In my last post I mentioned that we picked our RV up for $1500. It was that cheap, because it was not perfect, and it was old. The newer you want, the more you pay. The better shape it’s in the more you pay. Our RV initially cost $1500, but by the time we got it to where we were comfortable in it, we got up to about $2500-3000. That’s right, it eventually got up to around $3000. So if you think you’re saving money by going with a cheap RV, you might not. It pretty much depends on how much you’re willing to scrape and cut your knuckles for it.
Now, I say $3000, but that’s not including my time. If I had to pay someone for all the labor, I’d probably be looking at somewhere closer to $6000. As it is, I still had to send it out for the blackwater tank… I tried before… Anyone who’s done it knows why I will never EVER do that again. I was literally covered in poo. Worse… It wasn’t mine. Never again. I hate paying a shop to fix something, but being covered in crap can change your opinions about paying someone to do it pretty quickly.
When I first got the RV, I made a rather large mistake. I looked at the internet to get stats. I read that my truck could pull 7500 lbs, and I read that the trailer I was getting was 6000 lbs. Well in the real world, the stats were the reverse, My truck with highway gears, not pulling gears, was rated to only pull about 6000, and the trailer UNLOADED was about 6500. By the time I had loaded everything into it, the trailer was well over 7500 lbs. anyway, so even if the internet didn’t lie to me, I’d still be over the weight limit. It did it, but it wasn’t happy about it. It ate two transmissions. Though to be fair, the Dodge Automatic transmission isn’t exactly stellar.
I ended up getting a diesel 1 Ton truck. WAAAAY more truck than I need, but it’s better to have more truck than you need than not enough. So far I haven’t heard anyone with a 1 ton say, “Gee I wish I had a 3/4 ton.” I chose a Ford F350… My dad would be proud. He wanted me to get away from Chevy and go with Ford a long time ago. But bang for the buck I dig the heck outta this F350.
As for the RV: There are a few quirks. One issue I’ve been working on is the heater. At first the ignitor board was bad. And the ignitor itself(probably what blew the board). Then the limit switch. The valve assembly also had to be replaced. All cheap parts, but you have to know what you are doing replacing the parts. This week we were out at Fools Hollow Lake to test things out. I thought I had another issue with the heater, but turns out it’s working beautifully, the CHARGER however decided it’s done…. Possibly… I’ll have to see when I get home if the charger is not working or if it’s something else. Oh by the by… If you think that you will ever be done working on your RV, you can be, but you can NEVER LET IT LEAVE YOUR DRIVEWAY! And even then…
One thing I would like to do is get this thing on Solar, and increase the battery storage. My primary reason for this is that there are too many beautiful campgrounds that don’t have electric hookups, and I don’t want to miss out.
Speaking of: I mentioned we headed out to Fools Hollow Lake. It’s the off season here so there are a few extra camp sites available. We came out to kind of see what all is out here. We found that it’s absolutely stunning. And if you have an RV and want to see something in AZ that is NOT DESERT. You should definitely check it out.
As you can see the little lady decided to dress it up for Valentines
Tommycat's RV Adventures 