Updating D/P Operating Costs and budgets

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Airbss9

Airbss9

New member
Joined
May 16, 2016
Posts
2
Location
Southern New Jersey
Does anyone out there have any updated information relative to D/P Operating Costs. I'm trying to develop a worksheet which sums up trip and yearly operating cost to better put a handle on cost planning for operations.

I'm trying to not make it a new job, but an easy "plug-in" the numbers and have a reasonable estimate of costs/trip and anticipated yearly costs...or am I trying to reinvent the wheel?

All help appreciated.
 
  This comes up often by the bean counting types and in my opinion not much use to anyone but them. There are so many variables  between people that it would only be usable to you, your habits ,driving style, coach, personalities,,etc. etc. will all factor in.>>>Dan
 
I agree with above that it really isn't a useful number because of too many variables.

One biggy that people seem to overlook is that we ALL maintain our rigs differently.  Many only fix things when they break or are in need of immediate attention in order to keep operating costs down.  Then there are others of us who probably over-maintain our rigs to avoid any future issues.  Those two extremes right there really muddy any formula you would come up with.

Then take into account the various "levels" of coaches which add another degree of difficulty to come up with any viable formula.  Trust me I am not a bean counter type so I am sure there is something I am overlooking.  From my 25+ years of RVing now, I have always approached an RV like any other of my vehicles, I look at potential costly maintenance items and calculate those into the equation prior to purchasing.  Then I figure if I can't afford the maintenance on the vehicle, I simply cannot afford the vehicle, period.  The initial cost or payment is merely the cost of admission, especially on an RV. ;)

Mike.
 
utahclaimjumper said:
in my opinion not much use to anyone but them. There are so many variables  between people that it would only be usable to you, your habits ,driving style, coach, personalities,,etc. etc.
Click to expand...

Agree. when something breaks, might be expensive but then doesn't have to be looked at again for years, if ever. I've spent a fair amount of money the first year of owning mine, but all of it was due to getting deferred maintenance back on track. From a direct operating cost (brakes, tires, fuel, oil, etc) imagine costs per mile aren't much more.

If you're unlucky, DP could be very expensive. If you're lucky, not bad at all. With apologies to Clint, "Ya feelin' lucky...?"  ;)
 
I'm an engineer-type, so I do tend to count & measure things, but I have not found it all that useful to keep a log of motorhome expenses. Of course I have a pretty fair idea of the annual repeat items, e.g. insurance, tags, and oil & fuel filter changes, but travel & camping expenses vary a lot, and my expenses are unlikely to be much like yours, for a host of personal choice reasons.

Part of the reason we don't track closely is that we would probably be appalled by the expense and quit the lifestyle!  :(

You can guestimate campground expenses as N nights  x  $Z/night (you make the estimate for your needs). Fuel is M miles/month x $D/mile (probably about $0.30 mile  right now @ 7.5 mpg). Entertainment expense (tours, museums, souvenirs, whatever)? Meals out?  Your call.

Maintenance is planned stuff like oil changes, but it gets complicated to fill in stuff that runs over multiple years. Tires, air dryers, coolant changes, etc. Lots of stuff like that on  DP, and each coach may have different intervals and needs.

Repairs are unplanned stuff, thing that break. I figure it's a good year if I don't get hit with a $1000-$1300 bill for something, but it doesn't happen often.

There is an example of fulltiming expenses in the Library that may give some insight. See http://www.rvforum.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=219:fulltiming-expenses&catid=29&Itemid=132
 
Airbss9 said:
Does anyone out there have any updated information relative to D/P Operating Costs. I'm trying to develop a worksheet which sums up trip and yearly operating cost to better put a handle on cost planning for operations.

I'm trying to not make it a new job, but an easy "plug-in" the numbers and have a reasonable estimate of costs/trip and anticipated yearly costs...or am I trying to reinvent the wheel?

All help appreciated.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum. I think this should be your new job, keep track and report in a year.
In all reality there are to many variables between say your coach and my coach if you are trying to compare depreciation etc. How many miles did you drive compared to me? The more miles you drive the lower your routine maintenance per mile. Example if your yearly fixed cost was $2500.  and you only drove 2000 miles you cost per mile is  $1.25 yet if you drove 15000 miles your fixed cost would be $0.17. Then you get to more variable cost, Maintenance, can you do most of the work yourself or do you have to take it to someone to have a lightbulb changed. Next big variable is where do you stay? What kind of campground do you use. Do you stay overnight at rest stops and Walmarts or do you need full hookups every night?
My advise is just keep track of your expenses then you will know what to expect the next year. I would say not counting purchase price or depreciation if you can keep cost around $1.25 a mile you are doing ok.
Bill
 
Hi Airboss9...

I completely agree with the others on the difficulties of determining an RV's DOC - there are just so many variables. I will tell you this though... it costs us an average of about $1200.00 per year to have our 2011 DP serviced at a reputable facilty, (You have to look for those.) They have a shop rate of $120.00 per hour. Our coach is DEF equipped with a 450 HP Cummins, and I also have them service the RV's generator while it's there.

I do 99% of the house maintenance myself, and I'm grouping actual "repairs" (very few of those) and optional improvements (lots of those) in the same category. On our previous two gas coaches, I did 99% of the chassis service/maintenance myself, and I may decide to do the same on our current DP sometime in the future. Doing your own service on a DP can save several hundred dollars. For now, I like an extra set of experienced eyes looking our coach over.

Other than that, I know I'm going to have to spend $4500.00 on tires every 7 to 8 years, and about $2000.00 on batteries in the same period. I average 7.3 MPG and diesel costs about $3.05 per gallon in San Diego right now. (It's significantly cheaper in other parts of the country.) Hope that helps.

Kev
 
I think zmotorsports made an excellent point with respect to different people's ways of maintaining their rigs.  Even people who feel they do everything that is required may or may not really be covering all the possible maintenance items.  For example, with the use of Transynd in Allison transmissions the fluid change interval has been greatly extended compared to what it had been with Dexron.  However, the increased fluid change interval doesn't change the requirement to replace the transmission filters every 3-4 years.  It would be interesting to know what percentage of motorhome owners actually have those filters changed at regular intervals. 

In addition, because I do annual transmission fluid and oil sampling, this year I decided to replace the Transynd because some of its parameters were out of spec after ~6 years and 55,000 miles of use.  Did I have to do that, probably not, but it made me feel more confident that I was helping to avoid future problems.  That was a several hundred dollar expense that many others might have elected not to have done.
 
Like other RVs from planes to boats, it always cost more than you expect so contingency fund repletion becomes an annual operation.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
Part of the reason we don't track closely is that we would probably be appalled by the expense and quit the lifestyle!  :(
Click to expand...

I have to agree with you on the above point Gary.
Mel
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 1,261 (members: 29, guests: 1,232)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,986
Posts
1,388,686
Members
137,735
Latest member
MoeHoward
Back
Top Bottom