Counter question to selling your RV at 9 years....

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

So... you've decided to keep your RV for the long term and run until the wheels fall off....

When is it time to sell for safety considerations??????

Or ... just keep driving and repairing it forever?????????

What do you think????

[Ron J. Moore]

I would think if it were me, I would keep it for the following reasons:

You know the vehicle, you have lived in it, altered it to you and your wife's likes. Most probably the Coach items were replaced by you, so you know they are quality compared to that being offered at the current time, and installed properly.

If your concerned about the tranny, etc., pay the money to have it checked by a Pro - that cost is most probably less than some people make in a payment for their RV's. I don't know the life expectancy of a Diesel, and the Gasser are heading way up in mileage.

You read the complaints, rants, etc of disgruntled customers - you sure don't want to have to be subjected to that. If you have an old and very reliable Independent RV Dealer who you have done business with and are currently known to them......you will probably get a machine that is ready to go. So many are being put out, and in my impression it is akin to the Software Market, throw it out and let the customer find the errors.

Yours is paid for, running well, and I don't believe your hedging your be; it is paid for and if, in the future you need to get some work done....that is chump change compared to buying a new vehicle and its headaches.

Just my two cents worth, Ron

[Rockwood27]

RV financing becomes difficult to get on an over 10 year old vehicle. This limits your potential buyer market.

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Originally Posted by Rockwood27

RV financing becomes difficult to get on an over 10 year old vehicle. This limits your potential buyer market.

Maybe this is why deprecation on 11 to 15 years old vehicles seems to increase more quickly than years 5 to 10......?

By the time it's 15 plus years old you really are relegated to "people willing to pay cash"....
If your vehicle is not in pristine condition....then it makes it harder to sell and people just want a bargain basement ......

How old is your vehicle and what's your normal turn around time??

You're kind of dammed if you do or dammed if you keep it.......

I'm thinking that if I keep it past 10 years...I might as well keep it for 20..or more..... heck, might as well give it to a family member later???

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Originally Posted by Ron J. Moore

I would think if it were me, I would keep it for the following reasons:

You know the vehicle, you have lived in it, altered it to you and your wife's likes. Most probably the Coach items were replaced by you, so you know they are quality compared to that being offered at the current time, and installed properly.

If your concerned about the tranny, etc., pay the money to have it checked by a Pro - that cost is most probably less than some people make in a payment for their RV's. I don't know the life expectancy of a Diesel, and the Gasser are heading way up in mileage.

You read the complaints, rants, etc of disgruntled customers - you sure don't want to have to be subjected to that. If you have an old and very reliable Independent RV Dealer who you have done business with and are currently known to them......you will probably get a machine that is ready to go. So many are being put out, and in my impression it is akin to the Software Market, throw it out and let the customer find the errors.

Yours is paid for, running well, and I don't believe your hedging your be; it is paid for and if, in the future you need to get some work done....that is chump change compared to buying a new vehicle and its headaches.

Just my two cents worth, Ron

I understand..I keep my vehicles in EXCELLENT CONDITION...and you're right in saying that I know what I've done.....

So true that replacement is the most expensive way to go....

On the other hand... trying to sell something past 10 years old without the ability to finance it does have limitations.... smaller market of buyers....etc...

[Doneworking]

I posted this about a year ago:

Default 2007 RT back in the nest
In September 2006 we brought home our new 2007 Roadtrek 210 Popular. We had ordered it as a gift to ourselves for our 30th wedding anniversary. We equipped it as we wanted for our type travel and use. Previously, we had owned a 190 RT and an Intervec Horizon Class B. So, we were no strangers to B World and had owned a couple of Cs over the years.

In September 2013 we purchased an eleven month old Phoenix Cruiser with 7500 miles on it which came up for sale less than four miles from our home. We wanted to do some more extended camping in one spot and have a little more "house" to do that in the RT could provide for weeks at a time.

We kept both RVs until March 2014 at which time we took our RT down to Houston and PPL consignment sellers. It was purchased quickly and at a fair price by a lady who just happened to be the president of PPL! She called and fully disclosed her interest and her position and asked if I would have a problem with her buying it and did I consider that a conflict. No, I did not but I appreciated her forthrightness and disclosure. I found PPL to be very professional and a nice outfit with which to do business.

