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Topic: Another Clueless Wannabe (Read 2943 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #40 –
Well, we just got back late last night from our "hunting" expedition to the wilds of East Texas.  Our trip went very well.  We had to postpone our departure one day due to terrible weather in the Midland-Odessa area, but finally got off on Tuesday.  Spent all day Wed. at MOT with Mel Cordray.  He was very friendly, very helpful, not pushy - a excellent salesman and tour guide.  Since we were trying to hold our initial purchase expense down, we started looking at the "low price end" of their available preowned coaches.  The '96 U270 previously owned by Rodger Riggs sold on Monday just before we left Midland, so it was out of the lineup.  We looked at (and took a short ride in) the '98 U270 34', looked at the '98 U270 36' (the "all white" one), and the '99 U295 36'.  We skipped over "Purple Haze" - just not our style.  Even though it was above our target price, "just to see what a 40' floor plan looks like", we decided to peek inside the '98 U320.  That was a BIG mistake!  My wife instantly fell in love with the beautiful walnut cabinets, the great floor plan, the big open bathroom area, and especially the tremendous amount of kitchen storage space.  I fear she will now not be happy with anything less than a 40' (in spite of my attempt to keep it "short & simple").  This particular coach (a consignment unit) seems (to our untrained eyes) to be in very good condition, both inside and out, but I think the asking price might be too high?  I wish we had more experience with the recent actual selling prices of comparable units.  If any of you have any opinion on what might be a realistic "ballpark" price for this coach, we would welcome your input.  We could really stretch our budget and try to make an offer on it, but we don't want to fall into the rookie trap of paying way too much.

Also, if any forum members have been by MOT recently and had a chance to look at this unit (#C1580), or know anything about it's history, please feel free to speak up.  I would surely welcome any educated opinions on the condition or value.  If we get serious about trying to buy it, I will heed your advice and make every attempt to get a pre-purchase inspection done by Brett Wolfe.  I have no idea if he would be available or willing to do this - I need to send him a PM note and check on his current status.

My wife and I keep asking ourselves if we are crazy.  Can 2 completely inexperienced people step into owning such a complicated (M-11, Aquahot, etc.) 40' diesel coach without it ending up a total disaster?  You all seem to think it is possible, but still it is very scary to us.  On the other hand, we are both retired, we are reasonably intelligent and have lots of free time to study and learn, and the Foreforum is full of helpful members like yourselves who could assist us.  I know we would need all the help we could get, but I believe we are ready and willing to try this new adventure.  Just need to find the "right" coach, at a "reasonable" price.

Thanks again for all your advice.  We hope we will be able to join your friendly group in the near future!

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #41 –
Quote from: cajk –
Even though it was above our target price, "just to see what a 40' floor plan looks like", we decided to peek inside the '98 U320.  That was a BIG mistake!  My wife instantly fell in love with the beautiful walnut cabinets, the great floor plan, the big open bathroom area, and especially the tremendous amount of kitchen storage space.  I fear she will now not be happy with anything less than a 40' (in spite of my attempt to keep it "short & simple").  This particular coach (a consignment unit) seems (to our untrained eyes) to be in very good condition, both inside and out, but I think the asking price might be too high?

Chuck and Jeannie,

While I can't speak for selling prices, if you are considering 40 footers, there's a fairly similar coach that one of our members has for sale in the classifieds.  It's also a 40' 1998, a U295 with some U320 upgrades.  It appears to have a private bath, though, so a slightly different floorplan.

