Where have all the older motor homes gone?

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Yes, you're right.  Don't see many oldies on the road.  We have a '93 Pace Arrow with 40 k on it and all systems are working.  Just got new dual tires. Most every year I put money into it to keep her fit.  We limit our travel to camping in a State forest about 60 miles away and stay a week at a time about 4-5 time from May to Nov.  If gasoline prices came way down we would be glad to travel further.  Our rv is a 34 footer and we keep it cleaned and shined and in top shape.  Over the past 6 years have put lots of money into it - tires, brakes, hot water heater service, tune-up, electrical problems, new cooling unit etc.  I even reupholstered the window valances with new material.  We keep her in rented barn space for the winter.  I notice the newer models are returning to the angled front end again. 

One of the dealers I work with tells me that motor homes are not in vogue this year but trailers and 5th wheels are keeping them busy.  We get 7-8 miles per gallon. I hear that is typical for the 454 and 460 engines.  Wish my wife would let me install the two in line hydrogen cell electrolyzers I have.  A friend has installed them in his old carburated car and his newer diesel pickup with great improvement in milage and increase in power.  Best wishes,  Bill
 
I wanted to check into a place in San Diego for a couple days and found out I was not welcome because mine was so old. This park didnt allow anything older than a 90. Maybe thats why the older ones arent on the road as much?
We are going to sell ours and try and get a bigger/newer on.
 
Porkey, I can tell you where one 1995 32H Bounder is. Parked on its pad, right beside my house, awaiting its next adventure. I too think a Bounder should remain looking like a Bounder. Roos and all. The ol girl is 150 miles short of 100,000. Just getting her second wind. But if you lift her skirt and look underneath, she's loaded with all sorts of mods. Pan Hard bars front and rear, rear air bags to complement her old saggy rear end, complete Banks kit, gray water transfer pump, inverter, additional house batteries, PD9180 converter w/charge wizard, florescent and LED lights, roof mounted crank up WiFi antenna, Vena tank, propane and voltage monitor, lots of 12 volt power points for all those extra goodies, 12 volt electric blanket, two 12 volt flat screen TVs, dash mounter CD player, etc.  This summer will see the addition of some solar power. I intend for the old gal to out live me. But then I'm only 68, so it might be a contest. GRIN

Richard
 
[quote author=rls7201]
Porkey, I can tell you where one 1995 32H Bounder is. Parked on its pad, right beside my house, awaiting its next adventure. I too think a Bounder should remain looking like a Bounder. Roos and all. The ol girl is 150 miles short of 100,000.
Richard
[/quote]

Richard, my Bounder just became a "teenager" last year.  Just turned 50k miles this week.

We are currently "Camp Hosting" on Hatteras Island, on North Carolina Outer Banks.  We'll make our usual Illinois and New York junket latter in the summer and park the old girl back in Raleigh, NC awaiting some possible winter fishing trips back to the coast.

Like you, my coach electrical has been heavily modified with extra batteries, inverter/charger, Home Theater/Sound System, battery usage monitors and switching capabilities.  The OUTSIDE will remain all Bounder.

I have a tag axle which mitigates some of the need for some suspension mods, but I do have the Steer Safe installed.

I'm glad to hear that others are still putting the old "tubs" to good use.

 
If Jeep made a motorhome, this is what it would look like.  That's a Jeep toothy grin if I ever saw one. :)

carson said:
Here, by popular demand , maybe..

  My 1995 Winnebago Adventurer in original condition. All systems A-0k.

Mileage about 55K. It's a Chev P30. The push Vehicle is the "brute a 2000 Jeep Wrangler TJ


Take a look below..


carson FL
Click to expand...
 
I don't consider an RV from the 1990s to be "old".  Our 1997 Endeavor is still working fine after 14 years of continuous use.  The only problems we have are due to those years of use, not manufacturing defects that seem to plague the newer RVs.  They just don't build them like that anymore :)
 
Aye, Ned.  While my '97 Bounder has never had the built in quality of your HR, I'm often amazed that many of the problems reported on this, and other forums, simply do not happen on the Bounder because of design and reasonable attention to construction detail.

Since folks are quick to point out that chassis and appliances are standard across all manufacturers (within price ranges), maybe it's the lack of frills that contribute so much to the low defect rate in my case. :D :-\
 
maybe it's the lack of frills that contribute so much to the low defect rate in my case.
Click to expand...

Lou, (porky),  Once again I must agree with you wholeheartedly  with your wisdom.