Well, we have enjoyed the heck out of our Phoenix Cruiser and used it for almost four years now for extended periods of dry camping. I consider PC to be a really top of the drawer Class C custom manufacturer. That being said, we never ceased to miss our old Roadtrek. We have to store the Phoenix a few miles from our home. Our home has an HVAC third garage with a door nine feet tall which we had built originally for the RT 190. It was great to walk out of the house directly into the garage and have the RT190 there for years and then the 210P there for many more years. Simply put, we love our Phoenix Cruiser and missed the heck out of our Roadtrek at the same time!

Well, guess what? The Roadtrek showed up one day on the PPL website for sale and I called Diana at PPL and asked her if she was selling our child!! Yes she was. We made a deal on the phone in about ten minutes. She had taken the same meticulous care of our child since that we did for almost seven years and she had enjoyed it and was glad to see it go home to the original mom and dad who she knew would care for it in the future.

Diana is lovely lady and has been at PPL for decades. She and I laughed because she could never recall someone buying back their old rig like we were doing. Well, we picked up the Roadtrek last Thursday and Diana had taken incredible care of it in the years she owned it and had not put a lot of miles on it. We will always be grateful to her for kindness and friendship and the care she took of our 30th wedding present!

Now, we have two RVs! Our RT is in the garage and is immaculate. It looks no different than when we picked it up at the dealer eleven years ago. We also have our beautiful Phoenix Cruiser and we will continue to use it for its large tanks, spaciousness and reliability, particularly in our extended dry camping which goes on for weeks at a time.

It seems excessive to have two rigs, but researching a lot of forums I find that it is not as unusual as it seems at first blush. And when you are getting a little older, you might as well enjoy yourself and your retirement.

We plan on touring more with the RT and camping more with the PC as long as we can and hope that will be many years to come.

Thus endeth the saga of the return of the baby to the nest!!

We looked at new Bs and simply concluded that we had rather have our old one back and were lucky to have the opportunity to reacquire it. Given the fact that our 2007 was the last production year before the troubles of 2008 came along and given the fact that we had specked out our 2007 for our needs and not just accepted someone elses, we are happy little campers.

We own a wonderful C and a marvelous B for a total financial consideration of about what a new well equipped 210P would cost and for far less than a significant number of other Bs now cost. Plus, we know our B very well mechanically and are fully prepared to spend a few grand as need be on repairs.

How long will we keep it? I have not clue one. It could be five years or it could be ten years. One thing I do know is it will not be based on any anticipated values that are truly unknown in the future.

Today, twelve years and a month after our original purchase of the RT, it has a true market value of about sixty percent of our original cost all those years ago. My Jeep Grand Cherokee loaded with a Hemi and virtually every option available when I bought it in 2011 is worth about forty percent of my original purchase cost.

Now, you don't need to be much of an expert in finance to grasp those cost/market/years relationships do you? Who wuda thunk it?

Paul

[Bud]

There are multiple vehicles with a million plus miles out there.

B's can be like a 60 year old B52, maintained and updated. In fact you can spend thousands every year maintaining and updating vs buying a new B every 9 years. This assumes average years, not cherry picking a specific 9 year period.

Bud

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Roadtrek Adventuous RS1

Maybe this is why deprecation on 11 to 15 years old vehicles seems to increase more quickly than years 5 to 10......?

Any data? This seems kind of unlikely.

I know of no reliable data source for RV depreciation, so maybe they are special in some way, but virtually all depreciation curves (corrected for historical variable such as recessions) end up being nearly perfect exponential decay functions, with an asymptote at scrap value of the product. For example, here is what automotive depreciation looks like:



This image is from Wikipedia, but the shape of the curve is always the same. Note that it is almost completely smooth. There are no "sweet spots". The bloggers who claim to identify such sweet spots are failing to account for historical externalities such as changes in the economy, the introduction of new models, and many others. If we are just talking about actual depreciation, I have never seen a reliable dataset that did not describe a simple exponential decay.

P.S. -- I am not trying to pick on you, either on this topic or any other. It is just that the value of lists like this lies in sorting the wheat from the chaff, and facts matter more than opinions.

[booster]

What I think is missing from this discussion, unless I missed it, is the cost vs cost assessment periodically.


While there is no doubt a lot of us could keep a class b running for a ridiculously long time, that doesn't mean it would be wise financial decision the entire time, and financial consequences seem to be what is being discussed.


