My next really bad idea: a Class C RV

This weekend, I am scheduled to pick up a 28' Class C RV. It has very low miles, is in good shape, and everything works. Sounds good right? Did I mention that it is also a 1985 G30? Not 2005, not 1995...1985. 

But hear me out. The reason I am undertaking this journey is not for the usual reasons. We have a lot of great destinations within a 4-hour drive from us, but the cost of hotel rooms keeps us away. We also have family within 2 hours or so,  but rarely visit because we can't stay with them and hotels are $$$. We also have to board the pets whenever we travel, so that adds $$$. So the wife came up with the idea of a small RV. OK, not that small, but not that big either. We can leave after work on Friday, stay in the RV, enjoy a place on Saturday, sleep in the RV, and then head home on Sunday afternoon. And we can take the dog with us. When we park in a family member's driveway, we can run an extension cord. When we are in a parking lot, we have a generator. When we use a campground, we use hookups. What could go wrong? 

And yes, the chassis is old, but it is 100% analog. No computers, no touch screens, not even fuel injection. Who can't keep a 5.7L Chevy V8 running, ammiright?  Do a tune up, maybe upgrade to an Edelbrock carb, bring a few basic tools, buy the Haynes manual. What could go wrong? 

And sure, the body of the thing is fiberglass, which has been outside for 40 years. But it has no leaks as of now, seams have been sealed and re-sealed over the years. Its old enough that I don't care if I have to glop silicone over something. And it was made by a good company in an era when things were of better quality in the RV world. I can do basic carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and appliance repair. What could go wrong? 

And perhaps storing it when not in use might be a problem, but I have a back yard, I have mom's back yard, I have underground storage over the winter, I have paid storage lots nearby. What could go wrong? 

Stay tuned to see if I do this, and all the things that go wrong. 

Choosing an RV over staying in hotels rarely makes sense unless hotels are absurdly expensive. 

If an RV costs just $5000 and hotels were $250 a night, you'd need to use the RV for 20 such trips, but the ongoing costs (insurance, maintenance, fuel) make the savings per trip after the break even point less so.  I've had this conversation a few times now with my wife who really wants an RV. To me, an RV makes more sense when the place you are staying doesn't have accommodations, like out west in the vast expanses of nothingness. 

Now, boarding an animal is another thing altogether and makes me think I should open an animal boarding center for how much they charge. 

In reply to pheller :

The calculation is a little more complex than that, as there's value in selling the RV at some point.  So it's ($5000- residual value + consumables) divided by the number of nights.  And the number of nights can add up pretty quickly if you enjoy camping.  Our first year camping (while we were working) we were out 37 nights, for example. 

Do it. 

I started out with an Alaskan camper in an F350. Moved up to a 30' Class A and now have a 40' DP. 

They are worth the cost. Not having to stay in hotels, bringing the dogs, and staying off the beaten path. It all adds to the value. 

Being able to take the dogs with us when we travel is the main motivator for a mobile home in our household.  Beyond the expense of boarding them or having someone come to the house at least twice a day, I can't imagine that the dogs particularly enjoy the experience of being left behind. 

It might not be a bad idea to carry a spare Dinosaur Electronics board with you.  It's been a minute since I've needed one, but I think that they have some that work for the fridge or the furnace.  There will also be some thermal fuses for the water heater that make sense to carry with you.  The original control boards and such will be pretty old and liable to fail.  It's simple and easy to replace them, but they can be really pricey if you walk into an RV dealer's parts department to get one "today".

Watching this thread with interest — your reasoning aligns with mine, though I canNOT get my wife on board with the idea.

The challenge with "just stay in hotels" notion is the animals, I reckon. Pet-friendly options are (1) limited, {b} typically incur extra fees like non-refundable "deposit" or extra cleaning surcharge, [iii] despite all the cleaning smell like all the animals that came before, at least to your animals, so they won't get any rest, and so neither will you. (That last bit is the voice of experience, albeit a single data point from a single stay. NEVER AGAIN.)

