Choosing an RV (The First Time)

So the CurbCrushers were at the point where they wanted an RV, they just needed to decide what to get. At the time the CurbCrushers owned two vehicles, a GMC Sonoma S-10 Pickup, and an Olds Minivan. The S-10 was not made for a family though as it had two sideways facing jump seats in the small extended cab area behind the two bucket seats, so that left the minivan. The initial thought was to buy a towable RV that could be towed with the minivan. Well, when CurbCrusher started researching the towing capability of the minivan, it quickly became obvious that they only option would be a small pop-up.

The first decision was whether to get a drivable RV (motorhome) or a towable. The CurbCrushers thought they wanted a motorhome, so after asking around, they set off to Lazy Days. A very patient salesman showed them some low end new Class A motorhomes and then some bigger used Class Cs. One of the big drawbacks to the Class A was that the only place for Little CurbCrusher to sleep was the couch or the dinette. So it seemed as though the Class C might be more appealing, as some of them have the bed over the cab. So off the family went on a test drive in one of the used Class C motorhomes that day at Lazy Days. After the test drive, Curbcrusher didn’t like the visibility to the back and sides (although this may have just been because I wasn’t used to driving something that large at the time) and the whole family didn’t like the visibility from the living area out the front. A example is that if Little CurbCrusher was sitting at the dinette while traveling and Lady CurbCrusher said “look at that”, there’s no way for Little CurbCrusher to look out the front window. So at the end of the Lazy Days browsing trip, a disappointed CurbCrusher clan was not sure what they were seeking in an RV.

The CurbCrushers started visiting RV shows and dealers on the weekends. At some point a trailer that had a bunkhouse in the back was encountered. That seemed ideal. It gave Little CurbCrusher a place to sleep that didn’t interfere with the adults staying up late, and it also meant that one didn’t have to put a room back together before eating in the morning. So the field was narrowed to trailers that had bunk houses.

There was still the matter of the tow vehicle. It was time to replace the S-10, so the CurbCrushers next thought was to get an SUV and tow a trailer behind it. When CurbCrusher started researching the towing capacity of SUVs, he was quite surprised to find that they were much lower than he’d imagined. It shortly became apparent that to get any decent towing capacity, it was going to require the purchase of a full size or a heavy duty pickup truck. After reading and talking to a few people about the differences in towing between a fifth-wheel and a trailer, CurbCrusher suggested that if a pickup truck was going to be the tow vehicle, why not go to a fifth-wheel.

At about this same time the CurbCrusher family saw the Salem 32BHSS unit at a show or on some dealer lot. Lady CurbCrusher and Little CurbCrusher fell in love with the RV, and started lobbying for it. CurbCrusher had really wanted to stay with a unit that was thirty feet long or shorter, and this thing was thirty-five. In the end the women won, and the CurbCrushers had picked out their first RV.

Before getting the RV though, a tow vehicle was needed. It was apparent from the RV selected that heavy-duty pickup was going to be required. CurbCrusher has always been a GM guy, but he read up on the GMC 2500HD, the Ram 2500 and the F-250. One of the factors in the decision was whether or not it would fit in the garage, because CurbCrusher likes parking in the garage. The Ford was about 4 inches longer than the GM or the Dodge, and that was the difference between being in the garage or out. With the Dodge you could get a Cummins diesel, but on the GM the Allison Transmission was available. After doing some research on the engine/transmission combinations, CurbCrusher was convinced that the Duramax/Allison was the way to go, and ended up with a GMX 2500HD Duramax.

And that is pretty much how the CurbCrusher clan ended up with the Fifth-Wheel.

This entry was posted on November 21, 2007 at 4:21 pm and is filed under RV Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.