What drive train?

[Ex-Calif]

I can assure you, according to the three basic laws of motion, the gas engine from a VW Bus will get a 36' class A coach moving regardless what the gvwr happens to be, it will eventually get you there, it will be cheaper and it won't be fun.

I like hyperbole as much as the next guy but I can assure you that a 25hp VW microbus can be defeated by the mildest of hills.

We used to do Upland-Tijuana on almost a weekly basis in high school. The I15 stretch between Temecula and Escondido was often accomplished in second gear at 25mph - LOL.

I am pretty sure a 36 foot class A powered by that engine and transmission would be rolling backwards - LOL...

We kept a 2# sledge in the van. Often the engine would seize up on the climb. We'd enjoy some herb and when the engine cooled off we would "tap" the crankshaft to unseize the engine - LOL...

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

From an academic engineering viewpoint, the tiniest engine can move a huge load up the steepest grade as long as it has the proper gearing. But the factory-standard VW Beetle powertrain isn't gonna move a 20,000 lb load up even a small grade. It lacks that "proper gearing" that would compensate for low horsepower.

As Kirk described, there is no problem with a Ford V8 or V10 and its 4,5, or 6 speed transmission moving a 20k-24k coach over the steepest grade. Almost surely in a lower gear and not as fast as a car, but not something you need be concerned about. I've crossed many a mountain range, including the Rockies, in a gas-powered 35 ft, 22,000 lb GVWR coach towing a 3400 lb car. Never a doubt. Mine was powered by a GM V8 with 340 hp & 455 lb-ft or torque and a 6-speed Allison 1000 transmission. My later diesel coach with 370 hp climbed hills at similar speeds but the coach & toad weighed about 60% more. But the much greater diesel torque allowed for drastically lower rpms and seemed to move effortlessly.

 

[Ex-Calif]

As Kirk described, there is no problem with a Ford V8 or V10 and its 4,5, or 6 speed transmission moving a 20k-24k coach over the steepest grade.

Agree with this but as always the devil is in the details. OP has indicated they might go "very" used.

My 31 footer GM 454ci has I think like 230hp and out west I was climbing a lot in 3rd gear at 45mph towing nothing.

For the OP just make sure you understand the specs. If you need to tow 6,000# make sure whatever you buy has the specs to do that and then the hills and grades are really a secondary issue as it will get up and over albeit at a somewhat less sporty speed.

 

[Onyrlef]

Well so much for our various opinions and anecdotal experiences, not however to be conflated with fact and which the OP can weigh for himself.

 

[oldwildman]

Agree with this but as always the devil is in the details. OP has indicated they might go "very" used.

My 31 footer GM 454ci has I think like 230hp and out west I was climbing a lot in 3rd gear at 45mph towing nothing.

For the OP just make sure you understand the specs. If you need to tow 6,000# make sure whatever you buy has the specs to do that and then the hills and grades are really a secondary issue as it will get up and over albeit at a somewhat less sporty speed.

I wouldn't say 'very' used. Two units that caught my eye recently had 22k and 47k on them. Both were stored inside and looked very nice in the pics. Both were in my price range. 2007-2010 I bought most of my vehicles by disregarding age and paid more attention to mileage and maintenance. That served me well over the years. The only diesel I owned had 250k on the chassis. The engine had around 100k and the tranny 50k when I bought it. Old post office parcel delivery truck. Paid 2k for it and ran it for well over 10 years. Turns out that post office had a rep of really taking care of their vehicles. The frame started going bad because of all the salt they use here.

Funny how vw was mentioned. Loved them when I was young. Had a bus that the original owner had a karman ghia motor installed. Didn't do too bad on the long interstate hills but still got passed a lot. But we will be towing close to 5k and Deb isn't known to travel light. While I loved that vw bus, I do remember getting annoyed on the hills. And as one poster suggested, unhooking the car and driving it up separately just isn't my idea of a good time.

Running a motor at its peak for long periods just isn't a good idea in my opinion. So, I think I'll be going with the diesel. I'll know better when I do a test drive. Fortunately, we have several mechanics nearby that will work on them. I'll be using one of them to thoroughly go over the power train before I buy on top of the regular inspection.

