Buying a new camper is supposed to be a great moment. A new camper might be the second biggest purchase you make in your life, and potentially one of the largest vehicles to create memories with your family. That’s what my parents expected when they bought a 2022 Heartland Mallard M33 in 2022. This $62,800 trailer has found creative ways to break down on nearly every trip since it was new. Three years in, it’s still somewhat broken.
My parents pulled the Mallard out to their favorite camping spot last weekend, the cozy acres of Fish Lake Beach in Volo, Illinois. My family has been going to this campground regularly for the past two decades, and it’s always a great time no matter what you’re sleeping in. This weekend was no different. My wife and I rode in on the three wheels of a new Polaris Slingshot and got to enjoy some good eating from a grill, a campfire, and good times in our little plot of grass. These were experiences that you can’t get in a hotel, and part of why people buy RVs in the first place.
Unfortunately, the Mallard has been doing its best to challenge that previous paragraph. Some of it has to do with some truly baffling design decisions, but a lot of it has been just the fact that the camper has been finding admittedly amusing ways to break. Well, they’re amusing to me, anyway. The actual owners of the unit, my parents, are dismayed.
The 2022 Heartland Mallard M33 is a large bumper-pull travel trailer that weighs 7,746 pounds empty, stretches about 37 feet from bow to stern, and is advertised as being able to sleep at least nine people. As I’ve reported in the past, Heartland is a family-oriented luxury brand within Thor Industries with a focus on following the hottest interior design trends. In our unit’s case, it’s sort of emulating a generic farmhouse.
My parents bought it in March 2022. Back then, the Mallard M33 had a sticker price of $62,800, but my parents negotiated Camping World down to $58,000. According to the manufacturing sticker, the trailer had been finished only a few months before my parents picked it up. It smelled and looked fresh, just like all of the rigs I see at the RV shows.
Sadly, the freshness didn’t last very long because the camper has been a bit of a problem child ever since.
I’m Not The Only One Concerned With RV Quality
Before I continue, I want to be clear that my intent isn’t to bash Heartland RV or its parent, Thor Industries. Apparently, I’ve gained a bit of a reputation in this industry for being a bit of a harbinger of doom. Most RV blogs and RV influencers just repackage press releases for content. While I will also write about a new RV in the news, like this week’s Frank Lloyd Wright Airstream, I will also voice my opinion if I think quality or design isn’t up to snuff.
I’ve now been to a lot of RV shows and have seen hundreds (thousands?) of brand-new RVs. As much as I want to write about nothing but why some camper is awesome, it’s also hard to ignore when I spot glaring issues. Because if I see these issues, then someone spending potentially a significant portion of their net worth on a rig will probably notice them even more. I can just walk away from a poorly-built RV show demo and have content to write later, but it’s not as easy if you’re the owner.
My goal isn’t to sink the RV industry. I just want to see better quality because that’s a win for everyone. Buyers have a product they’ll love for years, the companies gain great reputations, and people keep buying RVs. I want everyone who wants to go RVing to be able to do so with a smile on their face, not with thoughts of regret. This is why you’ve seen me championing the industry’s recent affordable options and cheering the companies that do put in the work to make something that holds together.
It’s not just me. RV Travel also hasn’t been afraid to report on quality issues, and famed automotive lemon law attorney Steve Lehto frequently churns out videos about RV quality nightmares. Youtuber Liz Amazing also punches out so many viral videos about bad RV quality that she’s another person that the industry isn’t super jazzed about. Here’s one:
My point here is that people have been complaining about RV quality for a long time. This isn’t a problem that was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nor is it specifically any model or brand. You may remember when I reported on frame failure in Grand Design fifth-wheel trailers. That’s a brand of Winnebago, not Thor Industries! An update on that situation is also long overdue.
Broken From New
I think the best way to understand what’s happening with my family’s camper is to start at the beginning in 2022. Here’s what I wrote in a previous entry:
My parents took delivery of a unit that was broken straight from the factory. Right out of the gate, the first thing I noticed was that the unit had cool LED light strips on the front cap. However, not only were these strips the kind of crap you get from Amazon for $20, but they were attached to the cap with a weak adhesive. Of course, the light strips were already peeling off and the trailer hadn’t even been on a single trip yet.