  When I bought my oldie in 2004 (9 year old) I specifically searched for a simplified version, i.e no slides, no advanced electronics, no hydraulic stabilizers, etc. I was interested in raw quality of build,condition and not fancy gadgets nor paint jobs. I am glad I did. I could have easily afforded a fairly new unit at the time but something told me to "watch out".  ;)

  Now mine has come to the end of the road for me and my minimal repair expenses will stop.

Cheers,  Carson

 
DW and I spent sat afternoon at an RV show, looking at 300,000 plus Winnies, Allegro's, fleetwoods...etc. you get the picture. Verrrrrry nice, very complicated, very high maintenance. We came back to our old Winnie in the yard and the DW really got out and gave her a hug...We love our old bus, already broke in, no slides (kinda miss them) and all the bugs worked out. Time to make the "wheels on the bus go round and round".
 
Jeff

National went out of business in 2008 so I don't have a manufacturer to go to for support or buy parts. I'm sure it's saved me money on the repairs I just had to do when I ripped off the rear cap last fall. Instead of paying Nationals mark up I went right to the OEM's and was able to purchase everything I needed to get it repaired. Even the Fibre Glass Parts.

 

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I saw the pictures, can you explain how you did that at a gas station? 

It seems like almost all rigs are orphans now.  Even though Fleetwood makes motor homes, it isn't that same company on this side of BK that it was when it made my motor home!

Jeff
 
It was pure tail swing. I pulled into the pumps only to find out there was no diesel or gas that day. There were a lot of upset people and they wouldn't give me a chance to pull out forward so I had to back up to leave. When I swung right to go around the island my tail pipe caught a low post and hung up. Pulling forward straightened out the tail pipe and pulled the rear cap off. I had to cut the tail pipe and screw the cap back on to continue the trip. A roll of roofing tape from Home Depot kept it from leaking but since it was black it stood out like a sore thumb. Freightliner didn't sell the tail pipe any more since it's a 1998 chassis but customer service E-Mailed me the engineering drawing and I found a place to bend it up, quite a break. The OEM, Ortega Manufacturing, that made the fibre glass for National bought all the molds at the bankruptcy auction and now sell direct to the public, so the cap and door were easy. The really hard thing to find was the molding above the bay door, I found a piece in a RV Salvage yard in Carthage Mo for $25. Lights and ladder weren't hard to find and a local RV Shop did the paint job.

BTW my insurance company paid without batting a eye, even when I said I'd do the repairs except for the paint myself.

Here is a link to the Wreck Pictures
http://cid-ae67fff392766057.photos.live.com/browse.aspx/RV%20Mods/The%20Wreck



 
Tail swing scares the hell out of me!  And I hate small gas stations!  So I'm thinking after seeing your photos that I'm going to be avoiding them even more in the future!  I really hate new gas stations that have you pull in so that you face the building instead of being parallel to it.  We are only 36' 11" but with the 4 bike rack on the back I've measured us at 40' 4" and with out 3 people to guide you in an area as tight as a gas station it just isn't safe to move around!  Not only does my wife not like to get out to guide me, but she isn't particularly good at it!  So I do a lot of stopping getting out and looking around.  If people dont like it then they can pay for the damage when I hit something!

The spacial dynamics of a big Class A are radical!  No matter what you do to move one end of that rig the opposite end will do the exact opposite, going forward is mostly easy, watch your inside and outside rear corner and you should be fine but backwards and you have to watch the inside and ouside front and rear corners and the keep track of where your rear wheels are actually tracking all at the same time! 

I came across an RV that had smacked it's roof on the overhang of a gas station.  I could see what happened right away.  The gas station was on a hill, he pulled under with no trouble but when he pulled out as the front of the rig went down the hill the back of the rig went up and smacked the overhang!  Ouch!

Jeff Brown
 
I would agree with jeff I have made it a point to go to travel centers at least they have some idea how big vechicles turn. I would a have to say the hardest part about driving RV is BACKING UP. My wife is also terrible about reverse and telling me when to cut the wheel. She is getting better and I have yet to run her over ::)
 
I ended up buying and installing one of these.

http://www.sportsimportsltd.com/wireless-display-top-or-under-dash-mount-reverse-parking-sensor-kit.html

It sometimes gives false alarms, but that's better than backing into something. The range is about 6 feet and when it goes off I get out and look which would have saved me a bunch of trouble in that filling station. I had about 750 miles on the tank at the time and really didn't want to run it out of fuel, that's almost as bad as what happened.
 
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