It's looking like we'll be closer to 40' than 35'. I've notice the diesels seem to come in HP ranges. Like around 300, 340, 360 and 400. Probably more that that but that seems to be the ones in the units that are catching my eye. I looked up the gas units and they are advertising around 300hp. So, should I be limiting my search to 340 and above?

 

[Onyrlef]

I wouldn't say 'very' used. Two units that caught my eye recently had 22k and 47k on them. Both were stored inside and looked very nice in the pics. Both were in my price range. 2007-2010 I bought most of my vehicles by disregarding age and paid more attention to mileage and maintenance. That served me well over the years. The only diesel I owned had 250k on the chassis. The engine had around 100k and the tranny 50k when I bought it. Old post office parcel delivery truck. Paid 2k for it and ran it for well over 10 years. Turns out that post office had a rep of really taking care of their vehicles. The frame started going bad because of all the salt they use here.

Funny how vw was mentioned. Loved them when I was young. Had a bus that the original owner had a karman ghia motor installed. Didn't do too bad on the long interstate hills but still got passed a lot. But we will be towing close to 5k and Deb isn't known to travel light. While I loved that vw bus, I do remember getting annoyed on the hills. And as one poster suggested, unhooking the car and driving it up separately just isn't my idea of a good time.

Running a motor at its peak for long periods just isn't a good idea in my opinion. So, I think I'll be going with the diesel. I'll know better when I do a test drive. Fortunately, we have several mechanics nearby that will work on them. I'll be using one of them to thoroughly go over the power train before I buy on top of the regular inspection.

It's looking like we'll be closer to 40' than 35'. I've notice the diesels seem to come in HP ranges. Like around 300, 340, 360 and 400. Probably more that that but that seems to be the ones in the units that are catching my eye. I looked up the gas units and they are advertising around 300hp. So, should I be limiting my search to 340 and above?

Karmann Ghia is a VW, both had rear mounted air cooled engines.

 

[oldwildman]

Karmann Ghia is a VW, both had rear mounted air cooled engines.

That's why it fit. A little tough matching up the bell housing if it wasn't. LOL I understand that it had a bit more horsepower.

 

[Onyrlef]

That's why it fit. A little tough matching up the bell housing if it wasn't. LOL I understand that it had a bit more horsepower.

Matter of fact a Porsche and a Karmann Ghia were interchangeable back then.

 

[Dan_Frisbie]

I have a 34 ft Class A and tow a 8.5 x 16 box trailer with two road bikes, two paddle boards, a big tool box, and a tool bench in it. The Ford V10 does not have any problems moving this load at a comfortable pace down the road.

 

[Onyrlef]

Relative: considered in relation or in proportion to something else
Vague: of uncertain, indefinite or unclear character or meaning

 

[Kirk]

Both were in my price range. 2007-2010 I bought most of my vehicles by disregarding age and paid more attention to mileage and maintenance. That served me well over the years.

With a motorhome, the condition of the RV part is of critical importance. Most motorhomes have relatively low mileage for their age when compared to cars or trucks but the maintenance of the coach and all of it's appliances and amenities is of equal importance. Be cautious about modifications to systems by previous owners and those can create new problems and there will be no tech support for them and usually not drawings or schematics. We often see posts looking for help figuring out what previous owners have done.

It's looking like we'll be closer to 40' than 35'.

While gasoline powered motorhomes have a long and very successful history, it does sound like you will be better served with a diesel as 40' coaches are nearly all diesel and the highest GVWR for gasoline is 26k and you can easily find diesels with far more weight capacity.

I understand diesel is best but not sure it will fit into our budget.

I'm wondering if you might not be wise to rent an RV to take a short trip with the girlfriend before you spend the money to buy? In reading all of your previous posts, I am wondering if there is an RV that she would enjoy and I'm a big believer in the old saying "if momma ain't happy, nobody will be happy!"

 

[Ex-Calif]

I'm wondering if you might not be wise to rent an RV to take a short trip with the girlfriend before you spend the money to buy? In reading all of your previous posts, I am wondering if there is an RV that she would enjoy and I'm a big believer in the old saying "if momma ain't happy, nobody will be happy!"