1998 u295 40 ft

Michelle (yes, I'm an enabler)

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #42 –
Quote from: cajk –
My wife and I keep asking ourselves if we are crazy.  Can 2 completely inexperienced people step into owning such a complicated (M-11, Aquahot, etc.) 40' diesel coach without it ending up a total disaster?  You all seem to think it is possible, but still it is very scary to us.  On the other hand, we are both retired, we are reasonably intelligent and have lots of free time to study and learn, and the Foreforum is full of helpful members like yourselves who could assist us.  I know we would need all the help we could get, but I believe we are ready and willing to try this new adventure.  Just need to find the "right" coach, at a "reasonable" price.
Thanks again for all your advice.  We hope we will be able to join your friendly group in the near future!
I see no reason that you cannot get up to speed after buying a Foretravel.
Lots of people willing to help here with whatever complications you might find.
Heck I bought mine in 2003 and I knew less than zero being my first motorhome.
"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve"
Once you decide you can do it, you can do it.
Jump in and start enjoying 8)

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #43 –
Quote from: Michelle –
Chuck and Jeannie,

While I can't speak for selling prices, if you are considering 40 footers, there's a fairly similar coach that one of our members has for sale in the classifieds.  It's also a 40' 1998, a U295 with some U320 upgrades.  It appears to have a private bath, though, so a slightly different floorplan.

1998 u295 40 ft

Michelle (yes, I'm an enabler)

Michelle, I know Ron and this coach,it is what I would call one of the rare U295's it has the private potty,aqua hot and air bag mounts on the generator, Ron is a long time Foretravel tech,the coach speaks for itself.

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #44 –
Chuck and Jeannie-
This probably won't mean that much but Carol and I are taking possession of our new to us 2002 U320 36' coach in two weeks.  and it is a little scary.  DP are new to us as well and some times it is overwhelming to us.  The things that kept going through our heads as we were looking and trying to decide which is the best coach for us are:  Buy the best FT in your budget and a 10 year old FT is better than a new SOB.  We will go over our initial budget by about 20K by the time we put on new tires, taxes, license fees and stuff like that. 

How did we decide that this was the one?  We looked and compared all of the FT for sale in the US (obviously on-line) and considered that each one would require about 10K in additional $$$ after the buy, maybe more.  We did factor that into our equation.  We considered that they all were in operating order and equal in mechanical and physical condition.  We also looked at NADA value (I know that these values are not definitive in terms of value, but it is a benchmark).  I eliminated the least expensive in our pricing category and the most expensive.  I compared the features of all units available, IE: 270, 295 and 320 and eliminated the 270 as we wanted Aquahot.  My wife, Carol had to have slides so that impacted our choices as well.  To me they were not important, but to her they were.  So that narrowed us down to 295s with aquahot and 320s with slides.  By this time our list was small.  We still found that the 320s were still more than our budget would allow so - we again we looked at SOBs in our price range.  Tiffins, Newmars, Country Coaches and Bluebirds.  During this time I was still reading threads on this forum and the SOBs forums and kept coming back to the FT brand primarily due to the people here and how helpful and knowledgeable they were/are.  We did stumble across one during our journey and it too was more than our budget would allow.  After about 45 minutes of touring the coach, doing a miner inspection, finding out about maintenance, (she had all of the service and repair records that I reviewed) as well as hearing about their travels and times I asked her her selling price.  It was more than we could afford.  I looked at her and told her she had a beautiful coach and it was worth every bit of what she was asking and probably more but we could not purchase as it was out of our budget.  She hesitated and put another figure out there for our consideration.  Still about 10K over our budget I said "SOLD" even before looking at my DW.  She accepted.

I think one of the biggest challenges for us was to really make the decision to do it or not.  In this way I think we all have the same concerns.  Are we making the right choice or not?  Is this really what we want to do?  Do we have enough $$ to see this through?  How do we overcome the learning curve and not cause a disaster for ourselves? And maybe even more important, is this coach worth the cost?

Here are the things we knew.  How much we felt comfortable spending. What our debt obligations are.  What our income is and how much $$ we have available.  We also knew that there are two thing that no one has enough of:  Time and Money. We felt that the FT brand was the best manufacturer for us, and last, but not least that we did not want stix and brix any more, at least for a number of years.