Honestly, that’s a small problem, but it got worse from there. I moved to the side of the trailer and found that one of the RV’s aerodynamic side skirts (the dealer tech calls these “J-channels”) was halfway through deleting itself from the unit. How were these even bolted on? Through cheap self-tapping screws. Then I saw how the sealant around every window looked like it was applied by a seven-year-old kid.
Somehow, it still got worse. One of the safety chain hooks fell off of the trailer on its first tow, the emergency brake cable disintegrated in my hand, and then there’s the rust. The trailer was just a few months old, yet the underbody had a surprising amount of surface rust. By that summer, the frame had more surface rust than our family’s old camper, a 2007 Adirondack by Thor. Don’t worry, the absurdity of that statement hasn’t escaped my family.
I was shocked when the dealer told us that the “solution” to the frame rust was a can of Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer. I’ve asked around to other dealers and all of them recommended the same thing. With all due respect to the Rust-Oleum Corporation, Rust Reformer is a band-aid, not a fix.
It’s fine if you’re just trying to get your crapbox car through the winter, but it’s frankly insufficient for a brand-new $62,800 travel trailer. This rust issue doesn’t appear to be an anomaly, either. I always check the frames of campers at every RV show, and most of the Heartland units have exhibited a surprising amount of rust only a few months out of the factory.
Anyway, all of these issues were discovered before my family even took the trailer camping for the first time. So, we delayed our plans and sent it back to the dealer. Somehow, the trailer was still broken when we got it back months later, from a previous entry:
In addition to the safety problems, we found three light switches that weren’t even screwed in, random staples everywhere on the ceiling, a window valence that fell off a wall, and a bathtub that wasn’t even close to being installed correctly. In fact, the bathtub wasn’t even screwed in or secured, but just sitting in place. Because of this, there was a huge water leak when we tested the shower and tub. Amazingly, that wasn’t even the only place water was gushing out into the wrong places. The water heater also sprayed water all over everything inside and outside of the trailer.
All of these new problems meant that the trailer spent its first year sitting at the dealership. Sometimes, it took the dealership multiple tries to get things right, too. For example, the loose bathtub was finally screwed in by the dealership, but whatever tech did the job mounted the tub in a horribly crooked position. It took the dealership two more tries before the bathtub was finally correctly mounted in and as you’re soon about to read, it may have to go back again.
The rest of the year was spent waiting on parts or just a free technician. Our local dealer says it was swamped with work throughout the pandemic and immediately after, so even when the parts did come in there might not have been anyone to work on the camper. Oh, and while our camper was at the dealer for a year, someone broke in and stole some really specific items. They took precisely three dinette cushions plus all of the silverware, plates, pots, pans, and towels that my mom stored in the trailer.
The dealership later admitted fault for the missing items. Apparently, the cushions were removed from our trailer and were placed in a Mallard that had arrived from the factory missing its cushions. This assertion is insane. It means that someone at the factory screwed up and shipped a trailer without three cushions. Then, instead of ordering new cushions, the dealer took cushions out of a used trailer that was in for service and put them into a new trailer.
Maybe it didn’t actually happen like that, but it was our local Camping World affiliate that made such a wild claim. At the very least, the dealer did reimburse us for the lost items and give us new cushions, so we were made whole in the end. But, three years later, I’m still left thinking: Who the heck steals disposable plates?
New Year, New Problems
All of this happened in our first year of ownership. Because of it and the long wait between repairs, my family took the unit out only once or twice during that period of time. But hey, summer 2023 was a new year, so maybe the camper was finally going to work, right?
Well, I had more bad news to report:
We first discovered things weren’t quite right when we tried to turn on the kitchen’s LED lights, which now don’t work.
Then, we tried to open the refrigerator to put food in it. The door jammed on the second closure, and when we tried to clear the jam, the door responded by snapping off its handle. I couldn’t help but laugh so hard that I started crying. This is the kind of stuff from a comedy movie, but a dumb one like an Adam Sandler flick.
And we’re not done yet. We found that the water heater wasn’t working. While I was troubleshooting it, I opened up the outdoor kitchen, which revealed that the refrigerator had pulled itself from the wall, taking its holder with it. Meanwhile, the ceiling of the outdoor kitchen is separating, causing a snow of particle board dust.
Inside, we found that the window shades don’t like to stay open on their own and perhaps thanks to Chicago potholes, interior wall trim is falling off. Also comical is the fact that every single fixture mounted to the walls is crooked.
