Location: Red-Neck Riveria - (Fort Walton Beach, FL)
Posts: 280
Boats in Port = Vans in Storage?
I have been interested in utilization since I was scheduling crews and aircraft. Then, when sailing, I became acquainted with the old "saw; "A boat spends 80% of its life at anchor- or in port." So while digging through the maintenance records of our van, I just had to review the previous owners use rates. Not being nosy, I just needed to understand how the van had been used, the repair items to watch, and what I should tackle first.
I used the odometer readings on the records when available. Most often these are recorded on the maintenance invoices. All of the previous owners used commercial RV maintenance facilities, with no DIY. We are the 5th owner, and our data is estimated as we have an upcoming winter trip that should add another 3000+ miles to our use, but our existing use is shown.
There are some interesting observations that could be made and questions to ask. For example, were some of the "spikes" in use before its sale, in anticipation of "one last trip?" Or after a trip, perhaps a realization by the owners; "Well, we've been there and done that?"
On the other hand, perhaps the plateaus in use can be explained reviewing the maintenance records. Also, the expenses incurred may explain lower utilization during those periods.
I will caution you. It is a pretty busy slide, but hope mostly self-explanatory. First, the average use over 14 years is right at 6000 miles per year. Total expense reported by previous owners is just at $11,100 (before my major upgrades~ just about the same amount). The diminutive original house battery was replaced 3 times, and the start battery also 3 times (one during our delivery trip). The TPMS was replaced 3x and again is inop. I suspect the module, which could also explain the non-functioning key fob unlock. [Chevy books indicate it is the same module and it was replaced in 2021.]
I was looking for a utilization metric (called the UTE Rate in AF parlance). I used miles per maintenance/upgrade dollar spent. The records on the first owner were pretty sketchy, so I ignored that one. For the UTE Rate, a higher number is better.
Owner Number 2, garnered 7.35 miles per dollar of maintenance and repair.
[42,000/$5714 = 7.35 mi/$]
Owner Number 3 was 2.56 miles per dollar maintenance, but then again there were the lock downs, so perhaps that limited travel for them.
[10,000/$3905.99 = 2.56 mi/$]
Owner Number 4 admitted to us the wanted to make one trip and with failing eyesight, decided to call it quits. None the less, they hit 3.71 miles per maintenance dollar.
[5000/$1347 = 3.71 mi/$]
NOTE: At purchase, we used deferred maintenance items in negotiation; non-functioning genset and tires for example.
Having completed a major electrical system upgrade/rehab, we'd better get going to amortize our investment! As of now our UTE Rate is a paltry $0.54/mile!
Admissions; This is just one vehicle. Only miles and maintenance is considered. It includes repairs and upgrades and routine service. None of the owners indicated any storage fees. Nor, does this include explicit fuel, park fees, tolls, etc. I did show the US National Average for regular gas by year as a matter of interest.
Discounting Owner Number One, and us, the UTE is 5.76 miles per dollar maintenance. As I have time I may compare this information to a spread sheet that tackled miles vs hotel/motel costs. It too could be mildly informative, but I have other projects calling. I hope you might find it at least mildly interesting, or a useful excuse to "get out there." It will be for us.
Being an owner of such, regardless of the type of toy, I've found that by far the largest expense is storage. Owners who buy the pop-top vans that can be stored at home are saving a lot of money.
Paying a shop or mechanic for work one can perform themselves is something I can't get my head around. Many people don't realize that these machines are in reality, crude and simple. An owner can save multiple thousand$ just by learning how to use a screwdriver.
MPG on the typical van is, by today's mileage standards, very poor. On any given single road/camping trip, the cost of gasoline is many times over the largest expense incurred.
I didn’t build a yard ornament. My van sits in the driveway only as long as it takes me to ready it for the next trip. We left home mid-August, will get home later this week. I have a little to-do list before we are off again.
