How long to you expect to keep your current RV?

Wayne

Administrator
Staff member
We tend to be "drive it into the ground" vehicle owners, which this philosophy will likely spill over into our RV ownership. We have no plans to trade our current Airstream and we do plan on keeping it indefinitely, or until there is some very good reason to sell.

How long to you plan on keeping you current RV?
 
Same here. We would still have our 2005 jayco hybrid if the Dec 2018 snow had not totaled it.


If you look close at the second pic. You can see it looked like brand new. Few people realized it was 13 years old. Keeping it clean, waxed with Eagle one, and out of the sun, kept it looking new, till this.

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We were going to give it to our kids when they finished grad school.

Will keep our current Mallard probably till we retire and go class c. Will probably give it to our kids then rather than attempt to sell/trade.
 
That was some bad luck. I'm going to go to the Spasm school of RV care, man that was clean! Too bad it met a early demise. Up north we call that amount a snow a "dusting".
 
That was some bad luck. I'm going to go to the Spasm school of RV care, man that was clean! Too bad it met a early demise. Up north we call that amount a snow a "dusting".

Yes i took the pic some time after, so some had melted off. We got about 18 inches which is a rarity for our area. I think used an online calculator, and there was about 10k lbs of snow on there.

That building was replaced with an A-roof.
 
18" - that must be an extremely rare event for your area! That's actually rare on our side of Lake Michigan.
 
We got our Wolf Pup in fall 2006 as a 2007 model. Expected to keep it 8-10 years and then upgrade. Here it is 13 years later and we're still in it with some interest to get a new rig, but not ready to pull the trigger quite yet. Because I kept it under roof while stored, it's in great shape, and so it's not worn out by any means; even the roof is in great shape still. Other than new tires two years ago, she's all original and still everything works fine.
 
Dave,

Do you keep track of the miles you've pulled your trailer? We have pulled ours about 17,000 miles in 2 years and all is well. I've wondered how many miles a trailer can handle before things start shaking apart from the constant earthquake it experiences going down the road.
 
I can estimate mine at 26k miles maybe? Not really sure TBH. The bigger trips we've take are easy to track because I kept all the mileage notes. However, that does not account for the "in state" trips to local parks, and two friends whom have farms that I'll take my RV for week-long trips.

I think a well-made RV can last a very long time if well cared for. My RV has a very high GVWR:unloaded ratio. It's rated at 7500 GVWR, but it only weighs about 4000 unloaded. Hence it has a very strong chassis that is has a lot of excess capacity. Even at it's max I've ever filled it to, it was only 5500 lbs, so there was still a 2000 lb margin of excess chassis capacity. That means there's less flexing at the loaded condition. Don't get me wrong, we want the RV to flex; if it were brittle it would snap like the Titanic. Some flexing is good; it gives rather than breaks. But flexing in a max condition means things are stressed to the limit (or very close to it). If you have a RV and you load it to the max, you are not likely to break it overnight, but you will stress all parts of it to a condition which can reduce it's lifespan. (Who would have though that class in material strengths would have been useful?).

RVs can hold up really well, or not well at all. It depends upon both the design and build quality. I would think your Airstream will do quite well; they are known for longevity.
 
Agreed, our Airstream has a GVWR of 8,800 pound, but we don't really load it up. I'd guess with everything loaded for a trip plus a full tank of water, it probably only weight 7,250 or around there. Probably most of the stress come from the condition of many of our interstate highways. We don't pull fast, only about 65, but there are times when I wonder how truck drivers do it day after day, year after year. Rough roads are hard on everything. Still hoping to have the trailer as long as we can travel.
 
When we got our first 5th wheel we thought it would last for as long as we wanted to camp. After 4 years we realized it was not right for us anymore. It was a very well made good unit, yet it was a 'light' and not made for the cross country travel we were doing.
Our next unit was a lemon in capital letters! It had to go back to the plant in Indiana 4 months after we got it, and it only went down hill from there! Two years after getting it, between pages of things to fix by the dealer every time we got back from a trip, the end of the of the warranty, and very poor PR by the company we cut our losses and got rid of it!

We now have a 5er that is standing up to our trips, well made and from a company I think we can trust.
Our units were all well taken care of, stored inside in a heated building and were well researched.
Sometimes I think there are just bad units out there.
 
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