If that wasn’t aggravating enough, the kitchen sink suddenly became about as sealed as a sieve. But hey, at least this time my family was able to get a few great trips out of the unit in 2023, so it wasn’t all bad. The water heater also had some sort of internal failure, which caused it to induce a steady water leak. Thankfully, the broken heater leaked to the outside of the trailer, so that was good.
Maybe Next Year
A new year brought new challenges, and the camper continued its record of breaking in 2024. By that year, my parents had used the unit only about five or six times. It spent the rest of its time either at the dealer or in storage.
The Mallard had a great start to 2024. Camping World spent winter 2023 replacing the faulty water heater, fixing the bad interior LED wiring, replacing the broken handles on the refrigerator, straightening up the crooked fixtures, removing the random staples from the ceiling, securing the outdoor kitchen’s refrigerator, and stopping the sink from losing its drink. All of this was done because, come 2024, the trailer was due to lose its bumper-to-bumper warranty. But truth be told, so much of this should have been fixed in 2022 at the factory.
From that point forward, my parents would be responsible for fixing the dumb things that broke, and the trailer didn’t take its foot off the gas when it came to breaking things. Things went well in 2024 until my family took it out for a trip in early September:
Dad reports that first, the cap for the tanks blew off on the highway. Ok, that’s stupid, but something that does sometimes happen with campers. Then he made me laugh immediately after when he said “Then, the handle for the black tank blew off.”
Alright, that one is new to me and I still cannot stop laughing. Look, it’s a small issue because you can still pull on the rod with your hand or a pair of pliers, but still, that’s silly.
Then there’s the glob of foam around the tank exit, which is supposed to protect the wiring underneath and keep wildlife out of the trailer’s underbody. Well, some animals have been trying to get their way through the seal.
Sheryl and I arrived at the camper on Saturday, and we found that my parents had filled the interior refrigerator to the brim with steaks and such, so Sheryl’s drinks had to go outside. That’s the great thing about having more than one refrigerator! Upon opening the hatch, I found more of the particleboard “sawdust” material sprayed around the outdoor kitchen. The shifting wall problem has not been resolved.
The materials of the trailer also hadn’t aged well. Wall and ceiling trim began popping out or buckling all over the trailer’s interior. The paper-thin walls flex when you hit a light switch or adjust the thermostat. Even the shower liner came out of the wall all by itself. Everything in this trailer feels almost insultingly cheap, from how the wallpaper is peeling by itself to how the interior upholstery has the strength of wet noodles. Check this out:
The rust also managed to make some decent progress. Keep in mind that we do not use this trailer at all in the winter!
All things considered, the Mallard didn’t have that bad of a 2024. The equipment held together in 2024, and nothing truly awful happened. Everything that went wrong was purely cosmetic.
One More Time
My parents pulled the Mallard out of storage about a month or so ago. Then, they took it to their favorite RV shop to have it prepared for the summer. Now, things get really bizarre right from the jump.
This time, we didn’t discover missing cushions or cookware that was Thanos-snapped out of existence. Instead, we found that someone had gone through the trailer’s liquor cabinet and emptied the bottles. Judging from the random footprints we found all over the trailer, someone seemingly threw a party in there. I hope they enjoyed themselves, I guess? This time, nobody took responsibility for our bizarre discovery.
But, fine, whatever. Missing alcohol isn’t the end of the world. What was rather confusing was how, on our first trip this spring, the power awning refused to deploy. Hit the button and you get nothing. Thankfully, the trailer’s electrical panel has a fault-checker system, so I used that to see if a fuse had blown or something.
Nope! The fuse was just straight up missing. Huh? I interviewed my parents and my brother. None of them even knew where the electrical panel was. Did the fuse blow, and the dealer forget to replace it? Fuses just don’t disappear! I still don’t have an answer to this mystery that I’m satisfied with, but a new fuse restored function to the awning.
A few really amusing failures happened this weekend. My mom attempted to open the refrigerator, only for us to now hear the snap that we’re now familiar with. Yep, somehow, the door handle broke again. Thankfully, it didn’t break off fully this time, but this is getting quite weird. We haven’t broken a single refrigerator door handle in the Adirondack. Are these handles just worse? Is my mom stronger than she thinks?
My mom was eventually able to remove the meat from the refrigerator for cleaning. But the sink wasn’t about that business. The seal that the dealer had replaced in 2023 failed again, sending a deluge of water into the area under the island, where it eventually began leaking out onto the rest of the floor.
