas you'll have a humph here in the middle that getting in and out you know just something to think about depending on your ability to get around and how accident-prone you are you know or if you've got kids and you know they're trying to get around it's definitely something to think about it's the floor completely flush level from front to back and whatever it is you're looking at yeah so now another thing that's got inside and outside is your water heater but now if you have a traditional RV water heater it's going to usually be heated by electric or by gas or by both we've had both and we much prefer the types that do both because one is the gas heats it up a lot quicker if you're going by just electric power it takes longer for it to regenerate takes longer for it to heat up therefore those showers you got to be a lot quicker and taking those showers you need to be quick anyway obviously in an RV but it's worth asking because in our first RV it was a pool behind and it had boat yep I guess and propane and and then our next one was a class-a gas which we assumed had boat didn't even think to look didn't even think to look until we went to take our first showers and realize no it was not it was electric only so and that did not work near as well now granted some of the higher-end RVs are going to have the Oasis or the aqua hot and they have continuous out water and it's not yeah it's not that big a deal but even with those units you want to look because there's different types there there's some that run off your diesel your diesel gas now there's some enough others run off propane so so that's even worth checking to see what it use you know and also the size of your hot water heater you know they come in different sizes so if you're you know if you have a lot of people that you travel with a big family or whatever you're probably going to want to unit that and you're going to shower inside the unit you're probably going to want to watch hot water heater that's larger and can regenerate more quickly yeah or maybe think about getting an aqua one with an aqua hot or something depending on what you're getting yeah exactly exactly another thing that we pay special attention to now is the storage and I mean that's all kinds of storage that's all encompassing you know when we're looking at it storage on the inside storage on the outside where can you put your stuff and so you know that's going to be different we had a 23 foot pull behind travel trailer that had a ton of storage I mean it was really bathroom storage and stuff than we have right now there's no doubt I mean it was really laid out well it used every bit of space available and we could I mean it was unbelievable the amount of storage we had and then you know we've seen other larger units that don't have that about that amount of storage so think about what are you going to be taken with you and where do you need to be able to put it and you know prime example if you've got cabinets that you'll see this a lot of times on upper cabinets where the cabinets lift up like this but they don't always put them on a strut or something to hold them up so you know are you going to be having to hold the cabinet over there on one hand while you're trying to load it you know I mean you could always add a strut or something to keep it up but it's just something to think about if you've got prime example I can't tell you how many RVs we've gone into they don't have a pantry they they expect to I guess to put your food in just random cabinets that are throughout the living area but there's no pantry so this is all I mean all levels although even we've looked in some half-million-dollar coaches that have no pantry pantry but even or something they can afford a half a million to hard-code there doesn't have the good health that's a whole different level Barney anybody been waiting and let me zone but it's just amazing so you know think about that as you're walking around look and pay special attention to what type of storage does it have where is it and how easy is it to access things that you might you know like where would you put your food where would you put your big pots you know if you like to use something that is a larger pot where does it go how about can you get into that cabinet when you're when your slides are in slides are a whole different issue yeah because you know you got a pack that puppy with the slides in normally I mean unless you own property and you can have it open but if you're like us and weird a storage unit where we're packing it up when our slides are in that's right and and that was you know our travel trailer had great storage but you couldn't access almost it was almost impossible to access any of it with the slide ends no matter what RV you buy it's probably been sitting on a dealer lot somewhere somewhere along the way in its life and even if it hasn't even if you saw it at the first dealership as soon as it has arrived it has been driven from wherever it was manufactured the RVs are manufactured most of them in Indiana in the Indiana for the most part but there are other ones around the country there's some even made here in Texas yeah but no matter what they're not you know they're usually not loaded up on a truck like a car would be and brought down to their dealership they're driven to their dealership and sold or pulled yeah and so they've got some miles on them by the time they get to the dealership and so when you think about it this is a house on wheels they call it like a rolling hurricane or a rolling earthquake you know and so things are going to jar loose things are going to squeak initially and as it's been going down the road and then you've got it maybe it's been to an RV show and it's had a lot of people walking in and opening things and closing things and pushing buttons or it's been on a lot and it's been slide in slide out this or that touchy-feely which that's what it's for you need to be able to explore those things before you decide if you want to buy but it's not uncommon when it's on a dealer lot for that dealer not to fix the small things until they have a sale yeah the industry standard is pretty much that the dealers don't fix that stuff till they have a sale it's good it's got a crazy to me and we see that we've even gone and looked at pretty high-priced units and they knew we were coming and we walked through it and there's things fallin down I mean and one of them it was even the owner of the dealership that we were at that took us through it and we were like my gosh it's just crazy but but they can fix that stuff almost that that stuff is caught most of its cosmetic most of it's real easy for the dealership to fix and they'll fix it before you get your RV and it shouldn't even probably be a deterrent to not buy the army because you just need to make sure you can get it fixed ahead of time so then you don't have to come back and get it right yeah I'd say just go through if you find one you really like and you feel like this one's it go through make your notes check everything open everything look under everything and really give it a good once-over make your list of things that you think need to be checked out or taken care of and make sure your dealer does those before you finish the sale yeah and then they will and and you are getting of other problems too that's the main you know it's an earthquake wouldn't happen in the first especially within the first year vote in a new army you're going to have issues be patient yep and but the reward is wonderful and so that's I mean that's everything I've got ever I think we cover a lot yeah well if you have any other questions or if there's something that we've forgotten that you feel like is important that you always look at when you're looking at RVs put it in the comments we're going to have a blog post also actually we have a post actually on our website it's under RV tips RV Texas y'all calm RV tips it talks about a lot of these things and a few more also you know that you might want to look at when you're looking at RV so make sure you know we'll put the link also in the description so you can check that and throw in a good tip will be glad to add it to that page and somebody else can learn from it hopefully and but we appreciate you all tuning in and until next time this is Tom and Stacey from over v Texas y'all calm and you know give us a thumbs up yep subscribe share it with your friends yeah and what we like to always say is safe travels and happy camping bye we'll see you next time

Channel: RV Texas Y'all

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Keywords: rv tips, rv buying tips, what to look for in rvs, things to consider when you're buying an rv, tips for buying an rv, things to look at on rvs, what to consider before you buy an rv, tips for new rv buyers, rvtexasyall, rv texas y'all, rv lifestyle, go rving, how to buy an rv, rv living, rv life, finding the right rv, which rv is right for me, shopping for rvs, rv shopping tips

Id: fs3xe1u6Tzo

Length: 29min 38sec (1778 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 05 2017