OK presumably you are going to finance a $100k RV. Let's say the financing is 9% with 20% down. The monthly payment will be around $1450 a month.

That buys a heck of a lot of yearly motel and cabin rentals., Of course at the end you have an RV you can sell.

If you only consider the interest payment of 23,000 over 6 years that's almost $4k a year. Also a tidy sum to finance vacations.

All that is before you consider the maintenance costs on a motor coach and the fact that you will also still be spending ~$50 a night to park it somewhere.

Oh - and don't forget that when your "hotel room" is parked up somewhere you will probably need a towed vehicle to get around in...

Not trying to scare you off, just trying to put into perspective that RV ownership has very little to do with saving money on one's travels...

 

[oldwildman]

OK presumably you are going to finance a $100k RV. Let's say the financing is 9% with 20% down. The monthly payment will be around $1450 a month.

That buys a heck of a lot of yearly motel and cabin rentals., Of course at the end you have an RV you can sell.

If you only consider the interest payment of 23,000 over 6 years that's almost $4k a year. Also a tidy sum to finance vacations.

All that is before you consider the maintenance costs on a motor coach and the fact that you will also still be spending ~$50 a night to park it somewhere.

Oh - and don't forget that when your "hotel room" is parked up somewhere you will probably need a towed vehicle to get around in...

Not trying to scare you off, just trying to put into perspective that RV ownership has very little to do with saving money on one's travels...

View attachment 171325

I thought someone might bring up financing. We will be paying cash. And we still have a lot of slack for problems. Our investments are in pretty conservative accounts now days so opportunity cost is not such a huge issue. And the last week we were away cost almost 2k just for the room. We realize that it's not going to be cheap. But we've both worked very hard all our lives and were fairly frugal. This is kind of our 'swan song'. We both have a lot of places we either want to see or spend more time in. And comfort level has a value. We have looked at a lot of rv parks in FL while visiting down there and the boss found most of them acceptable. I rented an RV some years ago with some friends for a couple of weeks and fell in love with the idea. And that was a medium class c (no slides) with three other people. While expensive, we feel it's going to be worth it. And it won't break the bank. If nothing else, we'll have some interesting stories to tell.

We considered just renting places. But, when you price in the usual accommodations that Deb insists on, the RV isn't such a financial stretch. Especially when you factor in having a separate kitchen and living/dining area even if it is small. And there's the convenience of not having to pack and unpack constantly. The initial cross country trip will be a least a few months. And she does not travel light! Just what she takes for 1-2 weeks is surprising. The car gets pretty full. We like to ride bikes. And having those along on the back of the car is always a security worry at hotels. At least with the rv, even if they won't fit in the storage, they'll be chained to the outside of the bedroom wall, not hundreds of yards away in a publicly accessible lot.

We have priced indoor storage in our area and it's not too horrible. We have a few old limestone mines left over from the steel days nearby that are used for storage. I'll be doing a tour of them in the near future. We have room on our property. But, I'd have to put in a new driveway to the back. And I worry about the critters getting in and doing damage. Not so bad on lawn equipment. But RV wiring could get disastrous.

But thanks for bringing up all these issues. The more input I get, the less nervous I get about missing something important.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

It's looking like we'll be closer to 40' than 35'. I've notice the diesels seem to come in HP ranges. Like around 300, 340, 360 and 400. Probably more that that but that seems to be the ones in the units that are catching my eye. I looked up the gas units and they are advertising around 300hp. So, should I be limiting my search to 340 and above?

No, but you should pay attention to the GVWR weight-to-horsepower ratio. The rule-of-thumb is that a coach should have no more than a 100 lb per hp for adequate performance. That "adequate" is far short of what is common for cars & pickups, though, so if you want more car-like performance shoot for 80 or 90 lbs/hp. You will also be happier if you include the toad weight with the GVWR as part of that analysis, cause the toad weight makes a noticeable difference during a hill climb (but not much elsewhere).