Thankfully, we experienced only one more failure on that trip. I tried to open a blind to let some light in, and both of its anchor points failed in that instant. It was so stupid that I had to sit down because I was crying laughing.
This year, my parents have also started complaining about the trailer’s design. Previously, I noted how the primary bedroom is hot like an oven and is too small to get dressed in. I also noted how the exterior lights are awful and the primary bedroom has terrible ventilation. My parents found complaints that I hadn’t even seen previously.
One of the compliments that I give this trailer is to its main entry stair design. In the past, RV stairs bolted into the area just under the entry door. Over time, these stairs would rust out, jam, or just fall out of the trailer. The stairs also didn’t feel particularly sturdy under the weight of a heavy foot. They sucked!
But these stairs rock. They have adjustable legs so that the stairs sit firmly on the ground. Walking up these stairs feels no different than walking up a staircase at home. They’re wide, sturdy, and confidence-inspiring. At least they are to me. I also like how the stairs store inside the trailer, so they don’t get rusty.
My parents pointed out two big fails with the camper’s stairs. The rear door’s stairs hang so far up off the ground that they’re simply inaccessible for my elderly parents. The main entry stair? My parents have trouble climbing them without any sort of handle to grab onto. The only handle is that little afterthought shown in the picture.
RV buyers trend toward older age groups, so it is a bit weird that this trailer sucks for an elderly person to get into. Thankfully, RV supplier Lippert does sell a $67 handrail attachment that you can put onto these stairs. But I’m left wondering why this $62,800 trailer didn’t have it from the factory in the first place.
My mom also hates the trailer’s stereo. It doesn’t have any ability to connect to Bluetooth, and the radio antenna is so weak it barely captures local stations. Again, this is an issue that can be fixed with an aftermarket stereo, but still, you’d think that such a mod shouldn’t have to be done in a unit built in 2022.
Earlier, I said that the trailer has room for at least nine sleepers. How does that work? Up to two people can be expected to sleep in the primary bedroom up front. Two more people can take the pull-out sofa, one or two people can take the dinette bed, and up to four people can sleep in the bunkhouse in the rear.
The bunkhouse arrangement doesn’t really work. One person gets to sleep on a shelf above the outdoor kitchen. There’s no railing here, so I hope this person doesn’t toss and turn. Another person gets to take a bed that comes down from the wall. Two more people can sleep on the folding cushions on the floor. But here’s the stupid catch: If you fold out the cushions, you can no longer open the door to the bunkhouse without folding one of the cushions first. Brilliant.
Good Ideas, Bad Execution
It’s not all bad. There are lots of things that I love about this trailer.
I love how the blinds actually darken the trailer, so you can continue sleeping even after the sun has come up. I also like how stable the trailer is on the highway and how the stabilizer jacks aren’t weak arms. I also dig the power awning and those super secure stairs. I even like how the main entry door holds itself open using friction rather than a flimsy plastic prop. It’s even clever how the bathroom can be accessed from the outside for those emergency roadside visits to the toilet.
There are lots of good ideas here, but they’re just surrounded by bad quality.
Last year, my parents had already come to the conclusion that they didn’t want the trailer anymore. However, current Mallard M33 values suggest that selling it would result in a $30,000 loss. So, my parents aren’t quite sure what to do next. They’ve concluded that the Mallard experience was a failure for them, but they don’t want to stomach losing so much money. For now, my parents will continue reluctantly taking the trailer out.
If you take anything away from this, it’s that you should never buy a camper sight-unseen. Always look over a unit before you part ways with any money. If you don’t know what to look for, hire someone who does. As for the RV industry, all I ask is for better quality control. I don’t hate you! I love RVs! I just want them to be better.
“we found that someone had gone through the trailer’s liquor cabinet and emptied the bottles. Judging from the random footprints we found all over the trailer, someone seemingly threw a party in there. I hope they enjoyed themselves, I guess? This time, nobody took responsibility for our bizarre discovery.”
Next time you take that thing in for service stock the cabinet EXCLUSIVELY with Jepson’s Malort.
Better, bottles of similarly colored spirits replaced with Malort.
Better, bottles of similarly colored spirits replaced with piss.
Cat piss, Malort, what’s the difference?
The difference is the cat piss tastes better and hurts less in the morning.