At some point in the life of the vehicle, the repair, upgrades, etc are going to get to a point where they are equal to the payments on something that requires less cost to maintain. At that point you would need to decide what to do. For those that do their own repairs and updates, the time for replacement would certainly be delayed due to lower costs of maintaining the van, but for those who hire everything done, the time to switch might come surprisingly soon, especially if you have a high repair cost van like a Sprinter.


Everybody will have their own balance sheet requirements for all of this, but it is very, very, easy to dump good money on top of bad, as they say, with keeping older vehicles running.


I am certainly not against keeping vehicles a long time, or even buying older vehicles, as that is what I drive for a car, a 22 year old Buick Roadmaster wagon that I got 5 years ago when I retired.

[booster]

Originally Posted by avanti

Any data? This seems kind of unlikely.

I know of no reliable data source for RV depreciation, so maybe they are special in some way, but virtually all depreciation curves (corrected for historical variable such as recessions) end up being nearly perfect exponential decay functions, with an asymptote at scrap value of the product. For example, here is what automotive depreciation looks like:



This image is from Wikipedia, but the shape of the curve is always the same. Note that it is almost completely smooth. There are no "sweet spots". The bloggers who claim to identify such sweet spots are failing to account for historical externalities such as changes in the economy, the introduction of new models, and many others. If we are just talking about actual depreciation, I have never seen a reliable dataset that did not describe a simple exponential decay.

P.S. -- I am not trying to pick on you, either on this topic or any other. It is just that the value of lists like this lies in sorting the wheat from the chaff, and facts matter more than opinions.

\


Re the "sweet spots"-- Those spots can be there, but usually are based on certain vehicle weaknesses, such as Subaru head gaskets or some of the diesel pickup injector, pumps, head gasket type issues that happen the pretty consistently at some mileage or age. Of course, only those buyers who are knowledgeable enough to know of the issues understand the sweet spot or in this case anti-sweet spot.

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Originally Posted by booster

What I think is missing from this discussion, unless I missed it, is the cost vs cost assessment periodically.


While there is no doubt a lot of us could keep a class b running for a ridiculously long time, that doesn't mean it would be wise financial decision the entire time, and financial consequences seem to be what is being discussed.


At some point in the life of the vehicle, the repair, upgrades, etc are going to get to a point where they are equal to the payments on something that requires less cost to maintain. At that point you would need to decide what to do. For those that do their own repairs and updates, the time for replacement would certainly be delayed due to lower costs of maintaining the van, but for those who hire everything done, the time to switch might come surprisingly soon, especially if you have a high repair cost van like a Sprinter.

Everybody will have their own balance sheet requirements for all of this, but it is very, very, easy to dump good money on top of bad, as they say, with keeping older vehicles running.

I am certainly not against keeping vehicles a long time, or even buying older vehicles, as that is what I drive for a car, a 22 year old Buick Roadmaster wagon that I got 5 years ago when I retired.

Okay...so, you think a Sprinter would depreciate "faster".... because it's a higher repair cost vehicle....? Mind you...I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your claim that it's a higher cost ... but, I think there's a hidden perceived value because it's a diesel... what do you think?

[avanti]

Originally Posted by booster

\


Re the "sweet spots"-- Those spots can be there, but usually are based on certain vehicle weaknesses, such as Subaru head gaskets or some of the diesel pickup injector, pumps, head gasket type issues that happen the pretty consistently at some mileage or age. Of course, only those buyers who are knowledgeable enough to know of the issues understand the sweet spot or in this case anti-sweet spot.

Agree. But things like specific defects are examples of the "externalities" that I mentioned. I.e., an OEM screwing up a particular vehicle is "about" that vehicle, not about the general nature of depreciation. As I said, there are a great many such externalities, but they don't support the claim that there is any special age at which it is financially advantageous to sell you vehicle.

[rowiebowie]

Originally Posted by Doneworking

I posted this about a year ago:

Default 2007 RT back in the nest
In September 2006 we brought home our new 2007 Roadtrek 210 Popular. We had ordered it as a gift to ourselves for our 30th wedding anniversary. We equipped it as we wanted for our type travel and use. Previously, we had owned a 190 RT and an Intervec Horizon Class B. So, we were no strangers to B World and had owned a couple of Cs over the years.

In September 2013 we purchased an eleven month old Phoenix Cruiser with 7500 miles on it which came up for sale less than four miles from our home. We wanted to do some more extended camping in one spot and have a little more "house" to do that in the RT could provide for weeks at a time.

