Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 13, 2025 ...

When obtaining insurance for our '95 coach some years ago, the rep I was talking to could not understand why I was insisting that a replacement figure was more than double what he saw on NADA. I had to educate him ... and then he realized what we were talking about. I think he thought I was running some kind of scam!!

We encountered this problem when buying our coach this year.  The sale price was $83k, but NADA had it at around $45 and we could not get a vehicle loan for it.  We ended  up having to do an equity loan to cover the cost (this worked out better than having to sell stocks).  Normally, we use USAA insurance, but they referred us to Progressive, since they don't cover RVs (or classic cars for that matter).  Progressive will insure based on "agreed upon value"; in our case $83k if we suffer a total loss.

I just posted the spreadsheet to the media section.

It covers 61 coaches, '96 - '04, comparing asking prices vs. book, with commentary on condition (at least what it appears to be from photos) as well as the type of seller.

When we listed our coach for sale at MOT it had a NADA average value of $94500. The list price as shown on NADA was $355,000. The listed price depreciated for 13 years would be 9.68%. I am using the free NADA available on the internet.
Larry

Yes, you're right.  The first 2-4 years depreciation is heavy (around 25%).  For a few years after that it's less, around 8-9%.  Then it drops to a steady 4% or so.  My point is, there is a forumula, plain and simple.  Nothing else goes into calculating book value.  And it's the same formula no matter what make of motorhome.

As a long term Rv sales manager who made part of his living by financing Rv's if you do not add for every piece of "optional" equipement on our coaches the wholesale and retail numbers are low.

Posted this many times.  NONE of you were in the biz.  You are incorrectly calculating the nada book values. 

And if you did add everything the values were still low.

Look at Kelly blue book and add for equipement,  closer.

As a long term Rv sales manager who made part of his living by financing Rv's if you do not add for every piece of "optional" equipement on our coaches the wholesale and retail numbers are low.

Posted this many times.  NONE of you were in the biz.  You are incorrectly calculating the nada book values. 

And if you did add everything the values were still low.

Look at Kelly blue book and add for equipement,  closer.

Before you tell me it's all standard I have built several coaches as empty shells from Foretravel

Mea culpa

For the exercise I undertook - which was to compare numbers for many coaches in one place against the only standard I know of, which is "book value" it was impractical to go through and pinpoint every feature of every type of coach.  For millenium era coaches there are 34, 36, 40, 42 tag, non-tag, U270, U295, U320, slides, no slides... I wasn't going to itemize.  But I DO wonder since there is a standard feature set offered on every U320 and likewise a different standard feature set offered on every U295, and likewise for every U270, why the "book values" do not take those standard features into consideration?  In fact there are different book values also depending on how many slides.  Why do the book values not include features that came standard with each model?  Why would they have to be manually added to the book values?  In that case what do the book values actually represent?  I don't follow the logic - seems like a very fuzzy logic.  And I will say again - the *depreciations* are according to a *formula*.  Plain and simple.  I saw it.  I am not going to dispute it.