To camper or not to camper... Hunting and married couple trips

[Fowl Play]

All the brands have pretty bad quality control in my opinion until you get up to the very expensive custom or semi custom campers. Being handy is a necessity with campers. You get higher quality wood and components moving up the line, but you still might have some knucklehead put it together wrong on a Friday while he’s trying to take off for the bar. My Grand Design is basically the top of the line they make. My solar panels were never connected to the rest of the system (bare hot wire laying unconnected in the pass thru). My roof ripped off in Kansas (the front cap was not installed correctly). I had a major water line break and cause a flood in the underbelly. And my electric over hydraulic brakes failed coming out of Breckenridge. This all happened in the first 2 months of ownership of a brand spanking “custom” ordered $140k unit from the factory. Even though you have a warranty, it’s a month to get into a dealer and a two to three month wait minimum to get your trailer back. Even with a brand new unit, I wound up performing all the above repairs myself, just so I could keep using the trailer. It was a major pain in the ass. Still having a blast in it, and no major issues in a long time (knock on wood). Just preparing you for the reality. The interior work (wood, counters, etc) are all very well done in mine. But looks like a meth head did the wiring and plumbing.

A friend with an almost identical unit purchased a month earlier has had literally zero issues in almost 2 years of full time use. It’s hit or miss on quality control.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

All the brands have pretty bad quality control in my opinion until you get up to the very expensive custom or semi custom campers. Being handy is a necessity with campers. You get higher quality wood and components moving up the line, but you still might have some knucklehead put it together wrong on a Friday while he’s trying to take off for the bar. My Grand Design is basically the top of the line they make. My solar panels were never connected to the rest of the system (bare hot wire laying unconnected in the pass thru). My roof ripped off in Kansas (the front cap was not installed correctly). I had a major water line break and cause a flood in the underbelly. And my electric over hydraulic brakes failed coming out of Breckenridge. This all happened in the first 2 months of ownership of a brand spanking “custom” ordered $140k unit from the factory. Even though you have a warranty, it’s a month to get into a dealer and a two to three month wait minimum to get your trailer back. Even with a brand new unit, I wound up performing all the above repairs myself, just so I could keep using the trailer. It was a major pain in the ass. Still having a blast in it, and no major issues in a long time (knock on wood). Just preparing you for the reality. The interior work (wood, counters, etc) are all very well done in mine. But looks like a meth head did the wiring and plumbing.

A friend with an almost identical unit purchased a month earlier has had literally zero issues in almost 2 years of full time use. It’s hit or miss on quality control.

but you still might have some knucklehead put it together wrong on a Friday while he’s trying to take off for the bar

LMAO! My wife worked on the line at Pella Windows for 17 years, and she used to always say the same thing.

Overall, this is EXACTLY the impression I've gathered after spending quite a bit of time reading reviews and watching YT videos. This is another reason why buying a camper that's a couple years old can be good, including depreciation advantage, because the "shake down" trips that identify issues have already been completed and any warranty work has "hopefully" been done. This is another reason why buying in the fall can be an advantage, because if you're not going to camp over winter, it's a good time to have the camper sitting at the dealer "waiting on parts" "waiting on prioritization" or one of the other myriad excuses, when you're not in camping season.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Yes as fowl play noted its hit / miss on quality and also they lack proper design in various aspects. For instance my GD 247BH I mentioned had 4" head ducted to the under belly, front bedroom, a 4" duct to the bathroom (at the bac) with a 2" take off into the main camper. So the area of the camper that comprised 60% of the volume had a 2" branch tee duct feeding it... that is the most moronic design choice with zero redeeming rationale imho. Needless to say I added a 4" vent into the main air, put louver vent on the bedroom (way to hot in there otherwise) and a slide valve on the line into the uninsulated underbelly (a layer of chloroplast plastic isn't insulation) so I'm not dumping energy out of the camper when I am already "dry" camping in terms of the camper plumbing.

 

[brca005]

All the brands have pretty bad quality control in my opinion until you get up to the very expensive custom or semi custom campers. Being handy is a necessity with campers. You get higher quality wood and components moving up the line, but you still might have some knucklehead put it together wrong on a Friday while he’s trying to take off for the bar. My Grand Design is basically the top of the line they make. My solar panels were never connected to the rest of the system (bare hot wire laying unconnected in the pass thru). My roof ripped off in Kansas (the front cap was not installed correctly). I had a major water line break and cause a flood in the underbelly. And my electric over hydraulic brakes failed coming out of Breckenridge. This all happened in the first 2 months of ownership of a brand spanking “custom” ordered $140k unit from the factory. Even though you have a warranty, it’s a month to get into a dealer and a two to three month wait minimum to get your trailer back. Even with a brand new unit, I wound up performing all the above repairs myself, just so I could keep using the trailer. It was a major pain in the ass. Still having a blast in it, and no major issues in a long time (knock on wood). Just preparing you for the reality. The interior work (wood, counters, etc) are all very well done in mine. But looks like a meth head did the wiring and plumbing.

