Hey y’all! I’m Katy. I’m a full time online student, a part time communications assistant for a private school, and a photographer. Over the past year, I’ve been really diving into researching and loving the van/skoolie lifestyle! I would love to purchase my own bus or van this summer to start working on over the next couple of years while I finish up school! I’m completely new to this world so any tips or tricks or best kind of bus or van to buy and where to buy would be super helpful. So excited to start this journey!
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Hi Katy, welcome to the forum.
Welcome Katie, im Jg im new here.
Welcome!
As a life long nomad, I’ve had many rigs over the years, and built, or been involved in many builds.
Over the years, my views have changed, a very cheap, mid 1970’s, move in ready motorhome is now my vehicle of choice. For under $2500 you can have a move in ready home on wheels, that was built in an era when quality was still important. They’re also cheaper & easier to repair.
I’ve had every type of van, step van, bus, boat, and motorhome out there, from brand new, to very old. Factory camper, to DIY by myself, or previous owners.
Anything new enough to be computerized is GARBAGE!!! Constant check engine lights, bad sensors, and poor design in general. Mechanical problems usually give fair warning before failing, but electrical problems can leave you stranded without any prior warning. That’s what the computer age has contributed to vehicles, unreliability.
While money has rarely been an issue for me, comfort, convenience, and reliability are. The old saying “You get what you pay for…” seems to have become obsolete since about the 1980’s when greed became more important than quality.
Motorhomes kind of defy logic, you can still find old motorhomes in like new condition, with low miles, for very cheap, and the older ones aren’t all plastic. There’s good reason that so many motorhomes and travel trailers from the 50’s, 60’s, & 70’s are still in use today, they were simply built better.
For me, the bottom line is that I can frequently buy a very comfortable, very reliable, move in ready home on wheels for under $2500. After a few years, I can still sell it for what I paid for it or more. That’s what I consider sustainable living, while fulfilling my nomadic desires.
I wasted tons of money before coming to the conclusion that dirt cheap motorhomes, or dirt cheap older vans, with dirt cheap “no build” builds, actually met my needs & requirements much better than wasting big bucks on inferior living accommodations. It’s hard to beat the convenience of having a full kitchen and bathroom. None of this gym membership for showers baloney for me, or the ordeal of filthy public restrooms.
The good life doesn’t need to be expensive. I don’t need to impress anybody but myself, and I can actually enjoy life on all the money I’m saving.
Unless you are a dyi mechanic or have one in the family or among friends beware of very old vehicles, or have lots if money to put in repairs. There is a happy medium in lower mileage but not very old motorhomes, still not full of electronics, but these days it is not going to be cheap.
If you are actively traveling like myself you can not get too old unreliable stuff, will be spending lots of time stranded and ripped off my random mechanics.
I rather pay more upfront and travel with confidence than be stuck in 100F or freezing weather and not be able to get to places I need to amd my plans ruined.
This is especially important for MH, buses etc which are also your home as you may have to live in a hotel for weeks waiting for repairs.
Really old vehicles are more for people who move small distances and stay local, with family to go live with if trouble starts
Sure you can find very old MH with low miles if you look for a while but this often means it sat unused and unmaintained which causes systems to deteriorate and get damaged, these are to be cautious about.
FYI 2500k is what mechanics often charge for non major repairs now or one RV component replacement.
Another thing with very old RVs is water damage and rust issues to look out for
As to schoolies I heard about lots of problems with them, major diesel engine and other probs. Be prepared to put lots of money in. Can be very hard to insure. I persinally wouldnt deal with one.
The 70’s Dodges with the 318 engines just never seem to die, and there’s still tons of mid 70’s motorhomes still on the road that have never leaked.
They paid people to junk their older vehicles to get them off the road because they were too reliable, and built to last too long. Luckily, not everybody fell for that outright scam, but they still managed to pull it off to get the masses to part with the best and most reliable vehicles ever built.
I’ve had many high mileage Dodges with that drivetrain, still all original, and still going strong. The same can’t be said for Ford or Chevy, but those old Dodge drivetrains were nearly bullet proof. Proper maintenance is still important, but their quality remains unequaled.
The driving experience was far better in them as well. I could drive those all day and all night without the fatigue that sets in within a couple of hours on the newer stuff.
Newer does not mean more reliable or better quality, just more expensive. Greed overtook quality and reliability in the early 80’s recession. My choices aren’t just based on cost, comfort & reliability are still top priorities for me.
Drivetrains might be good but there are a lot of things that go south in very old vehicles, seals, rust and all, but in motorhomes especially, with all the rot that hard to discover quickly too, rusted appliances, rusted propane stuff especially, etc
There are plenty of horror stories of people buying these very old RVs. Its usually a big project for a very handy person.
I had seen one horror story on here I think with very upset gentleman.
New RVs are also very poorly built.
There is a happy medium for RVs that arent too old but not new either.
This reminds me of a guy who held beloved low mileage motorhome in storage forever and than wanted to sell it but it went so bad from sitting unused and reruired a lot of money over 25k in repairs to make it good.