What happens if you ignore whether a stay is"pet-friendly" and they won't let you check in when you show  up with your fur baby?

I have cats, they stay home when we camp, they don't really care that we are gone...

Agree with the posts above though. Do it, the math doesn't work out but the experience is worth it. My wife and I (and the kids) love the camper, it isn't cheap, it has times that it is a PITA but the experience of time in the camper and time in a hotel are not the same. 

If you can fix stuff and there isn't water damage it will be ok. If you bought it fair you will sell it fair, a 40 year old camper isn't really loosing value.

Transmission. That's what can go wrong. But it's probably a ... TH400, so maybe not that often?  Add a temp gauge, watch it like a hawk, and see how it goes.

Can't wait to watch this unfold. If you can afford it, IDK what more financial justification needs to be made.  I'd do the same in a skinny minute if the stars aligned just right.

Reason 1 you already named, The Dog.

Reason 2 is "waking up at the track."  While everyone else is schlepping from hotel to fast food to track every morning, you're already there. Cooking your own breakfast, hangin with The Dog and waking up at your own pace. Heaven, to persons of a certain persuasion.

One complication for pinch will be to get from the campground to family.  Lots of choices for towing a vehicle behind- but we were not fans of taking the camp with us to visit things every day.  So you will have to find a solution for that.

But for hotels- not very many of them are in the middle of cool places to wake up.  Granted, there are a ton of campgrounds that are in the same location as most hotels- right along major paths.  But there are as many, if not more, that are far out in places that are pretty nice to be.  Having woken up on the coast of every Great Lake- many of those places don't have a hotel near by where you can do what we did.  And finding a hotel where you can carry a boat from your room or car to some water way to play in?  We have 3 state park camp grounds near that do that, and 4 or 5 more where it's a short drive within the park to be in the water.

So while it's a good "replacement" for a hotel, it's very, very much not the same thing.  

I say do it. We are currently between RVs, but probably will own another at some point. There's something cool about bringing a miniature version of your house with you wherever you go. Also, you can bring more stuff. Food, recreational stuff, the aforementioned pets, chairs, etc. You can also make some or all your own meals, which is also a savings.

As Eric points out, though, the downside of a motorhome is not being able to do short trips from the campsite, or at least being able to do so easily. That's why I prefer a tow-behind. Also, a motorhome is everything that can go wrong with a car plus everything that can go wrong with a house all rolled into one.

Going used is smart, though. Especially with one that old. Keep it in decent shape and you won't lose a dime when you go to sell it down the road. Though I can scarcely imagine how slow a mid-80s small block powering a house on wheels would be. You'll need a calendar to measure the 0-60 time. 

Yeah, can't really do the straight compare to a hotel room. I do a lot of long trips with my camper trailer, it is SO nice to just pull off at a rest stop and climb in the back, and immediately be able to jump back on the road the next day, for free. Great for the dog, as others have said, and excellent to be able to camp in the middle of nowhere and get away from people. I went with the trailer solution so I could drive the suburban around and leave the camper on site if needed. 

5.7 makes a good engine for that stuff, that one is probably Q jet and probably makes less than 200 hp. Old SBC parts are cheap.

Trans should be a TH400, probably no converter lockup either. Expect some revs on the highway and slow off the line, but they are very durable as long as the temps are under control. 

Looking forward to seeing pictures!

As someone who has spent an ungodly amount of time in hotels over the past few years, one big benefit of an RV would be you'll be sleeping on YOUR choice of mattress.   I've lost count of the number of miserable nights I've had trying to sleep on crappy mattresses.  

Don't get an RV that requires some sort of weird folding mattress... 

The one downside of an RV built in the 80s is it would have been designed for the 55 MPH speed limit of the time.  It probably won't be happy trying to go much faster than that... and if you do go much faster, expect it to consume significantly more gas. 

