Today I am feeling deeply discouraged about our RV search. The Dolphin A class did not turn out to be a good idea for us. We got it inspected on Wednesday and found out that there were many big and small things wrong with the RV, including the slide that needed a new engine ($640 for the part, plus installation), and also maybe needing a new seal since water kept leaking into the RV. Next, the rear sway bars were gone ($200-500 for parts plus install), the leaf springs were gone ($200-500 for parts plus install), the rear main seal had an oil leak, transmission pan leaking, leaks around the exhaust system (which means it would likely not pass emission testing here in WA state), front struts were worn as well. Although the engine was mostly reported as solid, the extra work, plus the taxes, placed the RV several thousand dollars over the NADA price and it would have taken every penny we had to buy and repair it for the road. We had to say no.
This is where it got weird. The owner did not want to take no for an answer and overwhelmed us with emails, phone calls and a facebook friend request. I felt horrible for the family because they were hoping we would buy it. At first I figured one of the several other people who, I had been told several times, wanted to buy the rig outright would step up. But this turned out to be not entirely true. The emails and calls made me feel very uncomfortable (I will not get into the craziness here out of respect for the other party), and I finally had to have my husband call them – hoping a male voice would end the conversation. Regardless, it made my ending week horrible.
Some good did come out of all of this: the realization that should a 35’ RV break down in the middle of nowhere –we would be screwed. It took a lot of phone calls to find a place in Olympia to look at the whole RV and do a complete inspection. Finding a place with the correct kind of lift to elevate such a huge machine is a massive task. As such, and after talking at length about all of this after the last fiasco, we are going to look at a truck and 5th wheel or travel trailer combo. This might solve other problems as well: 1 vehicle insurance to pay for instead of two. If something goes wrong with the truck, it will be easier to get it fixed; we could do some boondocking and so on. It also adds some problems – we would have to buy 2 rather than 1 unit (a truck and a trailer or 5th wheel). Have a better understanding of towing capacities, needs and towing weight – all of which seems a bit complicated.
In the end, I hope this bad experience will turn out to be a good experience. I also hope the family of the RV we were looking at finds a nice buyer soon. I really wish them the best but to purchase their machine would have been a bad idea for us financially – what good would an RV be if we had no more money left to use it?!
R
Showing posts with label RV inspections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RV inspections. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
A New Year with Less Stuff
I should have allowed George and I to have a relaxing day today but I didn’t. I feel overwhelmed by the task ahead of us. The amount of research needed, packing needed, busy work, and so on is just a lot to take in and find time for. It takes a lot of planning to turn your lifestyle upside-down in such a profound way. So many things have to be done and planned for if you want to go from living a standard lifestyle to living in an RV, touring the US and doing it so you are not bankrupted.
Yesterday, we worked at finalizing the RV deal we hope will happen. As I wrote before, we are looking at a 1996 National Dolphin with a slide. The sellers are a nice family who had some hard luck and ended up living in their RV – but not by choice. Now things are looking up for them and they wish to move into an apartment and start over—thus, they are selling the RV. The husband and wife are super nice people and I was happy to meet them. Regardless, because of their working schedule, we were trying to find a RV inspection company that could do the inspection on a Saturday. This was an impossible task. George spent over two hours on the phone trying to locate a garage to do the work, but mechanics apparently mostly work Monday through Friday! At the last minute, the sellers found they could make a Wednesday appointment and so we will do it then!
Next, we are trying to coordinate with our credit union for what we need to do to get the small loan. But that was hard since our representative at the bank is super, crazy busy and it’s hard to get him on the phone. I swear that poor man works non-stop. Anyway, that was yesterday, 2009, today is 01/01/10 (I love the symmetry and tomorrow’s date will be a palindrome! 01/02/2010).
Today I looked around at all our stuff and had a heart attack (well not really, just minor panic in the form of my heart pounding out of my chest cavity). We have so much stuff. I mean a lot of crap. What will we do with it all? I can’t simply sell EVERYTHING because what if this experiment of our goes south and we hate the life style of fulltiming in an RV? In that case, I will want some of my stuff! Then there is the fact that I am in possession of many sentimental items from my family: photos, pictures, figurines, pop’s pray shawls, mom’s journals and writings among other things. We cannot simply sell this stuff. Hell, what do I do with my wedding dress? We have decided on a small (about 10x 5) storage unit. At 60 dollars a month (approximately) it is not that bad.