We kept both RVs until March 2014 at which time we took our RT down to Houston and PPL consignment sellers. It was purchased quickly and at a fair price by a lady who just happened to be the president of PPL! She called and fully disclosed her interest and her position and asked if I would have a problem with her buying it and did I consider that a conflict. No, I did not but I appreciated her forthrightness and disclosure. I found PPL to be very professional and a nice outfit with which to do business.

Well, we have enjoyed the heck out of our Phoenix Cruiser and used it for almost four years now for extended periods of dry camping. I consider PC to be a really top of the drawer Class C custom manufacturer. That being said, we never ceased to miss our old Roadtrek. We have to store the Phoenix a few miles from our home. Our home has an HVAC third garage with a door nine feet tall which we had built originally for the RT 190. It was great to walk out of the house directly into the garage and have the RT190 there for years and then the 210P there for many more years. Simply put, we love our Phoenix Cruiser and missed the heck out of our Roadtrek at the same time!

Well, guess what? The Roadtrek showed up one day on the PPL website for sale and I called Diana at PPL and asked her if she was selling our child!! Yes she was. We made a deal on the phone in about ten minutes. She had taken the same meticulous care of our child since that we did for almost seven years and she had enjoyed it and was glad to see it go home to the original mom and dad who she knew would care for it in the future.

Diana is lovely lady and has been at PPL for decades. She and I laughed because she could never recall someone buying back their old rig like we were doing. Well, we picked up the Roadtrek last Thursday and Diana had taken incredible care of it in the years she owned it and had not put a lot of miles on it. We will always be grateful to her for kindness and friendship and the care she took of our 30th wedding present!

Now, we have two RVs! Our RT is in the garage and is immaculate. It looks no different than when we picked it up at the dealer eleven years ago. We also have our beautiful Phoenix Cruiser and we will continue to use it for its large tanks, spaciousness and reliability, particularly in our extended dry camping which goes on for weeks at a time.

It seems excessive to have two rigs, but researching a lot of forums I find that it is not as unusual as it seems at first blush. And when you are getting a little older, you might as well enjoy yourself and your retirement.

We plan on touring more with the RT and camping more with the PC as long as we can and hope that will be many years to come.

Thus endeth the saga of the return of the baby to the nest!!

We looked at new Bs and simply concluded that we had rather have our old one back and were lucky to have the opportunity to reacquire it. Given the fact that our 2007 was the last production year before the troubles of 2008 came along and given the fact that we had specked out our 2007 for our needs and not just accepted someone elses, we are happy little campers.

We own a wonderful C and a marvelous B for a total financial consideration of about what a new well equipped 210P would cost and for far less than a significant number of other Bs now cost. Plus, we know our B very well mechanically and are fully prepared to spend a few grand as need be on repairs.

How long will we keep it? I have not clue one. It could be five years or it could be ten years. One thing I do know is it will not be based on any anticipated values that are truly unknown in the future.

Today, twelve years and a month after our original purchase of the RT, it has a true market value of about sixty percent of our original cost all those years ago. My Jeep Grand Cherokee loaded with a Hemi and virtually every option available when I bought it in 2011 is worth about forty percent of my original purchase cost.

Now, you don't need to be much of an expert in finance to grasp those cost/market/years relationships do you? Who wuda thunk it?

Paul

Paul, what a strange yet entertaining story of how you bought back your 210P so many years later. We bought our Airstream Avenue Suite from PPL in Houston last October. They were good to work with, sent many pictures, and answered many questions since we were 200 miles away and made the purchase arrangements over the internet.

We discovered a leaking galley faucet (just a drip, but still a leak) upon our inspection and they got the ok to replace from the owner since this was a consignment. Since then, I've ordered parts from their on-line store and always had a good experience and their prices some of the cheapest around.

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Originally Posted by Doneworking

I posted this about a year ago:

Default 2007 RT back in the nest
In September 2006 we brought home our new 2007 Roadtrek 210 Popular. We had ordered it as a gift to ourselves for our 30th wedding anniversary. We equipped it as we wanted for our type travel and use. Previously, we had owned a 190 RT and an Intervec Horizon Class B. So, we were no strangers to B World and had owned a couple of Cs over the years.

In September 2013 we purchased an eleven month old Phoenix Cruiser with 7500 miles on it which came up for sale less than four miles from our home. We wanted to do some more extended camping in one spot and have a little more "house" to do that in the RT could provide for weeks at a time.