__________________
2014 Promaster 136" Self-Build has passed 250,000 miles
Storage is a problem in Minnesota in that just winterizing may not solve everything. I've always had shore power and stored at my house to monitor my van until 6 years ago and could no longer park it at our new house. I could only find one outside storage with electrical power and it was 40 miles away. So I bit the bullet and bought a heated condo garage with a 30 amp outlet nearby. One of the best investments I made. The re-sale value has appreciated about 300% in just 6 years so I will eventually make a profit or my inheritors will eventually. There are 8-10 such condo garage complexes spread around the Twin Cities built by one developer. I don't think other cities have as many. They are very popular in Minnesota because there are many boats and Lake Minnetonka, a 12 mile long lake, is nearby with large boats, not just fishing boats. The garages are in great demand. Other owners are RVers, classic car collectors, and small businesses like plumbers, electricians, carpenters and lawn services.
__________________ Davydd
2021 Advanced RV 144 custom Sprinter
2015 Advanced RV Extended body Sprinter
2011 Great West Van Legend Sprinter
2005 Pleasure-way Plateau TS Sprinter
The problem with finding indoor storage is finding a place with a tall enough door. There are very few around here and they all have a very deep waiting list. Plenty of storage places that are large enough in length and width but nearly all have a 7' or 8' tall door. Fortunately I can store ours in one of our airplane hangars otherwise I wouldn't have any option other than farmers who rent space in their uninsulated, dirt floor, mice infested barns.
Location: Red-Neck Riveria - (Fort Walton Beach, FL)
Posts: 280
Quote:
Originally Posted by N147JK
Very interesting chart.
Thank You
Quote:
Originally Posted by N147JK
Being an owner of such, regardless of the type of toy, I've found that by far the largest expense is storage. Owners who buy the pop-top vans that can be stored at home are saving a lot of money.
Precisely why our choice was "limited" to a 170 - so it would fit in the driveway (no HOA.) Plus I have a storage spot for my (yet unfinished) race car, and a cover for the van when I move it there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by N147JK
Paying a shop or mechanic for work one can perform themselves is something I can't get my head around. Many people don't realize that these machines are in reality, crude and simple. An owner can save multiple thousand$ just by learning how to use a screwdriver.
I can't imagine the cost to replace an air conditioner, or remove a non-functioning genset, or upgrade an electrical system!
Quote:
Originally Posted by N147JK
MPG on the typical van is, by today's mileage standards, very poor. On any given single road/camping trip, the cost of gasoline is many times over the largest expense incurred.
I've started working a spreadsheet to address fuel, lodging trade-off based on days of travel, etc. Shortly.
STORAGE: In our neck of the woods (beach) most of the storage I see is either open, or at best covered storage. Nothing like an indoor Condo.
I've started working a spreadsheet to address fuel, lodging trade-off based on days of travel, etc. Shortly.
Yes please post your findings when you have them.
Very rough calculation.. if one drives an economical car (say 30 MPG), stays in motels, and prepares their own meals (no eating out), the cost can be lower than van camping. But of course the experience would be nothing close to the same. After years of camping out in the parks and the backcountry, not having to hassle with finding and staying in motels, I could never go back to that kind of travel.
By the way we also have a 17-footer. Best purchase we ever made.. would not want anything larger. The 2 of us are comfortable, warm, and dry, and the mobility couldn't be better.
Very rough calculation.. if one drives an economical car (say 30 MPG), stays in motels, and prepares their own meals (no eating out), the cost can be lower than van camping. But of course the experience would be nothing close to the same. After years of camping out in the parks and the backcountry, not having to hassle with finding and staying in motels, I could never go back to that kind of travel.
When we first started looking for a class B in 2006 lots of people, us included, did all the comparison calculations of a B to a car and hotels.
We quickly determined that trying to justify the B on cost wasn't going to work out for us. A tiny car to save gas and eating sandwiches or other stuff out of cooler to save costs would destroy the fun of traveling for us. Put on top of it noisy hotels that are often quite a ways from what we like to do, liking hiking, and the idea of car/hotel disappeared quickly.
That said, on some trips the B comes out quite good on costs. (07 Roadtrek 190P with 6.0 gas engine and 4 speed auto). Our last trip was about 3000 miles in 27 days. We stayed in mostly state and national parks. 6 nights of state parks the were about $30 per night, 23 in National parks at $7 per night, 1 county park at $20. About $15 per night average. 111 miles average per day driving so about $30 per day for gas. Food is same cost as at home as is recreation or meals out occasionally.
It doesn't get into the negative cost until you figure in the cost of the van, that lack of that money earning more if saved instead, insurance, upkeep, improvements, depreciation. When you figure that in you can't really justify the B on cost, but we have not regretted the choice for a second.