So, a 340 hp engine can adequately move about 34,000 lbs. If you are thinking a 4000 lb toad, that's a coach with a GVWR of 30,000 + the 4000 lb toad. 360 or 400 hp would move that is a more sprightly manner.

 

[Professor David]

We were in the same position a year or so ago when considering RVs. Since we were new to RVing, we also had to keep in mind that the idea of RVing sounded great, but one or both of us may not like it after actually doing it. Therefore, we didn't want to make a large investment into something we might not like. Therefore, we didn't want to make a large investment until we actually experienced RV life.

As others have said...probably the major considerations of pulling the trigger for any RV is it's condition. Just like looking for a used car, it is best to be open to what comes available that is in the very best condition to avoid future costs and the possibility of being broken down in the middle of nowhere. I have a friend that had to have a specific RV model/type, traveled across the country to pick it up, purchased it and then came to find that it had major problems. They ended up selling it for half the price they paid of it after one year. Yes, he was too cheap to get a professional inspection.

In our case, after a year or so of looking....we found a gas class A locally that was in exceptional condition that did not break the bank. Though we did upgrade the suspension at 5K and put new tires on at 4K and did other improvements. It also had a fender bender that I repaired myself (which brought the initial price down a large amount). This has given us the opportunity to see if we really like doing this. Well after going on several trips, we have found that we really like doing this. Our gas F53 V10 makes it up mountains passes just fine. Sometimes we actually pass others going up hills pulling our 2012 CRV. On decent roads, it drives nicely but not so great on bad roads. Our major complaint is the poor ride on bad roads...may upgrade to an air ride system at some point? However, the best thing for these rigs is to stay on good roads...these are made for interstates not back roads.

In a few years, we might upgrade to a diesel but it turns out for us that buying a gas Class A was probably the best decision initially and this unit just came up after looking locally for over a year.

We also do not like staying in hotels/motels (even high end ones) due to cleanliness issues, moving our stuff back and forth, and we have two large dogs. We can keep our RV as clean as we want and, frankly, don't worry about sitting or sleeping on other peoples bodily fluids. Take a UV light into a hotel/motel and you will never stay in one again.

 

[Onyrlef]

Just don’t get caught up conflating HP with Torque. All other things being equal a 360 HP diesel firing off compression with longer stroke is going to produce more torque than a 360 HP gas engine sparking the chamber with a shorter stroke, ie., the diesel is going to turn the crankshaft with more rotational force ( torque).

Furthermore, no one in the history of motorhomes ever said, “I wish I’d bought a gasser instead of this DP we settled for”.

 

[oldwildman]

We were in the same position a year or so ago when considering RVs. Since we were new to RVing, we also had to keep in mind that the idea of RVing sounded great, but one or both of us may not like it after actually doing it. Therefore, we didn't want to make a large investment into something we might not like. Therefore, we didn't want to make a large investment until we actually experienced RV life.

As others have said...probably the major considerations of pulling the trigger for any RV is it's condition. Just like looking for a used car, it is best to be open to what comes available that is in the very best condition to avoid future costs and the possibility of being broken down in the middle of nowhere. I have a friend that had to have a specific RV model/type, traveled across the country to pick it up, purchased it and then came to find that it had major problems. They ended up selling it for half the price they paid of it after one year. Yes, he was too cheap to get a professional inspection.

In our case, after a year or so of looking....we found a gas class A locally that was in exceptional condition that did not break the bank. Though we did upgrade the suspension at 5K and put new tires on at 4K and did other improvements. It also had a fender bender that I repaired myself (which brought the initial price down a large amount). This has given us the opportunity to see if we really like doing this. Well after going on several trips, we have found that we really like doing this. Our gas F53 V10 makes it up mountains passes just fine. Sometimes we actually pass others going up hills pulling our 2012 CRV. On decent roads, it drives nicely but not so great on bad roads. Our major complaint is the poor ride on bad roads...may upgrade to an air ride system at some point? However, the best thing for these rigs is to stay on good roads...these are made for interstates not back roads.

In a few years, we might upgrade to a diesel but it turns out for us that buying a gas Class A was probably the best decision initially and this unit just came up after looking locally for over a year.

