Would You Consider Buying a Rental Class A?

I am in the market for a used (2-6 years old) Class A. I have found a 2007 Class A that has been in a rental fleet. To you professional RVer's, would you consider buying a rental unit from a dealer?

Thanks for your help!!

Tony

The way rental units are used by inexperienced RVers (can you say "Roadtrip"?), there isn't any way we would ever own a rental unit.  The rental companies might say these are well taken care of, but in reality, they are driven like rental cars.....and you know how you drive those.  

With so many used RV's out there, surely you can find a clean used ONE OWNER RV?

Tony2009 said:

I am in the market for a used (2-6 years old) Class A. I have found a 2007 Class A that has been in a rental fleet. To you professional RVer's, would you consider buying a rental unit from a dealer?

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Yes, I would definitely consider a rental fleet Class A -- with a few conditions. If it is a reputable dealer vs. an individual with a couple of Class A's rented from time to time. I placed a Class A into a rental fleet for about a year, and it was a good experience -- plus, they took better care of it than I was able to at the time. A good rental company should do the following:

o REMOVE ITEMS: They removed my awning, rear ladder, hub caps, cigarette lighter, ash trays, coffee maker, plus posted 2 "No Smoking" signs inside. They also placed a lock on the trailer hitch. So when I got it back -- all of those items were still virtually new - plus removing them kept the renter from using them - or climbing on the roof or towing, etc.

o MAINTENANCE: Mine was a Winny Brave on a chevy chassis. They took it to the local dealership for the rig to have all maintenance done on time.

o INSURANCE: The rig was fully covered with "commercial" RV insurance. No matter what happened, the rig was covered.

o CLEAN UP: Each time the rig was rented, it was spotless with a full tank of gas and other fluid levels checked. The renter signed a contract that it would be returned in the same condition - or pay to have it placed back into that condition.

There were other requirements -- but I hope these are enough to give you the idea. If I were to consider a rental unit, i would insist that the above kinda things had been done, and insist on seeing the rental history of the unit. For example, one renter broke my front window - which was covered by the insurance. But whatever the repair, I would want to know about it from its history report and be able to inspect any repairs that were done -- and insist that I be alllowed to take the rig to a chassis dealer for a bumper to bumper inspection.

The rental history in terms of where the rig was taken would be important as well. I was "very" lucky in that mine was a good unit for the LA film studios to use as a dressing room while  doing stuff in the Sacramento area. So a 7 day rental would add 30 miles or so to and from CalExpo or wherever the shoot location. OTOH, if the unit was taken up North during winter a lot -- I would want the under body to be inspected very closely for rust, and so forth. As far as how roughly it was driven and how that effected the RV that would not show in a general inspection -- a buyer takes the same risks with any used RV.

Hope this helps, Tony. And good luck with your hunt for a great RV!!

I probably wouldn't, but I never say "never"

We looked at rentals before we bought our Winnebago Sightseer. We didn't like the layouts of most of them and they looked, well, badly used. And they all had a LOT of miles on them. So having looked at them, my answer is no.

Wendy