Of course, we store at home, so we save big that way and the van is here all winter so I can do all the upkeep and upgrades. I did have to modify the garage door from 8' tall to 9' 3" to be able to get the van into the 10' ceiling height garage. Took about 3 days and $150 for new header parts as I had to raise the headers in the two doors.
When we built our home 25 years ago it was designed with a three car garage and the third has a nine foot by nine foot door. We had a RT 190 at the time and it fit comfortably in that space. A few years later we bought our current RT 210P and it fits in there tightly, we enough room on the right side for exit and entry. That garage is walled off from the rest of the garage and it has a single HVAC outlet that is sufficient to keep the garage a comfortable 60F or so in the cold of winter and in the mid 70s in the summer.
Storage like this really has preserved our now 17 year old RT. It is, essentially, like new inside and out. So, no storage bills which got to be a real killer when we also owned a small Class C for long term boondocking. We sold the C after seeing storage bills almost triple while we owned it.
The downside of all this is with a nine foot tall door there are virtually no replacements for our RT that will clear. Modifying the garage is not an option for a lot of reasons. Since our RT fits all our needs very well and since we are getting a little long in the tooth, I am sure we will have it until the day we hang up our RV spurs.
After owning Bs and Cs over the last forty years I come to one conclusion and that is just buy them to enjoy them and know they are a money pit which can be modified with self storage if possible and also with fixing all the rv stuff yourself if you can possibly do it.
Like most goodies in life, they are for fun and joy and that ain't free.
Storage like this really has preserved our now 17 year old RT. It is, essentially, like new inside and out. So, no storage bills which got to be a real killer when we also owned a small Class C for long term boondocking. We sold the C after seeing storage bills almost triple while we owned it.
The downside of all this is with a nine foot tall door there are virtually no replacements for our RT that will clear. Modifying the garage is not an option for a lot of reasons. Since our RT fits all our needs very well and since we are getting a little long in the tooth, I am sure we will have it until the day we hang up our RV spurs.
After owning Bs and Cs over the last forty years I come to one conclusion and that is just buy them to enjoy them and know they are a money pit which can be modified with self storage if possible and also with fixing all the rv stuff yourself if you can possibly do it.
Like most goodies in life, they are for fun and joy and that ain't free.
Sounds a lot like our case/van. Ours is also inside all the time so is very clean and rust free for a Minnesota vehicle.
I am on overplanner and hate surprises so I keep track of if we could get a van that would go in our garage with the door at just under 9' 3". A Transit high roof would be very close but might make it. A Promaster high roof would go in like the RT does it appears, even with a roof vent but not with roof air.
Location: Red-Neck Riveria - (Fort Walton Beach, FL)
Posts: 280
As promised, here is my "hack" at comparing travel by Roadtrek vs Automobile (SUV) Our purpose as I have mentioned before is to primarily use the RT as a Tow and race support vehicle and avoid the expensive, crappy hotels during a race weekend. The originator of the spreadsheet was looking to find the break even point, auto vs RT, hotels vs "camping":
Quote:
Roadtrek Chevy Owners FB Page, posted by John Butler, June 4, 2022:
A long time ago I built a travel cost comparison model. Over on another group some interest was expressed in it. So, I have uploaded a copy if anyone wants to try it.
Essentially it assumes that cars get better gas mileage than Class B campers, but hotel and food costs are higher for car travel. So there is some breakeven mileage per day. Above that miles per day number cars and hotels are cheaper. Below it a Class B is cheaper. This is not to say that this is why we use our Roadtrek. It is not. It is just one small facet of a complex picture that may interest some of you.
You can plug in your own assumptions and see what it says. With my own assumptions, the mileage per day above which car hotel travel is cheaper is around 580 miles. Your numbers may vary depending on your style of travel.
I have attached 2 Zip FIles. One is the Original, "Butler-Travel.Zip." Mine is, "PhantomB.Zip."
I modified the spreadsheet "a bit."
Assumptions:
1. Fuel Costs are based on an average of the National Price for Regular gas from 2008-2022 and shown on the previously posted chart. Today's fuel prices are much higher than that used in this analysis. You can adjust for your analysis.