A friend with an almost identical unit purchased a month earlier has had literally zero issues in almost 2 years of full time use. It’s hit or miss on quality control.

To piggy back off this some, a GOOD (gotta dig) mobile RV tech is worth their weight in gold, they can do almost everything a dealer can but are much faster and they come to you. Yes, they can be more expensive but you aren’t having the wait times like going through a dealer.

Also, GD specifically (personal experience) will allow mobile RV techs to come out, repair whatever, you pay the mobile RV tech and GD will reimburse you under a warranty claim minus I believe the trip charge and maybe something else. I called GD explained what was going on, I couldn’t get into the dealer for a couple months and they gave me a warranty claim number to reference and allowed a mobile RV tech to come out and do the repair, I submitted the invoice/receipt and had a check from GD in a few weeks.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

This is another reason why buying a camper that's a couple years old can be good

If your budget allows look for one that's structure doesn't reply on wood or laminated fiberglass for structure (that is different than a fiberglass shell) unless they have a very strong track record of zero delamination's.

The "stick and tin" wood campers if they are kept rot free can hold up and they are repairable if needed as the aluminum siding is stapled to the wood. (Older four wheel campers and also all terrain campers are aluminum siding stapled to aluminum framing). The campers than are fiberglass laminated to foam walls if they fail you're kinda screwed.

Or has been noted find a well built (structurally) cargo trailer and build your own.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

If your budget allows look for one that's structure doesn't reply on wood or laminated fiberglass for structure (that is different than a fiberglass shell) unless they have a very strong track record of zero delamination's.

The "stuck and tin" wood campers if they are kept rot free can hold up and they are repairable if needed as the aluminum siding is stapled to the wood. (Older four wheel campers and also all terrain campers are aluminum siding stapled to aluminum framing). The campers than are fiberglass laminated to foam walls if they fail you're kinda screwed.

Or has been noted find a well built (structurally) cargo trailer and build your own.

The wolf pups are supposed to have 12" on center wood studs underneath the fiberglass instead of 16" in traditional construction. I'm not sure if that is unique to other trailers or not. They also have aluminum ribs in the bottom, which I don't think is particularly unique either. Both are supposed to increase rigidity and add some weight, which isn't a bad thing in a shorter trailer. The ultralites have a bad reputation of bouncing themselves apart I guess, and I can handle extra weight back there with 500hp and 700+lb ft. of torque. LOL!

If this discovery process turns into reality, I'm also likely going to get my truck re-geared. Although I love the look of 35s, they significantly eat up your factory gear ratio. I had an awesome conversation with the owner of Kodiak Truck yesterday (highly recommend these guys if you're looking for trans, transfer case, and front/rear end work) and he said if you're running 35s on a stock truck with 3.73s, you're effectively reduced to 3.23s or less due to the extra effort to turn the larger tires. As a result, regearing to 4.10s essentially sets you back to factory capability ~3.73 overall. Not a cheap investment, but he also puts in helical lockers instead of the crappy factory eaton internals.

I like the idea of building my own camper from an enclosed trailer using those rail systems, but my wife wants more creature comforts and 'style' if she's going camping. LOL! That would be a great project for a dedicated hunting or fishing rig.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

My superduty has the 34" (20" wheels) all terrains on it with 3.73 rear axle however that is paired with a 10speed transmission so its not hard to find a good RPM for the situation.

 

[wyosam]

We have a 13’ Scamp. About as simple as can be and still be a camper. It’s still a pain in the butt maintenance wise. My wife said she wanted a bigger one, so we compromised and bought a big boat for the salt instead. Has all the stuff a camper does, but goes to way cooler places than campgrounds. Certainly not a cheaper less maintenance solution, but less depreciation (depending on what you buy) and far more interesting.


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[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

It’s still a pain in the butt maintenance wise.

What are you running into with it? Obiously still has axle bearings/brakes/tires to inspect and maintain but I'd think the fiberglass shell would reduce alot of other issues.