I was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s. This trailer reminds me of the quality of US Vehicles made in that error. And that spelling is intentional. Cars coming direct from the factory were full of horrible quality issues from the design to the execution.
There is a lesson to be learned for the RV industry from this. During the 80s, people that got Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans and Mazdas found them engineered and assembled properly. For less money. 40 years later, the reputation of the Big 3 cars is still low, even though they are dramatically better than they were in that era.
It seems like the RV industry is wide open for someone outside of the mainline companies to make a decent, well built trailer and dominate the industry for 30+ years.
Get rid of that thing.
I believe the takeaway is you should never buy a trailer, period.
I presume an extended warranty is either unavailable or prohibitively priced. Having one might offer a little mitigation of expenses when the inevitable stupid issues pop up. In the meantime, the other repairs didn’t stick. Do you have any leverage getting those done gratis?
Either way, I’m going to presume the lack of extension of warranties is a telling fact that they know they effectively are making disposable RVs now.
I believe I have seen a gas strut assist for those steps. Could be worth looking into for your parents.
Rent your fun.
College Athletes Get A Lesson In Money Management – YouTube
OK, I’m pretty sure we NEED to do a DT crossover where he complains about wrenching on cars vs fixing homes, and you provide him the worst of both worlds and let him work his magic.
Your parents don’t even need to know, just make sure they keep the liquor cabinet stocked!
Shower Spaghetti: The RV Experience
The best thing that could happen would be including the RV industry inside the scope of Lemon Laws.
Instead of states trying to ban Kei Cars, this is what they should actually be working on.
New RVs are junk, almost without exception. There some brands that aren’t quite this egregiously bad and are decent enough to not make you want to rip your hair out, but they’re few and far between. Myself? I inherited a 1980’s 13 foot retro looking fiberglass camper that once belonged to my Grandparents. It needed an extensive rehab (one of the windows leaked when it was stored outdoors and the floor subsequently rotted out) but my Dad and I gutted and restored the thing to its former glory. I can say with confidence that it is leaps and bounds above the quality of any modern RV. It took a ton of time and sweat equity to actually do RIGHT, but now it will be set for years if not decades to come, especially since I plan to store it indoors when not in use and be diligent about maintenance.
I honestly don’t believe any new trailer you could buy at a dealer would be that level of quality. Even if you shell out the big bucks on something like an AirStream it’s still owned by Thor. The manufacturers don’t care; they make their bones selling shoddily built crap to folks buying on impulse. COVID only exacerbated this, though it’s been a problem for decades. My wife and I eventually want to have kids and the prospect of eventually getting a larger RV would normally be appealing. But I have absolutely no interest in anything on the market. We’ll get by with pitching a tent alongside the trailer for additional sleeping space. Hell, if the weather is poor we can just get a hotel room for a night. I’m sure the occasional unplanned hotel room is still cheaper than buying one of these overpriced, gargantuan shoddy crap cans with a rate of depreciation that makes them only a marginally better investment than a Ponzi scheme.
I feel for your folks and get that it’s tough to accept the $30K loss. But the reality is that’s now the best-case scenario. This dumpster fire is only going to depreciate further, and now it’s out of warranty. If past is prologue, there are lots more expensive repairs on the horizon, especially since your folks seem to hire everything out rather than DIY (not knocking them, but it ain’t cheap). If it were me, I’d cut my losses now. There will never be a better time to do so.
My parents practically live in their Airstream for 6-months of the year.
Sure, there have been a few small teething items in the first year, related more to a bit of settling when it set down the road like door alignment – it’s been otherwise troublefree. The vast majority of work they’ve done have been purely upgrades (such as their solar panel tie-in).
Sure, it costs a fortune and don’t have fancy (read: failure prone) slide-outs – but, unsurprisingly, they hold their value so well that even if it were destroyed down to a bare shell that depreciation losses make cost of ownership lower than the average disposable trailer. Similarly, they seem to survive longer than the average bear, so you needn’t replace so often.
I work in a business that supplies some components to the RV industry (and many others) so I quickly scanned to make sure none of our parts were at fault. They weren’t, whew.
I don’t want to dissuade anyone from buying RVs because a decent portion of our sales come from RV production. However, I can tell you that we absolutely CAN make higher quality RV parts right here in America. However, most of the RV industry won’t pay for that so you get some seriously bad Chinese junk. My company manufactures here in the U.S. and our products cost more as a result. That limits my customers to mostly higher-end units (and sadly, that doesn’t include most 5th wheels).