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

My rv has the exact same mattress we use at home. It's just as comfortable. That is a big selling point. 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

As someone who has spent an ungodly amount of time in hotels over the past few years, one big benefit of an RV would be you'll be sleeping on YOUR choice of mattress.   I've lost count of the number of miserable nights I've had trying to sleep on crappy mattresses.  

Excellent point. Our Outback came with a cheap RV garbage mattress. We replaced it with a memory foam one and slept like babies.

I  agree......the idea of not schlepping all your crap in and out of a hotel every night, plus having a comfortable, familiar place for the mutts is a real selling point to me. I also would do the race track thing, and to me that's a great way to spend a weekend. You  can tow a lightweight car along if you want to do some local driving - a MINI or Honda Fit for example - just make sure it's a manual and then you can flat tow it, so you don't even need a dolly. The other advantage of a van - for me - is that I can park it in my driveway and no one can call the cops on me, where you can't do that with a motorhome, you'd have to store it somewhere - preferably out of the weather.

Downside to me is fuel cost - at 15 mpg each 150 miles costs about $40, most of my trips would be in the 600-900 range each way so that's a cost of close to $400 per trip. Still, it's hard to find a hotel for less than $150 a night, and pet fees can add a lot to that.

Since it would just be me (maybe the bride) and a pup or two I'd be fine with a van instead of an actual motorhome. Replace the folding back seat with an actual bed, add a small fridge and porta potty and I'm good to go.

If I hit the big lotto, then a 40 ft. diesel pusher would be one of the first things I'd buy - probably one made by Volkner, so I could haul a nice car along with it.

Like this......  https://volkner-mobil.com/en/

In reply to MiniDave :

15 mpg?

In reply to MiniDave :

Yeah I second that, I get 9 when I tow my TT. I am guessing that truck will be lucky to see that. My GMT 400 towing the same trailer was in the 6's

RVs are an emotional life style choice.  If you want to look at the financials just stay home, it is cheaper.  There are good days and bad days, attitude and problem solving are key.  And maybe good towing insurance.  We have had some of our best times and some real crappy trips where we bailed and came home early.  One ended so badly we weren't talking to each other for a week.  But the camper is still here and hopefully will get used more in the future.

For you, starting with an old unit is a bigger challenge.  Old fridges, water heaters, and ACs are just not worth fixing, just replace them.  But more importantly be prepared for them to crap out at the worst time.  The mechancals of the driving part are probably more reliable and easier to fix.  Planning on shorter trips is good, better to limp a hundred miles home, or rent a car and come back to fix it later.  That doesn't work when you are a thousand miles from home base.  

What brand are you getting?  A class C with a fiberglass body sounds like a quality item.

I would love an RV for traveling with kids, the on board potty alone...

That said I am a cheapskate, so my current solution is 

E track to put a full size bed above the racecar in the cargo trailer. 

You could get a bigger car trailer and put a bathroom/shower in the front. 

In reply to NY Nick :

My F350 with the Alaskan averaged 9.

My 97 Tiffin 31' with the 460 averaged 7.

My 07 Holiday Rambler averages 7.3 towing the H3T.

Our last trip to get to the above picture, was 300 miles and burned $150 in fuel. Campground costs were zero since we own the property. 

A comparable VRBO would have cost a touch over $1600. 

We left the motorhome in the mountains because we will be back up there in September for 5 days for a family event and October for 10 days to see the leaves turn. 

I'll burn another $150 in fuel to bring it home. 

All great points, I am under No Illusion that this is a sound financial idea. But, as an example, I wanted to go see the elantra's race at Watkins glen. Tickets weren't that bad but hotels were outrageous if you could even find one. If I had an rv, I would have driven up and camped. About to hook up with $100 compared to a hotel for 300. Add in gas and I think I could have saved money.  