Not just the chassis, house systems can go bad from being unused. Maintenace is often absent on unused vehicles.
If someone was living it in actually while it was parked interior all will need replacement.
Very old vehicles are not safe for long distance travel and remote camping, imho, being stuck isnt fun, alone with no signal especially, 10x worse for a woman. My facebook is always full of breakdown stories on the way to Quartzsite looking for a cheap mechanic. One got to have mechanical skills.
Repairing them might be easier but mechanics, in unfamiliar place especially, especially if you are a woman, will rip you off, so it only makes sense when one can diy it all. Not a good option while traveling full time.
Its more forgiving for old trailers, but with motorhome too much is at stake. May be if you know and trust the seller is safer
Yes its tiring to drive newer vehicles and I get tired after a couple of hours. Though I know of people much older than me that seem not to get tired even after 13 hours
Many mechanics are rip off artists, but it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman, or what you’re driving. I was once a decent mechanic myself before all the computerized nonsense.
The Dodge vans & motorhomes were unique in the fact they used the industrial versions for the drivetrains. The only weak link ever found was the steering box, but it gave ample warning before becoming a real problem. Most of the steering boxes were commercial grade, but they must have had occasional shortages and used piickup ones occasionally. Those were the ones that had problems.
The motorhome portion is a different story, but it doesn’t have to do with age, but rather the manufacturing process. Some had wood frames, some had steel, and some had aluminum. Aluminum is the winner in this category. The interiors & exteriors were made of different materials, and the joints were connected & sealed in different ways. Some designs wouldn’t leak even if the seals failed, others were leaks waiting to happen. Some used waterproof interiors, and some didn’t.
This is where quality comes into play. Travco, American Clipper, Shasta, King Coach, Lazy Days, Security, Chinook, Balboa, and some others were top of the line. Winnebago and many others were bottom feeders, and low in design quality, as well as quality control. Many of the good ones have never leaked, and are still going strong with all of the original components, which were also built to last a lifetime.
Tires, brakes, hoses, belts, etc. need to be replaced regardless of a vehicles age, but being pro-active can prevent failures. The same can’t be said for electronics, which can fail without warning, or drivetrains built to be cheap and with very loose specs. Originally the dealers made the bulk of their money selling vehicles, but in the early 80’s there was a shift in the industry to where the dealers made less on sales, and were supposed to make up for it in repairs in their shops. So the manufacturers made sure their dealers would have lots of repair customers. That’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a well known fact in the industry. Greed won the war against quality.
I was a certified & qualified mechanic for many years, even though I worked many other jobs due to my nomadic lifestyle. Only very backlogged shops would hire temp mechanics, and walk in day labor was a whole lot easier for finding work.
In the end we each have to make our own choices. I make mine for comfort & reliability. Every time I was convinced to switch, I got screwed. Old school cool is the mantra for almost every long term nomad I know. Maybe we’re all wrong… but nobody has been able to prove it yet.
Don’t even get me started on warranties these days. It’s not uncommon for warranty work to take over a month. But never fear, they have rental cars just waiting for your money. That doesn’t help much when it’s your home in the shop though.
To win this game called life, we first need to understand it, and the ever changing rules.
I wish everyone the best with their choices, but my experiences hold the potential of helping others both now and in the future. Knowledge is a powerful thing, and you just never know what might come in handy when you least expect it. When my supposedly reliable low mileage sprinter broke down, they told me a week… Over $1k in the motel plus the car rental, eating out, etc. etc. Still not ready. I also needed to be 1,000 miles away. So I bought a 1972 Dodge Balboa Class C for $500, and off I went. It took them over 2 months to fix the sprinter that was still under warranty, yet still cost me over $5k for the towing & repairs, and it wasn’t half as comfortable or reliable as that motorhome. I proceeded to put over 100k trouble free miles on that motorhome other than standard maintenance. Just one more expensive lesson I learned the hard way.
I can’t even tell you how much money I’ve wasted on various “improvements” from vehicles to appliances, power systems, and everything else. I’m sure I helped make the promoters vast fortunes, all at my expense and pain. Bob Wells screwed me and many others over with his rotten advice, as well as many other promoters. The old timers were the ones with the best advice, given from experience, and not for profit. Now, I’m one of those old timers, hoping to pass on my knowledge before my time is up.
In the past, I’ve even bought Class C’s that were beyond repair, tore em down, and built a brand new camper on them for far cheaper than any newer empty van. Much was reusable, just the walls, roof, or floors were beyond repair, but much everything else was still usable. The world wants us broke & vulnerable, it’s their game plan, but luckily nobody is forced to participate. It’s still possible to be a winner if we play our cards right. Newer or more expensive isn’t necessarily better, better is better regardless of price or age, and true history doesn’t lie.
We’ve been taught the mindset of consumerism, and keeping up with the Jones’s. It’s all lies, and we need to break free from it. It isnt easy, I’ve struggled with it for years, but it is possible.