Should you buy an RV in 2024 considering that
some of the RVs were built during the pandemic? We've all
heard the term COVID build but is that a real thing? A lot of
Americans are now turning to RVs so they can safely hit the
open road. 2021 it was reported that RV sales reached an all time
high. Now the real question is are we dealing with the after
effects of this RV boom today? We have some controversial
statements regarding who is at fault with these poor quality
RVs. Take a look at any online forum out there. Everyone
saying, don't purchase an RV that was built between 2020 and
2022. But have you heard of the ten-year rule? Have you stopped
to think if my RV is older than 10 years old, I might not be
allowed in some RV parks out there. Where's the cut off? Are
you trying to tell me that the only RV that you can get if
it's used is between the year 2014 to 2020? That's a short
window. Because maybe you're new to buying RVs and you don't
realize that it is actually very beneficial to buying a
used RV over brand spanking new. A lot of people know what
it's like buying a brand-new car and the reason they buy a
brand-new car over used car is they know they're getting a
good quality vehicle that is probably not going to break. Is
that transfer over into the RV industry? Not exactly. Now, I
do like the fact when you buy new RVs, you have first access
to like the newest interior designs, the technology that goes
behind them and you can also custom build these RVs to
accommodate whatever lifestyle you want getting into the RV
life. Compare that to dealing with a used RV. Maybe someone
is living not such a clean life. It smells, the layout's
just not what you want. At the same time, the person selling
might up the price because there's a lot of features
inside that they upgraded. They added a washer dryer or they
installed some cool water filtration system. Oh, not to
mention insurance can be lower. A lot of people believe that
the previous owner of an RV has already worked out those
initial kinks but I think the biggest thing people take into
consideration is price and depreciation. As soon as you
drive off the RV lot, you're talking 25, 30%
already knocked off the price that you bought the RV for
originally. You're already hit with all that markdown. So, if
you turn around and all of a sudden like, I don't want this
anymore. Well, I'm sorry to say you just lost a lot of money by
driving it off the lot. You're going to be paying higher
premiums if you buy a brand-new RV. It's just the way it is.
They're going to cost more and the insurance company is
going to demand more of a premium from you every single
month. If I could just be blunt for a second, buying a used RV,
you're just not going to have a factory warranty on the RV
anymore. It's not going to be valid. It's not going to come
with a warranty that you can be reassured if anything goes
wrong, you could just take it back to the dealer to get
fixed. With a new RV, however, you're guaranteed that that
puppy is coming off the RV lot with the warranty that you can
rely on. Or can you? Or on top of that how about an extended
warranty? Now you're guaranteed more reassurance that it's
going to last for a longer period of time in case a couple
years down the road you're going to have some issues. I
have some personal opinions about extended warranties and
there's a lot of talk about this online whether you should
get it or not. Extended warranties are great
considering RVs break a lot. But here's the issue. The
dealerships want you to bring your RV back to them because
the extended warranty is usually through the dealership
and the manufacturer and they have this deal where all the
parts and all the work gets done at that specific location.
That sucks because now, when your RV is breaking down
halfway across the country, they're going to want you to
bring it all the way back to get it worked on. Does that
make sense to you whatsoever? No, it absolutely does not.
Yeah, because mobile techs are so popular nowadays and if you can
have somebody come to you to fix it but your dealership is
like no you have to bring it to us, that's the rule, that's the
contract. I don't like that at all. They won't even reimburse
you for it so you can't get out there use a mobile tech and be
like hey can you just pay for what the mobile tech did? But
what I want to say about this is if you're looking to get an
extended warranty I would have it in writing that you could
take the RV to multiple places, basically any to get repairs
done and they will cover it. Put it in writing. If you like
the way we're handling all this and you think maybe there's
some other people in your lives out there that can benefit from
this knowledge, Facebook groups, or anyone that you
know, share it away. Help us spread the word so that we can
help other people in the RV life and maybe share a little
good karma for others looking to get into the RV industry.