Add those cheap materials to a workforce that is incentivized to crank out X-number of units a day and you have people slamming this garbage in as fast as possible so they can hit that number and get out fast. It’s a bad combination.
It’s worth noting that Thor is closing Heartland plants and reorganizing them under Jayco so I’m not sure how the brand will live on.
My word these articles get worse and worse! My hope is that you’ll be the Bob Mayer of RVs where we’ll look back 20 years from now and laugh about how bad the quality was. The dealer steals your cushions and your liquor? What in the world?! I’m actually surprised the only empty alcohol bottles you’ve found are ones you owned…
As with many things in life, they’re “selling the sizzle, not the steak”. They’re building to an insanely low (and unsustainable) price point because that’s what sells, what “the market” demands.
And, having worked on a trailer “assembly line” years ago, another big problem is simply the range of options being offered. A typical “produduction run” of similar units never exceeded a dozen, so every unit ended up being pretty much a custom build (and not in a good way).
Serious question. In 2022 were you in as deep as you are now with the RV world? And if so, did they not consult you before buying? I feel from your previous articles that this camper would not have been on your recommended list if you had laid eyes on it. Again, serious question, no tongue in cheek or anything like that. Just very curious as to the buying decisions made.
With that said, it’s made for some rather entertaining articles! I know that’s at your parents expense but still
My inlaws for instance, like to consult me on things I’m as close to being an expert on without having put together the thing being purchased. Then they do the polar opposite of what I recommend.
Maybe it’s something like that.
My parents know I’m passionate about cars and RVs, but they usually ask me about something after they purchase it. I hate giving the bad news because I know there isn’t much that can be done after money has changed hands and contracts have been signed.
Thankfully, there have been a few times when I joined them at a car dealership. One time, I got to watch a Chevy salesman say with a totally straight face that an Equinox can tow a 7,000-pound camper. My parents might have bought it had I not been there to call him out.
I just want to see an Equinox actually try to pull 7000 pounds.
I have had a lot of friends and family do this with me as well. Luckily this past time around, my MIL asked for my help with her new car purchase PRIOR to purchasing and let me basically run the show.
It always drove me bonkers over the years when friends and family wouldn’t reach out until after when they knew I was a car person (grew up around the corporate side and then worked at a dealer) and ask the questions of did they do good? Well maybe but why did they charge you for this? Or you drive 5k miles a year, why did you buy an unlimited lifetimes worth of oil changes?
Thanks for clarifying though as that was always something I was curious about with your situation.
I was pleased when my not rich relatives asked if they needed a new car. Their current car has 30K miles and they drive 5K a year (elderly). Ah no, they’re good. I’m the guy that runs cars 25+ years and 300K+ miles. I told them their car is too new for me to even consider as I buy 45K+ mile cars just off lease. The money they’ve spent on cars over the years…. They aren’t rich.
Neighbors bought a nice Mallard around 2019 or so. Was a gigantic POS, constantly in the shop for one thing or another. What you’re describing is pretty much what they experienced with theirs. Mallard is probably not unique either, seems like all modern RVs are just hot garbage.
My parents did the RV thing for about three years. Dad can confirm, they’re all junk (build wise).
This thing should be called Goose. Mallards are fun and friendly. This thing is not.
Whole thing is a big ol’ oof of an experience, and a cautionary tale for sure. I know a lot of people here aren’t big on campers, and I’m pretty wary of them as a concept as well. But I do understand why people go for these things; they make sense in certain contexts where you want to be in places that have limited hotel options, or in regions too popular to obtain/afford hotels. I doubt that it ever really turns into a break even proposition (certainly not at an upfront price of 60k and remember, most people are financing the absolutely shit out of these) but I don’t think people buying these rationalize them that way. Or I sure hope as hell they aren’t.
I will say this, if the RV industry was to tank and we all had to compete with these people for hotel/AirBnB rentals, we’ll all be sad to see them go.
I’ve mentioned in this space before that my uncle has one, and uses it exclusively as a day camper. Trips to games, races, whatever. If he overnights with it he stays in a hotel.
I don’t know why there isn’t more focus on camper vans in this use case. Think of it as an advanced tailgating truck. You have your own toilet, fridge, tv and a couch if you want a nap. Perfect for taking to the track for the day as a base of operations. If I ever got one, this is what it would be for.