2. Hotel Costs are estimates and better rates may be found. However for sake of analysis, they are given. These are the values John Butler posted in 2022. You can use your own values.
3. The Camping costs for the Roadtrek is very optimistic at $25.00/nite. Again, you can adjust if you download the sheet. Race tracks, formerly free during an event (SCCA) are starting to charge.
4. Meal costs are an estimate and could be off by an "inflation factor." If traveling by automobile, and staying in hotels, eat-in options for dinner, or complimentary breakfast are not considered. Rates could be reduced somewhat.
4. The number of travel days is computed from the 14 year average of the 4 previous owners of my Roadtrek. This works out to 20 days and nites "on the road" for travel computations. This is based on the historical average of 6000 miles per year. I just referred to these as "nites" on the sheet.
5. The miles traveled per day (for fuel calculations and number of nites out) is 300 miles per day, following the 3/3/3 paradigm. The Federal Government calculations/allowances for travel time is 350 miles per day. At 350 miles per day the number of days would be just over 17. Fee free to reanalyze if you wish.
6. Miles per Gallon: The searching the Forum yielded 19.3 MPG for Diesels and 14.75 MPG for Gasoline powered Class Bs. I used 12.5 MPG as a gouge for our Roadtrek (Chevy 6.0L) towing a trailer and racecar. This is an estimate only. For the "vehicle" I estimated 22.5 MPG. Low, but a very optimistic value from our experience with a Nissan Xtera as tow vehicle. That is the best we achieved on a trip towing a trailer and car. For comparative purposes, my analysis considered the vehicle being used for towing.
7. I took another pass using the 6000 miles per year a a given. When we travel to Sebring, it is one day out and one day back. 500 miles. Admittedly on the return trip we are "home" but not accounted for in the calculations. You could use; "(Annual Mileage/Miles per Day)-1" to evaluate the days on the road. Similarly, could adjust the Dinner Costs, assuming food at home on return. I chose the simpler approach.
Two slides of the spreadsheet:
RESULTS:
If you are going to travel (in your RT) and plan on sight seeing, and oriented to the trip and not the destination; 6000 miles, at 300 miles per day is 20 Days and nites. This travel plan will cost you just over $2700.
The same trip (NOT RT) @ 300 miles per day, with hotels, and food (in spite of better gas mileage) would cost just over $5200. Almost 90% of that is lodging and food.
For a trip (NOT RT) with longer driving days (500 miles per day) would run about $3400.
CLOSE:
For my use, this is a reasonable tool. The Roadtrek will afford us greater range in our racing, and also add travel and exploring experiences as well. Not meant as a justification, just our facts. Twenty nites on the road would represent 4 or 5 race weekends. The lodging and food savings could garner an additional number of race weekends too.
Ok but what if I sleep in my Prius in Walmart parking lots every night and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and potato chips in my car for every meal? (Just kidding)
Many years ago I built a similar spreadsheet to see what the break even is for commuting to work by motorcycle vs car. It's an interesting exercise if you're realistic instead of trying to reach a foregone conclusion to justify a purchase. At the end of the day it's obvious enough that there's no need for a spreadsheet. You buy an RV, boat, motorcycle, or airplane because you want one, not because it makes financial sense.
A few years ago, we decided to downsize to a single level house, a difficult task in Portland area as most new homes are multilevel. So, we built one. Increasing garage doors to 10” height and garage ceiling to 12’ was about $3500 additional cost. Money well spent. Key advantage is having the van in locked space, near tools, near electrical tools, having freedom to finish unfinished job for a day with all work and tools left on surface. Preparations for trips are easy for example having fridge running on shore power and van staying opened for loading.
For us, our camper van was never justified on reduced cost over motels, primary justification is staying in places we want stay where there are no motels. Purchased and conversion of our current van was based on past experience of two new VW Westfalia camper vans back in 77 and 85. This was a good decision as our current experience reminisce the past Westfalias ones.
I was really lucky. When we moved in to our current house we built a pretty nice barn for my wife's two horses. We designed the barn to have one side heated for the horses and one side cold for vehicles. I took out the existing overhead door and built a simple hinged door. Just a couple inches over 10ft of clearance, but it's enough! The next project might be to finish insulating and heat this side, but that's a ways off.
Boats in Port = Vans in Storage?
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