We kept both RVs until March 2014 at which time we took our RT down to Houston and PPL consignment sellers. It was purchased quickly and at a fair price by a lady who just happened to be the president of PPL! She called and fully disclosed her interest and her position and asked if I would have a problem with her buying it and did I consider that a conflict. No, I did not but I appreciated her forthrightness and disclosure. I found PPL to be very professional and a nice outfit with which to do business.

Well, we have enjoyed the heck out of our Phoenix Cruiser and used it for almost four years now for extended periods of dry camping. I consider PC to be a really top of the drawer Class C custom manufacturer. That being said, we never ceased to miss our old Roadtrek. We have to store the Phoenix a few miles from our home. Our home has an HVAC third garage with a door nine feet tall which we had built originally for the RT 190. It was great to walk out of the house directly into the garage and have the RT190 there for years and then the 210P there for many more years. Simply put, we love our Phoenix Cruiser and missed the heck out of our Roadtrek at the same time!

Well, guess what? The Roadtrek showed up one day on the PPL website for sale and I called Diana at PPL and asked her if she was selling our child!! Yes she was. We made a deal on the phone in about ten minutes. She had taken the same meticulous care of our child since that we did for almost seven years and she had enjoyed it and was glad to see it go home to the original mom and dad who she knew would care for it in the future.

Diana is lovely lady and has been at PPL for decades. She and I laughed because she could never recall someone buying back their old rig like we were doing. Well, we picked up the Roadtrek last Thursday and Diana had taken incredible care of it in the years she owned it and had not put a lot of miles on it. We will always be grateful to her for kindness and friendship and the care she took of our 30th wedding present!

Now, we have two RVs! Our RT is in the garage and is immaculate. It looks no different than when we picked it up at the dealer eleven years ago. We also have our beautiful Phoenix Cruiser and we will continue to use it for its large tanks, spaciousness and reliability, particularly in our extended dry camping which goes on for weeks at a time.

It seems excessive to have two rigs, but researching a lot of forums I find that it is not as unusual as it seems at first blush. And when you are getting a little older, you might as well enjoy yourself and your retirement.

We plan on touring more with the RT and camping more with the PC as long as we can and hope that will be many years to come.

Thus endeth the saga of the return of the baby to the nest!!

We looked at new Bs and simply concluded that we had rather have our old one back and were lucky to have the opportunity to reacquire it. Given the fact that our 2007 was the last production year before the troubles of 2008 came along and given the fact that we had specked out our 2007 for our needs and not just accepted someone elses, we are happy little campers.

We own a wonderful C and a marvelous B for a total financial consideration of about what a new well equipped 210P would cost and for far less than a significant number of other Bs now cost. Plus, we know our B very well mechanically and are fully prepared to spend a few grand as need be on repairs.

How long will we keep it? I have not clue one. It could be five years or it could be ten years. One thing I do know is it will not be based on any anticipated values that are truly unknown in the future.

Today, twelve years and a month after our original purchase of the RT, it has a true market value of about sixty percent of our original cost all those years ago. My Jeep Grand Cherokee loaded with a Hemi and virtually every option available when I bought it in 2011 is worth about forty percent of my original purchase cost.

Now, you don't need to be much of an expert in finance to grasp those cost/market/years relationships do you? Who wuda thunk it?

Paul

How much did you pay the second time to get the RT back..? And, how often do you use each of these vehicles...more for the RT or the PC..?

Insurance on these and the cars can get expensive.. not to mention upkeep... but, if you can afford it and enjoy them both why not... life's short....

I imagine that you are planning on keeping each of these until the wheels fall off??

Resale value is ONLY IMPORTANT when you want to sell.....

My rig is paid for... I might as well just keep and maintain it....

It is pretty nice ... I think....

[hepcat]

Originally Posted by booster

What I think is missing from this discussion, unless I missed it, is the cost vs cost assessment periodically.


While there is no doubt a lot of us could keep a class b running for a ridiculously long time, that doesn't mean it would be wise financial decision the entire time, and financial consequences seem to be what is being discussed.


At some point in the life of the vehicle, the repair, upgrades, etc are going to get to a point where they are equal to the payments on something that requires less cost to maintain. At that point you would need to decide what to do. For those that do their own repairs and updates, the time for replacement would certainly be delayed due to lower costs of maintaining the van, but for those who hire everything done, the time to switch might come surprisingly soon, especially if you have a high repair cost van like a Sprinter.