We also do not like staying in hotels/motels (even high end ones) due to cleanliness issues, moving our stuff back and forth, and we have two large dogs. We can keep our RV as clean as we want and, frankly, don't worry about sitting or sleeping on other peoples bodily fluids. Take a UV light into a hotel/motel and you will never stay in one again.

Some years ago, I lent a friend some money to start a small trucking business. As part of it, I got to drive the rigs. We pulled 53' trailers with conventional cabs with large sleepers. I went against his advice and went down a small 2 lane. It petered out in about 5 miles. He told me "you got it in, you get it out". Wound up blindsiding it up a dirt y to get it turned around. He just sat there and laughed at me. Yep, I'll be keeping it on the big roads!


Yep, Deb is the same way about hotels. We're both neat freaks. Part of the allure for her is living in a space that she keeps clean.

Like I said earlier, not only will we be getting an RV inspector involved, we're also getting it checked by a good diesel mechanic. And we're pretty flexible on models at this point. While there are features that we'd really like to have, we can live without most.

 

[oldwildman]

No, but you should pay attention to the GVWR weight-to-horsepower ratio. The rule-of-thumb is that a coach should have no more than a 100 lb per hp for adequate performance. That "adequate" is far short of what is common for cars & pickups, though, so if you want more car-like performance shoot for 80 or 90 lbs/hp. You will also be happier if you include the toad weight with the GVWR as part of that analysis, cause the toad weight makes a noticeable difference during a hill climb (but not much elsewhere).

So, a 340 hp engine can adequately move about 34,000 lbs. If you are thinking a 4000 lb toad, that's a coach with a GVWR of 30,000 + the 4000 lb toad. 360 or 400 hp would move that is a more sprightly manner.

Thanks for the math! That's very helpful.

I just looked up the specs on my work truck. It's a chevy cutaway with a 12' fiberglass box and single rear wheels. It's pretty perky. But the gas motor puts out (I just looked it up for the first time) 340hp. I normally keep at least 1/2 to 3/4 ton of equipment in it. Throw in the material for the job and it adds up quick. Now, if I add water tanks, 3-4 slides, dual wheels, a lot more length and a toad, it's not going to be as happy. I know diesel has more torque but this is giving me a sense of what's necessary. I think you're right about 360 minimum.

 

[Kirk]

With the size you want, a diesel is your best option, but be very careful in whose advice you choose to follow. It is very easy for someone to spend your money on what they believe that you should buy. Keep doing your homework and match what you want with what the budget is comfortable with. Trading RVs is a very expensive action so don't rush into any RV until both of you are satisfied.

 

[Ex-Calif]

But thanks for bringing up all these issues. The more input I get, the less nervous I get about missing something important.

Sounds like you are in the perfect financial place to do Rving.

I (personally) am happy you don't have to (and won't) get a huge loan to go adventuring. Sounds like the worst thing that can happen is Deb pulls the pin in 6 months and you lose some taxes, registration and a few other things financially.

" And we're pretty flexible on models at this point. While there are features that we'd really like to have, we can live without most."

Well now you brought that up, and considering your picture here are some real considerations based on things I missed or deemed necessary.

1 - Bigger shower is better
2 - Consider counterspace - Doing meal prep on the dinette or with a plug in the sink becomes a PITA
3 - variety of seating areas and visibility to the tv. I mounted my tv on a swing mount visible from the couch or the dinette - nice to watch news in the morning while eating breakfast.
4 - I stayed primarily in parks long term. I always wanted a washer dryer. Communal laundry went out of my life after college. It was tough to go back.
5 - In your size do not even consider a solo air conditioner.
6 - Personally would not settle on an AC only fridge. Propane makes so much sense while traveling and the occasional boondock/overnight.
7 - Likewise I would not settle on a propane only water heater - AC/propane is my choice.
8 - Don't even consider a non-walkaround bed...
9 - Consider where you will have a computer station - it gets old quick (IMO) to use the dinette for computing and have to put things up to eat. I got rid of a single recliner chair and built a folding workstation. It was proximate to the TV so I could technically dual screen the laptop.