Well, freaking out, I made George help me go through our stuff. First we tackled the Christmas and Hanukah decorations. We got it all down to a single box! Most of the rest (about 4 boxes of “stuff”) will be given away. We also started going through my books (that’s a task and a half) and George’s sports stuff. The last task of the night was our movies. I suspect that we will not be watching too much TV while we are on the road, and so I want our movies. We tackled the challenge of taking all the DVDs out of their packaging, dividing the whole mess into genre, and then putting the films and TV series into two large DVD holders. The process of dividing recyclable material from non-recyclables was daunting. We now have three bags full of empty DVD covers we hope we can give away.
People I talk to about our planned adventure tell me that getting rid of your belongings is a liberating experience and you feel lighter for the effort. This may be true, but I have found that I place a lot of emotional value on several things. Mostly, I believe, these emotions are linked back to items that belonged to my mom or pop and now that they have died, I feel like getting rid of the item in question is like dismissing my folks and their memory. I know this is not true intellectually, I mean keeping a hat from the 60s will not bring my mom back, but emotionally it is a whole different ballgame! I keep trying to tell myself to be strong and that it is ok to keep the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series and get rid of the hat I have never worn. Well, needless to say this will be a continuing daunting task! Here is to New Year’s Resolutions and the realization that “stuff” is not love!
Yesterday, we worked at finalizing the RV deal we hope will happen. As I wrote before, we are looking at a 1996 National Dolphin with a slide. The sellers are a nice family who had some hard luck and ended up living in their RV – but not by choice. Now things are looking up for them and they wish to move into an apartment and start over—thus, they are selling the RV. The husband and wife are super nice people and I was happy to meet them. Regardless, because of their working schedule, we were trying to find a RV inspection company that could do the inspection on a Saturday. This was an impossible task. George spent over two hours on the phone trying to locate a garage to do the work, but mechanics apparently mostly work Monday through Friday! At the last minute, the sellers found they could make a Wednesday appointment and so we will do it then!
Next, we are trying to coordinate with our credit union for what we need to do to get the small loan. But that was hard since our representative at the bank is super, crazy busy and it’s hard to get him on the phone. I swear that poor man works non-stop. Anyway, that was yesterday, 2009, today is 01/01/10 (I love the symmetry and tomorrow’s date will be a palindrome! 01/02/2010).
Today I looked around at all our stuff and had a heart attack (well not really, just minor panic in the form of my heart pounding out of my chest cavity). We have so much stuff. I mean a lot of crap. What will we do with it all? I can’t simply sell EVERYTHING because what if this experiment of our goes south and we hate the life style of fulltiming in an RV? In that case, I will want some of my stuff! Then there is the fact that I am in possession of many sentimental items from my family: photos, pictures, figurines, pop’s pray shawls, mom’s journals and writings among other things. We cannot simply sell this stuff. Hell, what do I do with my wedding dress? We have decided on a small (about 10x 5) storage unit. At 60 dollars a month (approximately) it is not that bad.
Well, freaking out, I made George help me go through our stuff. First we tackled the Christmas and Hanukah decorations. We got it all down to a single box! Most of the rest (about 4 boxes of “stuff”) will be given away. We also started going through my books (that’s a task and a half) and George’s sports stuff. The last task of the night was our movies. I suspect that we will not be watching too much TV while we are on the road, and so I want our movies. We tackled the challenge of taking all the DVDs out of their packaging, dividing the whole mess into genre, and then putting the films and TV series into two large DVD holders. The process of dividing recyclable material from non-recyclables was daunting. We now have three bags full of empty DVD covers we hope we can give away.
People I talk to about our planned adventure tell me that getting rid of your belongings is a liberating experience and you feel lighter for the effort. This may be true, but I have found that I place a lot of emotional value on several things. Mostly, I believe, these emotions are linked back to items that belonged to my mom or pop and now that they have died, I feel like getting rid of the item in question is like dismissing my folks and their memory. I know this is not true intellectually, I mean keeping a hat from the 60s will not bring my mom back, but emotionally it is a whole different ballgame! I keep trying to tell myself to be strong and that it is ok to keep the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series and get rid of the hat I have never worn. Well, needless to say this will be a continuing daunting task! Here is to New Year’s Resolutions and the realization that “stuff” is not love!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