I think the way these are marketed (probably for worse) is the camper can do anything and everything. And at these prices, people are probably kidding themselves that the camper is going to be their only away from home lodging for 20+ years. More realistically it’s a luxury that can be used for a number of different use cases, and really shouldn’t be compared to hotel rooms at all.
Using one as a mobile base camp for whatever activity of choice makes sense. Sometimes you need shelter and parking next to whatever you’re doing versus 10 miles down the road is necessary to make the best of your time.
$62,000? Any decent mutual fund pays 10%. So you are losing $6000/year there. Depreciation? Lets say another $6000/year. Hauling a 7000# – 40 foot long trailer – that has to be work-dont lie to me. Vacation ? I m supposed to be getting away from work. And where the hell do you park this monster the other 11 months of the year??? People- you do realize you can rent RVs. You do realize that 90% of campgrounds have a thing called CABINS !! ?? No F ing way am i buying one of these. You gotta be nuts.
The two happiest days of an RV owners life. The day they buy it, and the day they get rid of it.
Just like boats.
People say that about boats, and I don’t get it. But maybe it depends what kind of boat you’re talking about. Dad has had a 29′ Wellcraft since 1991 and we’ve had many, many lovely days just cruising around the lakes on it. It helps I suppose that it’s moored all summer so we don’t have the hassle of in/out.
My requirements for a boat at this point however are a bathroom and a fridge at minimum, and a place to take a nap. I’m not really interested in bouncing over the waves in a runabout at 60mph all day. Being on the water is just relaxing in a purely human way.
RVs are a product deliberately engineered and marketed to ensure “uppity” members of the working class don’t amass too much inter-generational wealth.
I hesitate to even begin to calculate the total cost of ownership of the RV in the article including storage, repair, financing and depreciation. Cost per use has to be staggering. Like renting suites in world-class hotels or entire lakeside cottage at peak season expensive.
Don’t forget you need to buy a truck, and preferably an HD, to pull one of these, with all of its associated costs.
Or, if you buy a motorho…er, coach…you sometimes need to buy an additional vehicle to tow behind it. It’s just an incredibly money-losing proposition.
College buddy of mine, his dad owns a dune buggy, from back in the day when they were all custom jobs instead of Polarises and such sold from a dealer.
The one time I went out with them, he told me that if you were to get into it nowadays. the toy hauler and truck capable of towing it cost twice the buggy itself. Easily 100K.
Some people love the “lifestyle,” but I don’t get it. Like you said, there’s almost always some other option that’s far, far cheaper over the long haul. Some people like having their own ‘house,’ their own car, their own space, and are prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for that privilege.
I grew up with a series of campers – an old pop-up towed by either a basic ’79 or ’90 F150, then a couple of travel trailers towed by a bigger ’95 F150, and finally a motorhome with an ’03 Focus as a dingy. Reliability on either was never that bad, but I wish they’d stopped after the pop-up.
I could see owning one now, but between having to deal with little yip-yip dogs at shitty campgrounds and idiots running generators all day, it’s just not much fun.
Generators aren’t a problem if you stay at places with electrical, and we’ve rarely had issues with dogs.
We stayed at only one place without electric hookups (happened to be a state park). And the generators weren’t the worst part – that was the “couple” next door that spent way too much time screaming and cursing at each other.
Worst part? Some would pay extra for that kind of entertainment!
You’d have loved these people.
Apparently he had warrants out on him, as at one point he took the car and started peeling out of there. She screamed “If you leave I’ll call the cops!” He hit the brakes immediately and scretched to a halt, threw it into reverse and spun gravel back to the camp site.
Further yelling and cursing ensued as they packed up everything and finally left together.
I was very relieved when they were gone, but man do I worry about how things turned out for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if I find out some day one of them was found dead in a ditch somewhere. It was not a healthy relationship.
I suppose camping isn’t the worst way to avoid the cops, though it would help if they didn’t act the way you described.
My most recent tent camping experience had something similar. Got woken up around 2 AM to the sound of a car pulling in a few spots over from us. They left their lights on and got out to set up, yelling at each other the whole time. One of them shut the car door, to which the other helpfully reminded them that the car locks itself while running. So, they had to call a locksmith to come out to a campground while their car was running in the dead of night.