As with many major decisions in our lives we did not know what was on the other side.  We did have a vision and a clearly defined goal.  We considered all of the things I mentioned above and pulled the trigger.  Was it the right one?  Ask me in a year or two or more.  Hindsight is 20/20.  In the meantime, we are finishing packing our personal belongings that will go into a small 4 X 8 uhaul trailer that we will tow behind our Jeep to our new life.

Please feel free to PM me if you wish to chat or compare notes.  Good luck in your journey and good health.

Scott

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #45 –
In Ron's post on Jan 20th he said his price is now 52k. That is a lot better price than the one at MOT. Just saying....

Mark

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #46 –
Bill & I looked at Ron & Nancys ( Red Tractor) coach and can tell you that it is lovely and well maintained.  Liked everything about it (most appealing being the fact that Ron is a FT mechanic---worked for the Co. for many years) and it has the aqua hot option.  We decided to go with a 36' coach at this time but if you like the extra space and storage that a 40' provides, this one is worth a look.

Jan Velting

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #47 –
Ron's coach sounds like a really nice one.  The problem is, Ron and his coach are in Florida, and we are in Texas.  Making a trip to Florida is not in the cards right now.  We have doctor appointments and other things scheduled that make it difficult for us to be gone from the house more than 2 or 3 days at a time, at least for the immediate future.  We hate flying, so that's out.  We aren't going to buy a coach without viewing it personally, so Ron's just won't work for us.  But I'm sure it will make someone very happy.

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #48 –
For those of you who are still researching, take your time in figuring out what you want, need, and can afford. Once you have all that in place you are ready to go shopping. We were told that the shopping could take a year or so, but we got lucky and found the right coach almost immediately. We prepared a list of six coaches that were for sale that seemed to meet our specs. We then tried to rank them in order. While we were doing that more information came out on two of the coaches and we struck them from further consideration. Three more sold, leaving us with only one coach. That turned out to be the right coach. Had it not been, we would have continued looking at what was available, and eventually would have found the coach.

Keep asking questions on the forums, and keep discussing what you learn at home. Consider well how you will use the coach, your mechanical skills, and where the coach will be parked when you are at home (if you aren't full-timers).

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #49 –
Hi Chuck,
I saw that my old coach had sold and wondered if you all had bought it. 
Maybe we will get another new member of the forum from that sale.
Good luck in your search.  The '98 U320 sounds like a nice coach.
Rodger

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #50 –
Rodger,

Yes, Mel emailed us the day before we left for MOT, telling us your (ex) coach was sold.  We didn't find out anything about the new owners, but Mel let us have a quick peek inside (just to see what we missed).  Whoever bought it got a good one!

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #51 –
Hi Chuck,
Thanks for the feed back.
I really liked that coach.  We like our new (to us) coach too, but it is a bit overwhelming.
We had the old one 10 years or so and never had a serious problem. 
It might have been a bit small for your needs though.   
I hope the new owners have as good luck with it as we did.
Regards,
Rodger 

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #52 –
Quote from: cajk –
My wife and I keep asking ourselves if we are crazy.  Can 2 completely inexperienced people step into owning such a complicated (M-11, Aquahot, etc.) 40' diesel coach without it ending up a total disaster?  You all seem to think it is possible, but still it is very scary to us.  On the other hand, we are both retired, we are reasonably intelligent and have lots of free time to study and learn, and the Foreforum is full of helpful members like yourselves who could assist us.  I know we would need all the help we could get, but I believe we are ready and willing to try this new adventure.  Just need to find the "right" coach, at a "reasonable" price.

Thanks again for all your advice.  We hope we will be able to join your friendly group in the near future!
I think George Stoltz went into his Foretravel with similar concerns. Perhaps he is lurking and you can contact him regarding his experience and total cost of ownership as a "newbie".
Good luck,

Re: Another Clueless Wannabe

Reply #53 –
I bought my first camper of any kind as a 99 u270.  No experience with anything bigger than a pickup.  Do not worry. Just go slowly and ask questions.  I found this forum in its old incarnation when I was buying and learning. It is not that hard. Really it is not.