A better example is Cedar point. With an annual pass tickets are very reasonable, but even a fleabag Motel is 150 a night. An RV spot with a hookup is 25 and I can put the dog in daycare for 15. 

 The camper is a Fleetwood Tioga on a GM G30 RV chassis with dual rear wheels. I'm guessing it will Top out at 53 mph unless you're going up the hills of West Virginia where I'll have to use the hazards. 

 I already know that the van AC and the roof AC units work. Have not been able to confirm the heater, but I don't plan on being out in the cold much. Same with the generator, hasn't started in a while but easy enough to clean the carb or swap it. As for the fridge, most places we go we're eating out anyway, so a good cooler would get us through a weekend. 

 I'm assuming I'll need to put a thousand into it right off the bat, which puts my total investment at 5K. That means I need to do 11 Hotel nights per year for the next 3 years to break even. That's one week of camping plus 3 weekends. So yeah, it's more about the fun of being in an RV

9 mpg

Heat is easy, get a standalone diesel heater and retrofit it.  If the rooftop A/C works, keep it.

Fridge is easy and modern 12V compressor fridges are much much more effiecient than the old bulb/evaporation style fridges your unit has.  Should be able to get a drop in with minimal hassle.

I would pitch the generator and use the space for some nice new house batteries unless you want to run the A/C off grid.  And even then I would just put a Horrible Freight or Honda inverter generator in its place.  They are so much quieter and provide cleaner voltage that new equipment likes.  Solar is a bit of a joke, its nice if you are always in the sun, but a modern DC/DC 50A charger and a high amp alternator will do so much more for you than solar will, unless you plan on spending many days off grid without driving.   And even then you don't want to park in the sun, so remote panels are gonna be your friends.  

Learn to camp cook, you can make some awesome stuff from mild to wild.  Tons of recipes and stuff online.

The biggest turn-off to me on an older RV is I would want one that is complete and unmodified and clean.  Make sure you look at it after it has been outside in the rain, open all the cabinets, check under everything for signs of water ingress.  A little water can be a big mess, down to the point of uneconomically repairable.  If its busted up, real dirty, hacked apart, or anything like that, would be a hard pass for me.  

The 350 could be easily swapped out for a Vortec 350 or 454 OR LS motor down the road if you really like the rig.  I would probably go with one of the last TBI 454s from a Suburban or Truck just because its basically a direct swap and those motors are $Free.99 these days.  I would also consider an aftermarket fuel injection swap on the existing 350 which could be swapped to a bigger motor down the road.  Will make life a lot easier.

The trans as stated is gonna be a TH400 in a 1985.  You can either do a 4L80 swap or get a Gear Vendors overdrive.  For the cost I would just do the 4L80 with a lockup converter.  

A Vortec 454, some decent heads, a mild cam, longtubes, and an overdrive trans with a lockup converter would really turn a rig like that around and let you run down the road happy.

If you end up with it, make sure you budget for new rubber all the way around.  Doesnt have to be the most expensive, but definitely shouldnt be the cheapest.  Go through all the brakes ASAP, new flex lines, new heavy duty pads and shoes, check the wheel bearings and hard lines.  Check the radiator, change the coolant and flush the system.  Change the radiator hoses and thermostats while you are in there, thoes parts cost like 4 dollars.  

These old rigs sit a lot and nothing like a sticking caliper or burned up wheel bearing on Hour 2 of a nice holiday weekend.  

I would budget another $3-5k right off the bat for deferred maintenance and to go through it all so you can rest easy when you are driving it.  Mechanical failures can make for good stories but rarely make for happy wives.  

Guys, I was talking about 15mpg in a van, not a motorhome, just FYI.

I rented a 31 ft with the Ford V-10 in it in Colorado, averaged 10-11 all over the state including climbing  some long mountain passes with that motor screaming along. I'm sure towing a trailer would adversely affect that mileage.....

Buy a towing policy like Good Sam.  Its yearly cost is about 1/5th of the average tow.