Why It’s So Hard To Write Honestly About The RV Industry

Every year for the past three years, I have left my tiny apartment in Illinois bound for Elkhart, Indiana, the recreational vehicle capital of America. At the end of September, the RV industry hosts the Indiana RV Dealer Open House, an invite-only sneak peek into the latest and greatest that mega brands like Thor Industries, Forest River, and Winnebago have going on. This year, I didn’t get an invite from any manufacturer, and I suspect it has to do with my honest reporting of the inner workings of the industry, including quality and how manufacturers sell RVs to dealers.

If you have been reading my work for long enough, you’re fully aware that I adore vehicles that have beds and bathrooms in them. My very first post for Jalopnik, which I wrote nearly five years ago, was about a Mauck MSV 1120S bus that had been converted into a weird limo-like RV. From that day forward, I have regularly written about the fun and quirky RVs that I have found around America. I also highlight the awesome new RVs that I think are worth telling our audience about.

I don’t think anyone could reasonably say that I hate RVs! It’s just the opposite. I’m the kind of person who would rather pitch a tent in a state park than stay in some of the nicest hotels. I’d rather tow a camper into a field than stay in a Holiday Inn. However, I suppose I’m also not the most RV brand-friendly person out there. My style of reporting has brought tons of attention to little-known brands that do great things, but on the flipside, apparently, I’ve also caused some headaches at other brands.

How RV Media Often Works

Now, it would be easy for me to just regurgitate press releases. That is exactly how most RV blogs work. Some RV blogs, which I will not name, will brand a rewritten press release as a “review,” which has never sat right with me. It would be like if we wrote a review on the new Honda Prelude despite not having driven it yet.

It would also be easy for me to be like an RV influencer. These folks tour an RV in person, ignore all of the faults, and just talk about how floorplan A is so cool and floorplan B is also so cool. This is not to disparage influencers. It is their job to hype products up. They make money from being positive all the time.

The vast majority of RV media falls into one of those two categories: Rewarmed press releases and influencers. I’ll just pick a video at random:

I come at things from a different angle. My family has enjoyed RVs for generations. Some of my greatest memories were created at a campsite! But I also have some negative memories from camping. Most of those bad memories came from those times when our camper had either broken down, ruining a holiday, or failed, costing us thousands of dollars in repairs. So, while I am happy to write about the cool or historic RVs, I feel that it’s important to point out both the misses and the hits.

An RV might be the second-largest purchase you ever make, and it’s seriously disappointing to spend so much money just to discover that you’ve invested in a real pile of crap. It hurts even more when you realize that RVs suffer from steep depreciation, so if you buy a crappy rig, you’re unlikely to even make your money back. So, I’m not afraid to speak out when I find something I don’t like. For example, I have complained about excessive rust on new Heartland trailers before. But I have made sure that, before I made that complaint, I had a sample size of greater than one unit. I went to RV shows and took note that several brand-new units had surface rust covered up with spray paint:

I don’t do this to beat up the RV industry. Again, I love RVs! My goal is not to use a large national platform to punish a manufacturer, but hopefully, in pointing out flaws, maybe the manufacturer will work to fix what went wrong. The way I see it, this benefits everyone. Customers can buy with confidence, and the manufacturer is rewarded for good work with good sales.

With all of that being said, let’s take a look at how I have seemingly gotten myself blacklisted by the big RV conglomerates.

The 2022 RV Dealer Open House

The first time I went an RV show as media was the 2022 RV Dealer Open House in Elkhart. The Autopian was much smaller than it was now, and I was pretty unknown in the RV world. I received official invites from both Thor Industries and Winnebago, which I happily accepted.

This show was something else. The RV Dealer Open House is one of America’s largest RV shows, and it’s not open to the public. You have to be invited to it, and it’s not configured like your typical trade show. See, the RV Dealer Open House is a show put on by the manufacturers to sell campers to dealers, who will then sell those campers to you, the customer. In other words, dealers go to the Open House to figure out what campers they are going to sell in the future. There isn’t even a real parking lot during the show, but a field that inevitably ends up all muddy:

This changes the format greatly. If you’ve been to an auto show, you know that they tend to be customer-centric. When you go to the typical auto show, you’ll find window stickers on cars featuring pricing and possible discounts, and the people walking around will usually be sales representatives. Auto shows, whether you realize it or not, are pretty much about selling you a car. Another important note about an auto show is that nothing comes free. If you want some snacks, food, or drinks, you have to pay for it.

The RV dealer show was much different. The RVs on display don’t show discounted prices, if they even have prices on them at all. Likewise, the people walking around the displays are salespeople, yes, but they’re also subject matter experts, managers, or hold other high positions at their RV company. These people aren’t trying to sell a camper to the end customer, but trying to convince dealers why they should stock an RV to sell to their customers.

Generally, Thor Industries is somewhat picky about who gets into the Open House. Dealers are let in, of course, but only a select few publications are hand-picked to be allowed through the gate. Usually, those let in tend to be industry publications and only a few influencers. The general public is not allowed. So, I thought it was an honor when I was invited to the Open House.

In 2022, I wrote a story about how going to an RV show is so much cooler than any car show. In that story, I had explained that going to a trade show allowed me to talk to a plethora of RV dealers from the perspective of them being the customer, not me. None of them were willing to go on the record, but many of them had complained that RV quality went into the toilet during the pandemic and wasn’t recovering. I also watched a Camping World affiliate and his employees comb over every inch of a Jayco Jay Flight, and then walk away shaking their heads.

