Purchased a very gently used rental 2017 Thor Chateau 23u on a 2016 Ford E450 chassis in November. Spent about 8 hours of PDI where a couple of minor issues were resolved and a ton of learning was accomplished.
Issues, enhancements, education since then:
Learned it has a low tolerance to wind. Yea, I have read all the posts on how to fix this. They are on my TODO list.
Skylight over the shower broke when a tiny tree branch glanced at it. The original material is super thin. Just replaced it with a much thicker, lower profile skylight. I am optimistic.
Fixed lots of noise generators. Worst was a metal panel on the bottom of the RV door. Rebuilt the squeaky, broken microwave mounting fascia.
Tons of factory build debris. The factory never cleaned up after drilling a hole, stripping a wire, clipping a zip tie (if they even clipped it), etc. Never got cleaned up over 9 months, 9k miles of rental. Still finding new places for debris to hide.
Set my Wrangler up as a TOAD including Invisibrake system. This included running a brake indicator light from the TOAD to the dash of the RV. Interesting in routing the wire. In the process blew the fuse for the emergency start relay. Finding the fuse hidden deep in the bowels under the hood was almost the hardest part.
Added 12v and USB ports at the back by the bed and by the dinette. Discovered good ground points do not exist. I added a couple of grounding strips. I did find a couple of 12v fuses that were unused. One is now in use. Added clock, indoor/outdoor thermometer, volt meter.
Added cup holders to the dinette. Added lots of clothes hooks. Added book/magazine rack above bed. Added removable splash shield between the sink and the bed. Doubles as sink cover.
Learned that the RV suspension seems to amplify the wash boarding on gravel roads instead of shock absorbing them. Not sure what I can do about that. I now understand why rental companies do not allow off pavement driving.
While stopping for the night at the top of Vail pass in CO in Nov learned that when the house battery runs down in the middle of the night due to tank heaters being on that the furnace no longer works which leads to water lines freezing. Also learned a similar lesson when leaving the RV for 3 days of backpacking in Death Valley in January that the fridge/freezer also does not work when the house battery runs down. The new solar panel should fix this.
Added TPMS. Learned a lot about tire pressure behavior from cold to hot.
Created lots of check lists and dimension dash label.
When de-winterizing found a water leak in the area going into the water pump. Several learning opportunities here. First, the section leaking was impossible to get to. Ended up cutting an access panel into the dinette seat base. Next, found there is a screen pre-filter just before the pump. It was full of sawdust. Need to watch this in the future. Could not find anything broken. Removed and reinstalled the pre-filter and pex pipe. Leak must have been loose screw-on connections.
The list goes on and on. In general, lots of learning opportunities and lots of DIY tasks. The only thing I hired out was the solar panel system.
Would I buy a gently used, non-Cruise America rental again? You bet. It was top end, not stripped down. It was also very well taken care of by the rental company. Be sure to note, it had only 9 months, 9k miles on it.
, and needed two new tires for the front. Needs some TLC, but solid otherwise. Was taken care of on the outside, most think it's brand new. We plan to upgrade the appliances even though they all work, due to amount of money we saved by not buying new. Biggest complaint, salesmen, most of the time if their mouth is open, they're lying. Bought an extended warranty to use just in case, but it will be cancelled soon. Put 2500 miles on the coach driving home and we'll put another 2500 next month, if no engine/transmission problems, the we'll cancel the warranty. We almost went with buying new, but so glad we waited, found the floor plan we were looking for and enough motor for the toad.
