Winnebago Vista 30W

Just purchased a new Winnebago Vista 30W and drove cross country from New York to Seattle.  I wanted share this experience with prospective new buyers and hopefully find current owners willing to share information on the Winnebago Vista 30W.  What a great motorhome.  After almost 2yrs of searching, we settled on the Winnebago Vista 30W for the primary reason, it has the floorplan we like and it fit our budget.  We like every feature of this motorhome.  We are not full timers but we will spend more time living in this unit than driving this unit and the floor plan fits us perfectly.  The trip across the US was great.  The motorhome performed great, even in the wind, however I did shut er down when the wind went over 30MPH.  When a tractor trailer overturns ahead of you, plan to shut er down.  I averaged 7.6 miles per gallon and that was with a light foot.  Never went over 65mph and tried to keep er at 60mph.  With gas prices what they are, I had plenty of company at 60mph.  Everything in the motorhome worked perfectly and as advertised.  I wouldn't go back to not having auto leveling jacks.  What a blessing.  The dealership was great and did a wonderful job with the walk-through.  Having been a previous MH owner, I was familiar with most things.  As always there were some surprises.  For instance, the refer does not have a 12V option.  I was unfamiliar with this, as my old motorhome did and when traveling we switched to 12V and never had to worry about what to do when gassing up.  I'm told you can run the refer on proprone while traveling, but need to turn the propane gas off while gassing up the rig.  I'm just a little uncomfortable traveling down the road with the propane gas turned on.  Overall, this was a great buy for us and look forward to many camping adventures in our new Winnebago Vista 30W.  Any other 30W owners out there willing to share info?

Wemery50 said:

Never went over 65mph and tried to keep er at 60mph.

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We always run 65 mph unless we are trying to get into a campground before dark.

I'm told you can run the refer on proprone while traveling, but need to turn the propane gas off while gassing up the rig.  I'm just a little uncomfortable traveling down the road with the propane gas turned on

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There are very strong opinions pro/con running a propane furnace or fridge while underway.  I have no issue with using propane on the road and once in a great while we'll run the furnace while traveling.  I prefer to run the fridge on inverter so we use as little propane as possible.

Overall, this was a great buy for us and look forward to many camping adventures in our new Winnebago Vista 30W.  Any other 30W owners out there willing to share info?

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Congrats on the new Vista Wayne!!

Hi from another happy Vista 30W owner. 

My husband and I ordered our 2011 last July and took delivery in early September.  Since then we've gone on 4 trips.  The first 2 were within 100 miles of home and were really just 2 night shake-downs.  The other 2 were multi-day jaunts.  One to the NC mountains, the other here within Florida to the east coast and center of the state.  Come the end of August we're heading out for a 5 (or more) week trip from NW Florida to the Badlands/Blackhills in SD, Glacier, Yellowstone, and Colorado.  Between now and then we hope to get in a short trip to the east coast for my husband to do some surfing.

Since this is our first ever RV, we spent a lot of time (though no where near 2 years, like you did) looking at, and thinking about, what we wanted and still worried that we might not be happy once we got the RV and used it.  So far the Vista seems to be the perfect size for us and our 4 cats.  Small enough to still fit in the State/National Parks and National Forest CGs we prefer.  Big enough that we can be comfortable inside if the weather isn't co-operating.  The floorplan (we choose the dining table w/buffet instead of the dinette booth configuration) is what sold us, too.  We can still access everything we need, to eat and sleep, on quick overnight stops without having to deploy either slide. 

I wouldn't want to full-time in it, but it fits our traveling style quite well.  It also handles pulling our toad, 4 door Wrangler, with no problem.  And, I'm comfortable driving it.  I didn't want all the driving to fall on my husband because we've always shared that responsibility on our car road trips.  However, he doesn't find driving the Vista as tiring as driving his Quest was, so I have to remind him to let me share the driving so I can improve/maintain my RV driving skills.  It would be easy to just be the navigator and enjoy the view but I don't want to ever find myself in a position where I have to drive and I'm afraid to.

We've had a few minor issues - loose screws, debris under the vinyl, etc. - but our dealer has taken care of them quickly and efficiently.  If we had the chance to go back and buy the Vista again or keep looking, we'd buy the Vista.

Happy traveling,
Fran

Hi Fran

Thanks for the reply.  We too chose the floor plan with dining table w/buffet and flat panel TV.  I agree with everything you said about the size of the motorhome and liveability if the weather is not cooperating.  I'm delighted to hear your unit pulls your wrangler just fine.  We have a Honda CRV we plan to pull.  My wife and I (and Golden Retriever Lexy) took our first trip in the motorhome this weekend, a short trip, 4 days, to a close to home Washington State RV park.  Even though it rained for two days, we had a great time and everything worked as advertised.  A couple of things surprised me.  First, during setup, it took about 2 hours to realize the TV Antenna booster was turned on and that was interfering with the cable reception.  I pushed the booster button to 'off' and all the snow went away.  This helped me realize I didn't know how to move the TV away from the wall if ever I need to.  I will check in with the dealer about this.  Second, the sewer connection did not allow my hose to fit through the opening in the compartment floor.  I'm not sure what's up with this as all sewer hose connectors are the same size and yet the hole in the floor will not allow a connector to fit through it.  I'll have to check in with Winnebago on this.  Perhaps I'm doing something wrong.  Overall, it was great and we're really looking forward to our camping trips. 

Congratulations.  It sounds like you are having a lot of fun.

But, both you and Fran need to exercise a little caution here.  Should some unsuspecting web surfer stumble upon your post they may get the idea that this RVing thing is a lot of fun and end up becoming one.  then they too will be running around with a silly grin on there face.

Hi congrats on your Winnie. We have purchased a Sunova 33c, love the floor plan with table instead of dinette, maiden voyage this week to NY. Will let you know what we think after, but so far on check out just little diddy things (and mostly my ignorance)