Shopping for a smaller trailer / sharing RV-related hobby website

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justinlittman

Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2023
Posts
6
Location
Fairfax, VA
Hi! We are new to the forum - two-time travel trailers owners (currently an EZ Escape E231BH). I’ve really been enjoying the conversations here, so thought I’d reach out to this community for some advice on an RV-related hobby project I’ve been working on recently.

With our kids leaving home, we’ve been thinking about purchasing a smaller trailer. This fall we went up to the Hershey show and found a few models we were interested in, but the prices were a little high, so we decided to just keep an eye on the market.

What we discovered was that it wasn’t so easy to just keep an eye on the market! It was rather time consuming and required repeated visits to online dealership sites and hunting/pecking around their inventory.

I’m a software developer by trade (and by hobby!), so in my spare time I’ve been working on an online tool that searches the inventory of dealers within 25-1000 miles for a specific make or model. It also lets you save your searches (and can send weekly email updates if you want).

I’m using it to keep an eye out for the models I am looking for, and thought it might be a helpful service to offer up to the greater RVing community as well. But before I put further work into it, I’d love some thoughts on it from fellow RV enthusiasts! You can find it here: Search for RVs and trailer trailers from dealers near you.

Specifically, I’d be interested to know:

  • How did you go about shopping for your last RV?
  • Would you have found a tool like this helpful - or not?
  • Do you have any thoughts on how I could make this more useful?

You can drop your feedback here or email it to me directly at [email protected] (I can compile what I learn and post a summary if that would be of interest).

Thanks all! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

–Justin
 
The prices for used are likely just as high as prices for new so you might be surprised what your existing rig is worth as trade. I purchased a 2014 4runner in 2017. When I traded it in on my 2022 Tacoma, the dealer appraised it at $5000 less than what I paid for it 5 years prior. It made up for the markup on the tacoma. Guessing same might be true for RVs
 
The good news was then when I looked into selling off my existing trailer, I could get almost what I paid for it. The bad news is that a new (smaller) trailer was going to cost twice as much. And that is what set me down the path of creating an RV price comparison/tracking website ...
 
Think it’s best to shop online close by your location. Once you find a few to check out, go check them out personally. Inspect with a fine tooth comb. Make them hook everything up to test out water, heater, air conditioner, and toilet. Open every door. Open every window. Expand awning and slide outs. Crawl underneath. Get up on the roof. Look at EVERYTHING! Test EVERYTHING! Good luck.
 
For those of you who haven't figured this out, the OP is promoting his website. He is not interested in our advice unless it directly drives more clicks to his business.
 
I understand your concern about commercial intrusions on this community -- I thought carefully about this before my original post. However, I assure you that RV Ferret is a hobby (it generates no revenue; I'm paying all costs out-of-pocket). I originally wrote it for myself to help with shopping for my next trailer and thought it might be useful for others. I've learned a ton from working on it (this isn't the sort of software development I normally do) and have really enjoyed the experience. I am just hoping to get some feedback.

On earlier post about testing a new trailer: Here's one I learned the hard way -- check the wheel bearing grease. Our new KZ Escape burned out an axle after only a few trips due to lack of grease. According to the mechanic that replaced the axle, this is a common problem.
 
I recently bought a 5 year old TT, first trip was to tire shop for new tires and repack bearings. Any used vehicles should go through a good inspection after purchase. The tech told me they did repack, but bearings were good and reasonably packed.
Your search engine sounds interesting, I would assume the distance would be set by user. same for budget.
 
darsben -- Thanks for the feedback. Like you noted, RV Ferret isn't useful for flexible shopping. Its sweet spot is when you know and make/model and are trying to find units on dealer's lots / prices.

PancakeBill -- I wish I had been reading this forum before I bought my last trailer to get that sort of advise. The good news is that when the bearings blew, we were only a half hour into our trip and happened to be near probably the only place in Northern Virginia where you can get an axle replaced on short-notice. (If you can imagine -- BOOM! My wife: "What was that? Why is there smoke coming from the trailer?")

Yes, the user provides a zip, distance, make/model, and condition (new/used). The search engine figures out which dealers are within the distance of the zip and then searches their websites.
 
Hi Justin, I checked out your site and here's my thoughts.

It is very good for what you stated, looking up specific year/make/model, but so is Google. I found my current RV by first narrowing down my choice to exact year/make/model + or - a year or two. I then searched Google to find every one of them on the internet and ultimately bought in NC, I'm in MA.

If you want to set your site apart from every other out there you need to add a weighting system for options. Realtors would benefit from this as well; I'm currently searching for my retirement home.

In looking at RVs and now houses, there are plenty of apps out there that let you filter on certain characteristics, e.g. # of bedrooms, bathrooms, garage, etc. Same with RVs.

The problem with this is you will not see anything that doesn't satisfy all the filters. I am willing to trade off certain things on my filter based on others; e.g. I missed a listing alert my realtor set up because it didn't have a garage, however, it was in the exact area I wanted to move and had most everything else on my list, the same can be said of RVs.

If I was able to assign a weighted value to all my wants I could then use that weighted value as a filter to show me the closest to exactly what I wanted, which would of course include exact hits.

That to me would add value.

Respectfully
 
The prices for used are likely just as high as prices for new so you might be surprised what your existing rig is worth as trade. I purchased a 2014 4runner in 2017. When I traded it in on my 2022 Tacoma, the dealer appraised it at $5000 less than what I paid for it 5 years prior. It made up for the markup on the tacoma. Guessing same might be true for RVs
We recently bought a 2021 Jayco Eagle 5th wheel. The price was considerably less than a new model.
 
Yeah, MN Blue Skies. I've been stewing over new vs used. This showed up in my update this morning:
1675388500402.png
That's a huge price difference! On the other hand, when I was at the Hershey RV Show, it seemed like significant improvements are being made in solar panels / batteries, so I'm torn (although not $26K torn).
 
Hi! We are new to the forum - two-time travel trailers owners (currently an EZ Escape E231BH). I’ve really been enjoying the conversations here, so thought I’d reach out to this community for some advice on an RV-related hobby project I’ve been working on recently.

With our kids leaving home, we’ve been thinking about purchasing a smaller trailer. This fall we went up to the Hershey show and found a few models we were interested in, but the prices were a little high, so we decided to just keep an eye on the market.

What we discovered was that it wasn’t so easy to just keep an eye on the market! It was rather time consuming and required repeated visits to online dealership sites and hunting/pecking around their inventory.

I’m a software developer by trade (and by hobby!), so in my spare time I’ve been working on an online tool that searches the inventory of dealers within 25-1000 miles for a specific make or model. It also lets you save your searches (and can send weekly email updates if you want).

I’m using it to keep an eye out for the models I am looking for, and thought it might be a helpful service to offer up to the greater RVing community as well. But before I put further work into it, I’d love some thoughts on it from fellow RV enthusiasts! You can find it here: Search for RVs and trailer trailers from dealers near you.

Specifically, I’d be interested to know:

  • How did you go about shopping for your last RV?
  • Would you have found a tool like this helpful - or not?
  • Do you have any thoughts on how I could make this more useful?

You can drop your feedback here or email it to me directly at [email protected] (I can compile what I learn and post a summary if that would be of interest).

Thanks all! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

–Justin
First welcome to the RV forum Justin.

DH and I recently bought a 2021 5th wheel to upgrade from our 2013 5th wheel. We pretty much knew what we were looking for so I did a google search and also looked at RV Trader and bingo we found exactly what we wanted at a fair price.

Perhaps it was just luck that we easily found what we were looking for but I think it helped that we knew what we wanted.
 
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