Everybody will have their own balance sheet requirements for all of this, but it is very, very, easy to dump good money on top of bad, as they say, with keeping older vehicles running.


I am certainly not against keeping vehicles a long time, or even buying older vehicles, as that is what I drive for a car, a 22 year old Buick Roadmaster wagon that I got 5 years ago when I retired.

Booster, you're absolutely correct in your assessment here, and I'll add one more factor that seems to not be considered... and that's whether the cost of repairs exceeds the cost of depreciation on whatever you're looking at next.

I bought my B-van for $5,000 (with 26k original miles) in 2015. I put another $5k into it for tires, repairs, and maintenance (over $2k of that has been into the generator alone.) So I have a 23 year old van that I have put over 30k miles on, used dozens of nights, and have $10k into that I can still sell for $10-15k. A brand new 2018 van has no more amenities nor comfort than mine does. Looking at the average new B-van cost of $130k, how much can I afford to put into MY van for the $120k I've saved in depreciation? Or comparing apples to apples, three years' depreciation?

According to NADA, a '15 Roadtrek Popular 190 on a Chevy chassis had a sticker price of $104k new, and with average values and 35,000 miles (the mileage I've put on my van since I bought it) an average retail value of $78k, ($64k low retail) for a depreciation loss of $26,000 in three years (or $40k looking at low retail.) That, to me, is a gold mine's worth of loss through depreciation.

Looking at this differently, if you traded your '15 Roadtrek Popular 190 in on an '18 Roadtrek Popular 190 at $104k, you'd probably lose another $8-10K on trade-in. I'm not poor, but I sure as h*ll can't take that kind of hit on depreciation.

The question then, is how much repair work will $26,000 buy me as long as the chassis and van remain solid as I won't lose anything to depreciation on my coach AND as I said, when traveling, a new $104k coach offers me nothing more than my current '95 coach does in the way of comfort and amenities... and in fact the systems in MY coach are largely owner-repairable, unlike some of the newer complex electrical systems that are being installed in '18 and '19 coaches.

Of course you can't put a price on "new-car smell," and for those folks who measure their self-worth in having the latest and greatest in gadgetry, I say go for it. After all, those are the coaches I'll be looking at when in fact my '95 gives up the ghost or I sell it. But I don't need any of that. My refrigerator cools food. My stove cooks food. My toilet and holding tanks work as designed. My bed is luxurious enough, and the van is both comfortable to drive and gets decent mileage for what it is; roughly twice the mileage of my '94 Airstream B-190.

So it boils down to perception of what you need, and what you're willing to do to keep your coach on the road. Financially, you're much further ahead buying a used coach in good condition that's nearly fully depreciated, and maintaining it in good condition than you are buying new or nearly new... and trading one van for another (especially a new van) seldom puts you on firm ground financially.

[cruising7388]

Originally Posted by Doneworking

Given the fact that our 2007 was the last production year before the troubles of 2008 came along and given the fact that we had specked out our 2007 for our needs and not just accepted someone elses, we are happy little campers.

What troubles occurred in 2008?

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Originally Posted by hepcat

Booster, you're absolutely correct in your assessment here, and I'll add one more factor that seems to not be considered... and that's whether the cost of repairs exceeds the cost of depreciation on whatever you're looking at next.

I bought my B-van for $5,000 (with 26k original miles) in 2015. I put another $5k into it for tires, repairs, and maintenance (over $2k of that has been into the generator alone.) So I have a 23 year old van that I have put over 30k miles on, used dozens of nights, and have $10k into that I can still sell for $10-15k. A brand new 2018 van has no more amenities nor comfort than mine does. Looking at the average new B-van cost of $130k, how much can I afford to put into MY van for the $120k I've saved in depreciation? Or comparing apples to apples, three years' depreciation?

According to NADA, a '15 Roadtrek Popular 190 on a Chevy chassis had a sticker price of $104k new, and with average values and 35,000 miles (the mileage I've put on my van since I bought it) an average retail value of $78k, ($64k low retail) for a depreciation loss of $26,000 in three years (or $40k looking at low retail.) That, to me, is a gold mine's worth of loss through depreciation.