Remember when we talked about this 10-year rule when it comes
to campgrounds and not having an RV greater than 10 years.
What is, what does that mean? Because so many RVs out there
get outdated quickly with this 10 year rule. I mean it's like
buying a new TV. Every year they come out with a new or
better one. So you could imagine you put a lot of money
in this RV and all of a sudden what? I can't show up to an RV
park. That's what they're saying. If your RV is 10 years
or older you might be subjected to not being allowed into their
RV park. Yeah there was actually this one time we
called that RV park and we asked them what's the reasoning
behind that rule? Mm we were very curious and I think they
said something about it being an electrical issue. I don't know
what that means but let's get into the real reason why
they're probably not allowing this. And they won't admit it.
A lot of the times, when you run into this rule out on the
road, this is coming from parks that are like higher-end parks.
So, the reasoning behind this is because they want to keep
the nice-looking RVs or the nice-looking aesthetics to attract
more RVers to their park. Let's face it. Buying an RV is
going to be one of the biggest purchases that you'll ever make
in your entire life. So is right now in the year 2024
the right time for you to make that purchase?
Let's back it up to the year 2021 when this RV industry just
started really booming. RVs were just selling hot off the
lots and dealers were requesting new models so quick.
When the actual pandemic occurred, everyone had nowhere to
go. So, what did they do? They opted to purchase an RV,
something that they've never had any experience with just so
that they can maintain that freedom of travel. Yeah, they
were able to go on vacation and social distance in the
wilderness in these RVs. Day after day, families, hundreds
of people are buying fresh RVs off the lot and that just makes
more demand and you know what? There's not enough supply to
keep up with it. Not only the supply of the rigs but the
whole supply chain issue that happened all over the world. It
just affected the build of so many things, not just RVs. How
many of you guys out there actually own one of these rigs
that we're talking about? You've ran into these problems
where the RVs just aren't the quality that they used to have.
I bet it's a lot more of you than you think it is. With
increased RV production, statistically speaking, you're
going to have more RV problems. Normally, when somebody wants
to get into the RV life. They spend months or even years
doing research. Yeah. What rig they want? What kind of RV
lifestyle do they want to live? And what was happening in 2020
and 2021 is you had these people who are used to going to
hotels who can no longer do that. Did zero research. They
just went to these RV dealerships. We didn't really
want to do the airlines and we didn't really want to stay in
hotels. Oh boy did those sales people just, they pounced on
them and they got them to buy these brand new RVs. Because
everyone was buying them on a whim, they had no idea what they were
getting into and what I mean by that is when they actually hit
the road, they had no idea to expect any of the problems with
like breakdowns and shake down trips within the RV industry
and can you really blame the dealers for taking full
advantage of everyone buying? This is the time. Buy it while
it's hot. It's like the stock market, right? So, who's really
at fault here? If you know anything about this lifestyle,
it requires patience, procedure, and problem solving.
Even if you're an experienced RVer, it's still difficult to
navigate through all the issues you run into. Now, fast forward
a month or two, all these other RV people that had no idea what
an RV was before even purchasing one. They watched
the movie RV. They bought the RV and now they're out there
living the RV life but everything's breaking. Now,
they're blaming the dealerships and like, you gotta fix this.
Help us. When we bought our first RV, we had a travel
trailer and instead of taking it out on a test trip, we just
took it for the first time across the country, right? Low
and behold, we could not figure out how to get hot water out of
the shower. So, yeah, we went a couple days without taking a
shower and we thought to ourselves, what the hey, man?
We have this brand-new RV. It's broken. What's going on here?