I asked them what they thought was wrong with that camper, and they pointed out every quality issue. They specifically pointed me to these bolts holding the awning on, and told me that this is almost guaranteed to leak water really soon, and that the only true way to fix it would be to tear down the whole wall and rebuild that part of the trailer.

I followed my question up by asking them if they would seriously sell this camper to someone, and they told me that they will not be selling that model. That was an illuminating conversation, and one that I would not have been able to have at a public show.

I continued that article by talking about how awesome it was to tour new RVs without limits and how the RV/MH Hall Of Fame rolled out a bunch of historic RVs and put on a classic RV show. Everything I said in 2022 is valid today in 2025, and RV trade shows are some of the coolest trade shows you could go to.

Free Booze, Music, And Food

Then we get to the part that, I’ve been told, Thor Industries really didn’t like. I noted that the biggest departure between this dealer show and a public show was how attendees were treated. There were alcohol tents, food trucks, and catered food scattered all over the show, and all of it was free and unlimited.

Seriously, you just walk up to a tent, get a beer, and walk away. This wasn’t cheap stuff like Bud Light, either, but great local flavors and other tasty alcoholic beverages. It was the same deal with the food trucks and the catering. Thor Industries had invited skilled pitmasters, pizza makers, and more to this event, and the food was really good.

I began to notice a sort of trend. A dealer and their employees would walk up to a beer tent, get beer, and then walk around the display looking at campers. Then, they’d get more beer or get food, and then do that some more. Since there was so much alcohol flowing and so many places to get food, you could have spent the entire day walking around buzzed and on a full stomach while shopping for campers to sell to your customers. I mentioned this in only a single paragraph in my story, in passing.

At the time, I did not think anything of it, because that’s how automaker press events work. Automakers will happily set up an open bar and let both journalists and reps get totally sloshed. So, in my mind, this was the RV dealer equivalent of a press event.

I also noted that the 2022 show was especially wild because, in celebration of hitting all-time record sales in 2021, Thor decided to treat its dealers and factory employees to a Florida Georgia Line concert. At the time, it was actually the last time the music group had played together. If that wasn’t crazy enough, Nelly then appeared on stage for the remix of the song ‘Cruise.’ My mind was blown that, here I was at a private RV show in the middle of Indiana, and I was watching freaking Florida Georgia Line and Nelly while drinking free beer.

So, my article about that was positive. Because again, I was blown away by my look into the world of how RVs  were sold. Apparently, my single paragraph about the beer tents caused major alarm at Thor Industries. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, I had accidentally revealed the secret that Thor throws free food, beer, and concerts at dealerships while trying to sell them campers. Apparently, they did not expect that I would write about that.

A Different Kind Of Harbinger

The funny thing about this is that it has a sort of “Streisand Effect.” I actually didn’t care about the beer tents and had never intended to make a thing out of it or ever mention it again. However, this, as well as my stories about poor RV quality, have apparently made me a sort of “harbinger of doom” for Thor Industries.

Are the optics of throwing a great show for dealers really that bad? I hadn’t considered it until I heard this irked someone at Thor. Plenty of industries do the same, so I don’t fully understand what the issue is with me casually mentioning it. If you want something to be a secret, don’t make Nelly a part of it, right?

What’s also interesting is how all of this was presented to me. When I got my invite to the 2024 show, it wasn’t directly through Thor itself, as was the case in 2022 and 2023, but through Airstream. I didn’t think anything of this, because Airstream is Thor’s flagship brand and we love Airstream. But when I got there, the representative for Thor wondered why I was there. When I told them that Airstream invited me, I was informed that Airstream doesn’t actually have the power to invite people to shows, and that Thor had really invited Jason, instead.

But since I had made the drive, and since I had written many negative stories about how poorly my family’s camper is built, Thor’s people said that the least they could do was give me a good time. What was weird was that the camper that Airstream had invited me to see wasn’t even at the show. So the whole thing was just strange from start to finish. It was the first RV show in which I did a single-day speed run because I sort of just wanted to get back home.

Later on, it was suggested that the reason I wasn’t invited was that Thor thought I hated them, and that’s why they invited Jason to try out Thor’s new EREV RV, and not me. I wasn’t supposed to be there at all. Of course, the claim about me hating Thor is not true. I don’t harbor any ill feelings toward any brand, and never toward any PR person.

The Show Goes On

This year, we didn’t even get an accidental invite to the Open House. It could be because of the above, or it could just be that the RV industry has less money for beer, or maybe something else. I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that, as of right now, Thor, Forest River, and Winnebago do not really work with us. Airstream and a couple of other brands happily send us press releases, and I have sometimes written stories based on them, but that’s it.

The good news is that I already have a backup plan. I will still be going to the Florida show every January, and instead of going to Indiana in September, I will now be going to America’s largest RV show in Pennsylvania.

Just to clear the air one more time here, I do not hate any brand, any PR person, or anything like that. My goal isn’t to be a hater! I can’t even hold a grudge against my childhood bullies. I love all kinds of RVs, including the big ones, the tiny ones, and the weird ones.

At the same time, not all of what I write will be positive. There will be times when I don’t like an RV’s price, quality, or features. I cannot in good conscience ignore that stuff. I will also continue to write about the sorts of happenings that others do not. If you’re a manufacturer and my words are a cause for concern, maybe it’s a good time to work on fixing what I complained about, because if I notice it, I’m sure your customers notice the problem, too.

If anyone at any of the companies mentioned has issues with anything I wrote above or would like to start over, I know you’ve got my email because I’ve already reached out to you many times.