Quote:
Originally Posted by jyates9701
My wife and I are in the process of shopping for our 1st travel trailer. We are looking at the 201BHXL and wanted to know if: 1. Is Forest River a reliable product and 2. Is this a good TT?
We are taking our time and doing lots of shopping around and, so far, this is our favorite.
We are both teachers and don't have a lot of money to throw at something that is going to require a lot of maintenance. We love camping, but are ready to stop sleeping in tents!! We are having our first grandchild this year and want to take them out camping as they grow up, but the older we get the more we realize how hard tent camping is.
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Hello and welcome to the world of RVing!
Sorry for the long text, but because you asked for what was in my mind for two years before I made my decision, and I never look back. I thought that if I spell it out, it would help you to get to your decision much quicker and enjoy the RV life sooner.
Two years ago, my DW and I went through the same process as you are doing now. We have done a lot of research from trailer to Class A RV and everything in between. Our final choice is now what we love, the Georgetown XL 352QS Class A gas coach.
Having that said, here is the deal. It does not matter what your choice would be, to me, there is no wrong or right choice, but whatever would make you feel good and comfortable with. Before we bought ours gas Class A, our top contender was the DP Palazzo from Thor. However, when I said top contender, it does not mean that we love it 100%. We look at that coach from our local dealer at least 10 times and salesman thought that we would sign on the dotted line any days. Each time we look at the coach, it is just something that does not give us the satisfaction even though it was the best that we found. Of course, if we would want to up our ante for another $60,000 we would be able to get a nicer one too. So we look at the nice one at $60,000 higher, but then something else makes us feel lesser comfortable. Maybe just the feeling of the first time RVer and the $250,000 coach.
One day, we visited the MHSRV in Dallas which is about 250 miles from home, make the long story short, we saw the Forest River Georgetown, the minutes we went on the coach, we felt so good and the wife said: "this is it". And that was all it took. Combine the price, the very well made, the roominess, it makes us feel home right away. Needless to say, half an hour later, we signed on the dotted line and took it home with us 2 weeks later. Was what we did a right choice? "YES" to some, but "NO" to many others. BUT, the bottom line is a big YES to us and that was all it matter.
That was almost a year ago and we still love it today. We are currently on the fifth week of our two months trip and we could not find any reason that we should not love our choice.
Many people had comment about our choices, some were with us, some were not. But, the bottom line is, we love it because the choice we did, made us happy. That is the most important.
Now, talking about reliability. You have to understand few thing here.
RV, in general, is a moving home. Vibration and twisting from road imperfection and wind load and many other things will put a lot of stress on the unit. It will create problems, big or small, sooner or later, it just the matter of WHEN and WHERE.
Your RV whether a TT or a class A or anything in between, it is no more than a box sit on top of a chassis except that if you would want to spend $600,000 or more for a bus style RV and then you still have boxes in a bigger box (slides in the chassis). The reliability of a unit is based on its price, rather than the manufacturers, and here is why I said that.
We are in the retirement cycle of the "Baby Boomer". There is a large population for this generation, that is why they called "Baby Boomer" and I do not get into that. However, there are many of the "Baby Boomer" in this generation make good money, they retired early and want to get out more to roam the country. Therefore more RVs were sold and more RV were produced. Even some "Joe Blow" company down the road may want to get into the business to take a slice of that big pie.
It is just a simple business sense that the manufacturers try to capture the opportunity to make money for the stockholders. The more they could put out the better their return. If you look at this angle, the lower cost unit says $50,000 or less would yield narrower profit margin and the bigger unit says $500,000 or more would yield larger profit margin. Now, put yourself in the shoe of the company CEO, which unit would you want to spend more effort such as money, time, and quality?
With that said, I found the quality is really depending on what you spend on. That still does not guaranty that the more you spend mean you will get a perfect RV, but you would get lesser trouble, but may be the trouble that you would get from an expensive RV may cost you dearly too because they equipped with a more complex system and parts.
There are many of the old timer manufacturers including Winnebago, Forest River, Fleetwood, etc. to name a few. For Forest River alone, the question is if FR has a reliable product? The only thing that anyone could tell you is the company is a veteran in the business, they are a reputable company, and for the rest, if you read what I analyzed above, you would already get your answer and own conclusion depending on what type of unit that you are looking for. If you looking to the forum chats from any brand, you will be more devasted because the more than 95% of the people here in the forum posting their problems to seek help, only 5% are bragging of their good coach (bragging is not bad, if you spend good money and the coach doing well, you have all the rights to brag). With all of those problems raised in the forum, don't let that discourage you, that does not mean that FR is not a good coach. As the matter of fact, look on the brighter side, it may mean that there are many people bought the brand, and there are many more out there are happy with the brand too. Forest River is a great company, it has been around for many years, but still, the quality and reliability still depending on what is their profit margin. Also, you have to look at a bigger picture, how many people posted their issue vs. how many RVs what were manufactured from that same company which has many satisfied customers that did not post any complaint or looking for help from the forum.
The bottom line, pick whatever you like, whatever you feel comfortable with in both of financially, mentally and happiness. If both you and your wife felt comfortable with the unit, it really does not matter what it is, or which brand or manufacturer, as long as it is a reputable company and not a "Joe Blow Manufacture" down the street, then you will be fine.
Always keep in mind that ALL RVs need to have a good "tender loving care" operator to hand holding it. By that, I meant someone must be at least have an average "handyman skill" because something will fall apart and you must be able to prepare yourself to deal with it. The smaller the unit, the less complication, the easier to get familiar with all of the components. Once you know the in-and-out of what you have, you will begin to love it dearly. That was it.
BTW, spare some change from your RV purchase budget and invest in a good tool box as well, because you will be needing it. It really does not matter how expensive of a unit that you purchase and this is not a joke.
Remember one thing that I learned: "Everyone in this forum can help you to fix any of the problems when it arises, but no one here could help you to choose what you would be happy with". They could only tell you what they are happy with based on their viewpoint, like me, I love what I have, and I told you so, but many of the people out there having the same make and model may swear on their unit fricking every day.
Good luck and have a wonderful time researching.
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