Man, I thought dealing with the loud snorer in the site next to us was a pain. That’s…something. I’m guessing the entire campground was ready to kill them.
I ended up dealing with my father’s used motor home. Used, meaning one trip had been taken in it. It was a $200,000 vehicle. It reminded me of a early-80’s Cadillac, long on features but such poor construction quality that it drove you crazy. When I was going over the list of problems there were about 25 unresolved ones at the end of the one year warranty.
There were water leaks, broken floor tiles, cabinet latches that broke while driving, spilling the contents, a refrigerator issue, poor alignment and electrical switches hanging out of the wall, and an invertor problem.
The vehicle had so many subsystems that had their own manuals that the box of manuals must have been 50 pounds. My dad was in his 70’s and wasn’t really up to finding the waste tank manual, let alone figuring it out. A 45 minute walkaround with the salesman didn’t really suffice for training, nor did the videos.
Like your experience, the wait time for dealer service was months long and they didn’t ever fix everything. Part of the problem is that while they tell you during the sales process that they have hundreds of service center/dealers across the US, the hourly rate that they pay the dealer for service on a coach not purchased at that location is less than the actual cost of service. The dealers can’t make anything on service, they make it all on the sale. I was advised several times to take it back to the dealer in Wisconsin for service. The coach was in San Diego. In the opinion of the service people, that would have been easier and better for me than getting service in a city of over a million people.
The proliferation of brand names is a strategy by Coachman/Fleetwood et. al. to obscure any accountability, a shell game of sorts in which nobody incurs the cost of building a quality product and supporting it. There are a lot of people who buy these and have very precious vacation time that’s utterly ruined, people who lack the ability and inclination to operate a volt meter and didn’t bring 100 pounds of tools on their vacation. It’s really dismal, and Steve Lehto is right, there should be enhanced regulation and oversight.
Don’t get me started on the safety concerns of a 75 year old driving a 40,000 lb slab-sided Class A motor home down the road at night when he has zero experience.
i would hope the Mallard has strong stabilizer arms… because who wants a lame duck?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. When I moved across state, I bought a mid 90’s Mallard (made by Fleetwood then) and lived in it for a month. It was in really nice shape for it’s age, and had spent its entire life in arid eastern Washington.
During my month long tenure: The closet door de laminated itself one early morning, the propane regulator shit out, the water heater pilot light and thermocouple died, the non-replaceable toilet valve broke and started leaking, the extendo-antenna crank broke, the bathroom exhaust fan broke, the main door latch broke, the oven exhaust fan started tripping breakers, the oven thermostat didn’t work properly, i heard suspicious dripping noises under my bed at night (where the tanks are) and the new(er) roof may have started leaking.
Fixed nearly everything, as thankfully the parts are pretty generic and not too expensive, the costliest being the shitter. Sold that thing immediately after finding a rental.
Now, as I’m looking for a piece of property to buy, I’m shopping trailers and RV’s for temporary accommodation. Are any of them not total garbage??
“Are any of them not total garbage??”
Nothing that’s in any way reasonably priced. If it’s temporary you’d probably be best off doing what you did before. Buy something older that’s nice enough but at the bottom of its depreciation curve so you can sell it for roughly what you have into it when you’re done. Sure, it’ll probably have problems. But so will most new ones if this story is any indication, and at least that way you won’t take a bath on resale.
Yeah, that’s probably the way to go. I don’t mind fixing the mechanical stuff, but leaks are a non-starter for me. I did end up making pretty good money on the Mallard, but I don’t expect that to be the case every time.
Nope
“Are any of them not total garbage??”
The GMC Motorhome is your answer.
Oh believe me, if I could get one for a decent price I’d be all over one. My partner has said about them: “That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen”, but that really applies to all RV’s
This is why I built my camper van myself from an empty cargo van. When something breaks or the design is stupid, I know exactly who to yell at for being an idiot, then I go right back to the drawing board to fix it.
That water heater installation is far worse than my temporary kitchen (for layout planning) built from scraps in my workshop! Do they make it up as they go along?
Yes.
As near as I can tell midprice stuff like the ill starred Mallard is the worst because you’re paying a lot and still getting crappy build quality. I’d sooner buy a cheap trailer to minimize my costs and know I will have to fix it, or suck it up and spend big money on a Lance or Bigfoot that is better put together.
There is an association of RV inspectors and appraisers.