All we had to do was turn the bypass valve. It was set to
winterizing mode and we didn't know that because we
didn't know what we were doing. It was very easy for us in that
moment to jump on social media and just start complaining. We
didn't. Well I think it's interesting because how many
people are out there are like yeah that makes sense. You
bought your RV. We did buy a RV before everything went down
with the big boom. Yes. In the pandemic. Yeah. So let's flip
it on its head and ask the question of like do you blame
the dealers then for building all these RVs like crazy
getting them out super quickly even though the actual supply
wasn't keeping up with the demand? Well I would argue and
say the RV salespeople. Their job is to sell RVs. Their job
isn't to you know determine who should have an RV and who
shouldn't. Well, that's true. I mean, they got families to feed
so you can't really blame them for wanting to work off
commission and push these RVs out. I mean, it was just a
really weird time and everybody was affected by it on both
sides but how does that apply to buying an RV in
2024 or buying a used RV? Yeah, because some people
are looking at RVs online and they'll see, you know, 2021.
Nope, I'm not even going to look at it because it's a poor
quality RV. Is that fair to say? A nice little benefit to
these COVID rigs is that most people just use them lightly.
You know, they got into this lifestyle realized, hey, this
is crazy. This ain't for me but now, if you're looking to buy used
RV during that time frame, are you having to pick up the
pieces that they were not getting addressed? That owner
did not get any of those problems addressed and now,
you're having to get those addressed years later with the
rig being out of warranty. Wow. It's a lot balance, right? Do
we think that these rigs were rushed through the production
line because of the supply and demand? 100% yes. Were people
making purchases on a whim and not thinking is this a right
financial move for me and my family? 100% yes. So once
again, who's at fault here? Let's fast forward to now here
in 2024. Have we fully even recovered from that
whole period that we're talking meaning, is the quality going
back up? I don't know. What have you guys seen out there?
But even so, maybe manufacturers are going
bankrupt for a reason because the quality is going down and
there's just not enough people in the market to be making
these purchases. I do believe this pandemic RV quality thing
has affected a lot of manufacturers reputations. So,
where do we stand on all this? You're sitting there trying to
figure out, well, I don't want to buy used in that time
frame. Should I buy new? What's the right answer. You're
going to be surprised by this because we actually do have
something that's going to help you no matter what situation
you're in. The amount of red flags we see all over the
internet when we're doing our research is just, you might as
well be at a rodeo. I stumbled upon a Reddit post where
somebody was sharing their experience buying an RV at a
dealership. Whether it was used or new, the person was saying
something along the lines of, I let them know that we're
going to hire a third-party inspector, someone who's
certified to come in and do an inspector the rig and the
dealer stated oh we have a policy that does not allow
this. That's crazy because I also read stories out there of
private sellers just being like no we're not going to have
anyone come inspect our RV. Take it or leave it. Red flag
or not? The reason if you're curious to why this dealership
refused a third party inspector is because they had an
inspector come in one time and he broke stuff on the RV. Okay.
A lot of the times the dealership will say no worries.
We got our own guys that are going to do the inspection. Mm
hmm. Their own guys that work for the dealership. Are you
kidding me? They're not going to have an objective
point of view when looking through the rig. They're
going to be like, yeah, looks good. Have fun out there on the
road. You need someone who's a hired professional to have an
objective outlook for you who's got your back. Yeah, it's
going to cost more money. We're talking anywhere from like
maybe 500 to an extra thousand dollars. Is that too much for
you? Well, if that is too much for you, saying, I'm not
going to pay for an inspection, you might want to reconsider
getting into RV life because if that minimal amount of money is
going to throw you over the board of, yeah, I'm not making
this purchase anymore, then, it's probably best that you
just step back and not do it in the first place. Because when
you have your first thing break, just as simple as a tank
or an awning, you're like, I'm I'm out $500 anyway. Now, if
the seller is refusing an inspection, does that always
mean they're trying to hide something? I don't think so.
Because you have to think if they're getting offers from other
people and it's the same offer you gave them but that person
is not requesting an inspection, they're probably
going to take the easy road. It's all negotiable. So, you're
sitting there watching us and you're like, alright, Hanks, I
got it. I love the information, I know what I want to buy but
when is the right time to buy the RV to save the most money
or how do you avoid being scammed so you don't make the
biggest financial mistake of your life. Click and watch this
video right here because it breaks down the biggest RV
mistakes to avoid. Trust us, dealers hate that we are
showing you this video. See you guys next week.