Looking at this differently, if you traded your '15 Roadtrek Popular 190 in on an '18 Roadtrek Popular 190 at $104k, you'd probably lose another $8-10K on trade-in. I'm not poor, but I sure as h*ll can't take that kind of hit on depreciation.

The question then, is how much repair work will $26,000 buy me as long as the chassis and van remain solid as I won't lose anything to depreciation on my coach AND as I said, when traveling, a new $104k coach offers me nothing more than my current '95 coach does in the way of comfort and amenities... and in fact the systems in MY coach are largely owner-repairable, unlike some of the newer complex electrical systems that are being installed in '18 and '19 coaches.

Of course you can't put a price on "new-car smell," and for those folks who measure their self-worth in having the latest and greatest in gadgetry, I say go for it. After all, those are the coaches I'll be looking at when in fact my '95 gives up the ghost or I sell it. But I don't need any of that. My refrigerator cools food. My stove cooks food. My toilet and holding tanks work as designed. My bed is luxurious enough, and the van is both comfortable to drive and gets decent mileage for what it is; roughly twice the mileage of my '94 Airstream B-190.

So it boils down to perception of what you need, and what you're willing to do to keep your coach on the road. Financially, you're much further ahead buying a used coach in good condition that's nearly fully depreciated, and maintaining it in good condition than you are buying new or nearly new... and trading one van for another (especially a new van) seldom puts you on firm ground financially.

Good news is it probably won't go much lower.... you've certainly have gotten your money's worth....

https://www.nadaguides.com/RVs/1995/...3004806/Values

[hepcat]

Originally Posted by Roadtrek Adventuous RS1

Good news is it probably won't go much lower.... you've certainly have gotten your money's worth....

https://www.nadaguides.com/RVs/1995/...3004806/Values

Nope. And, NADA only captures retail sales from dealers. Craigslist and RV Trader are absolutely full of twenty year old vans with < 100k miles for $15-$20k. And the nice, well maintained ones often sell within days of when they're listed. There's a solid market for low-priced B-vans, regardless of age.

Frankly, if I use mine 'til it is ready for the salvage yard, I'll STILL have gotten my money's worth out of it and be WAY ahead financially over buying new (or newer.) I can replace the drivetrain if necessary and/or all of the appliances and STILL be way ahead, and still have a useful b-van.

[Doneworking]

Cruising 7388 asked: What troubles occurred in 2008?

I was referring the financial collapse of 2008.

It had a tremendous impact on the RV industry and many manufacturers had to restructure or merge. By way of an example specific to my Roadtrek but can be applied to a lot of others in the 2008-10 time frame, the family that started and owned Roadtrek saw a dramatic drop in sales and the company was sold to a private equity group (in Chicago as I recall). That group flipped it in a few years to a group in New York that then soon sold it to the German manufacturer that now owns it. So, a decline in stability in those post 2008 years.

A lot of long time employees were lost during those years and as you may recall Elkhart, Indiana - the heart of the RV industry - suffered a deep economic depression. It was too deep to be called a recession. Elkhart became poster child for the largest economic recession since the Great Depression. You may recall that unemployment in the United States (now around four percent) exceeded ten percent and in Elkhart and that area was double the ten.

When an industry goes into the survival mode quality always seems to suffer. Our 2007 Roadtrek was put together (and most of the components in it or any RV are made in the Elkart area) prior to those years and in my opinion was just generally more carefully made than models were for a few years until recovery.

Today's boom in the economy and cheap RV financing under very liberal terms have caused an "off the floor and out the door" mentality in the industry. The RV industry is now in a stage of consolidation and the whole industry seems, in my opinion, to be where the auto industry was after its shock forty years ago from the Oil Embargo.

After I typed all this, I googled and found this recent article that is informative: https://wsbt.com/news/local/special-report-05-21-2018

Paul

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Originally Posted by hepcat

Nope. And, NADA only captures retail sales from dealers. Craigslist and RV Trader are absolutely full of twenty year old vans with < 100k miles for $15-$20k. And the nice, well maintained ones often sell within days of when they're listed. There's a solid market for low-priced B-vans, regardless of age.

Frankly, if I use mine 'til it is ready for the salvage yard, I'll STILL have gotten my money's worth out of it and be WAY ahead financially over buying new (or newer.) I can replace the drivetrain if necessary and/or all of the appliances and STILL be way ahead, and still have a useful b-van.

The highest value is in the newer vehicles regardless of mileage.