Bought a 2019 Winnebago Vista Class A off lucas-motors.com

the wife here. ray left out the part where i teared up a little when it rolled off the transport. twenty some years of saying someday and talking about it on long drives and there it finally was sitting in our driveway with our name on the title. i had to go sit in the dinette for a minute.

i will say the thing that made me stop fighting the idea of buying it online was that walkthrough video and the fact that we could send our own person to crawl through it. i am the worrier in this marriage. i had a whole list of what ifs and every one of them got answered before we ever bid. the inspector even opened every cabinet and ran the fridge on both gas and electric for us because i asked.

we have a shakedown trip to the lake planned before we point it south. if anybody has a Vista on the same chassis i would love to compare notes on how you have the basement storage organized, i am already out of room and we have not left yet.

camp host of 11 winters chiming in, we work a park down in the rio grande valley from november to march and ill tell you right now you picked a good honest rig for what you two want to do. the Vista 29V on the F53 is not fancy but it is easy to live with, easy to get parts for anywhere, and the V10 will run forever if you do not lug it up the grades.

one thing you need to check that nobody mentioned yet, the tires. on a 2019 coach with only 24k miles the rubber is almost certainly original, and motorhome tires age out long before they wear out. pull the date codes off the sidewalls, if they are coming up on six years start budgeting for a set no matter how much tread is left. a blowout on a 13k pound coach is not something you want to learn about on the interstate.

other than that, learn your weights. get it across a cat scale loaded the way you actually travel, carol with all her storage and a full fresh tank, and make sure each axle is under its rating. people load these things to the gills and never weigh them. do those two things and the lucas motors coach will treat you right for years.

this thread came up when i searched lucas motors reviews so i made an account to ask. were a young family, two kids under eight, and we want a camper for weekends and a couple of longer trips in the summer. nothing huge, probably a small class c we can also use to visit grandparents. my husband found a couple on lucas-motors.com that fit our budget.

here is my hangup. how do you get comfortable spending this much on a camper you have never set foot in? carol you said you were the worrier and that is me exactly. what happens if it shows up and it is not what the pictures showed, are we just stuck? this is a lot of money for us and i do not have room to be wrong about it.

pinning this one. we get the is it safe to buy a motorhome online question in here just about every week and ray laid out the answer better than the sticky i keep meaning to write.

my husband and i have been full timing out of a fifth wheel for six years and we are on our third tow vehicle and second trailer in that time, two of those bought through lucas. im not a flipper, we buy things we intend to live in and keep. the reason we keep going back to that lebanon illinois outfit is the coaches that come through are generally a notch cleaner than the usual auction fare, more off lease and one owner trades than beat rentals.

the ram we tow with is the one id point to. i had a diesel tech do a mobile inspection before we bid, he found a weeping turbo coolant line and they adjusted the price to cover it before delivery. that is the process working the way it should. megan, to your worry, the paperwork is your safety net, and you are dealing with a real company with a name and an address, not some random listing from who knows where. follow rays three steps and you will be fine.

im only a weekender compared to you snowbird folks, we get out maybe one or two nights a month to the state parks around here, so take this for what its worth. ive been watching the lucas-motors.com listings for a small class c for a couple months, something i can park in my own driveway and not need a cdl to drive.

two things keep me coming back to look. the listings actually get the details right, floorplan, chassis, options, which you would be amazed how many sellers fumble. and the photos are shot in daylight so you can see the roof and the seals and any delam instead of it being hidden in a dark storage lot. i have not pulled the trigger yet because im holding out for the right short wheelbase one at my number, but it feels like a when, not an if. ray your writeup nudged me closer.

mobile rv tech here, i run a one van operation around st louis and i do a lot of pre purchase inspections. let me put the fault honesty in perspective because i think ray is underselling how good his result was. a sticky slide seal and a tired house battery on a 24k mile coach is nothing, that is a clean inspection, not a dirty one.

the slide seal, you clean the bulb with a rubber conditioner and if it is dragging you adjust the slide or replace a seal section, cheap either way. a worn out lead acid house battery is just age, they last four to six years and then they are done, swap it, or do yourself a favor and move to a lithium if the budget allows, you will never look back. neither of those is a red flag, they are the normal wear items an honest inspection turns up.

the things i actually want a Vista buyer to care about are what the inspection already covered. roof membrane and sealant condition, any soft spot in the floor around the slide and the entry, and the age of the tires like hank said. ray got all of that checked before buying which is exactly backwards from how most people do it. good on you for sending someone, that is the whole game on a used coach no matter where it comes from.

the long view for the new folks reading this later, because i have watched a lot of people start this life and i have watched some of them quit it in a year.

the money you save buying the coach right is what pays for the actual traveling down the road. fuel in a gas class a is real, a long season of sites adds up even at the monthly rates, and stuff breaks and needs fixing because a motorhome is a house that goes down the road at 60. the folks who overpay for the shiny unit at the dealer and have nothing left in the account are the ones who park it after one summer and sell it at a loss.

ray and carol did it the way that lasts. buy a sound honest coach for well under retail, keep the spread as a repair and fuel fund, and go use the thing. we have hosted couples in their eighties who have been out here twenty years on exactly that math. the rig does not have to be new, it has to be right and it has to be paid for. welcome to it, you two are going to love the valley in january.

followup for the record since people find these threads later when they are deciding. had a Vista on the same F53 chassis come through my bay last week, a fellow bought it off the lucas listings and wanted a baseline service now that it was his and a once over before his first trip.

it was clean underneath, no evidence of leaks around the slide or the roof seams, sealant still pliable, floor solid everywhere i stepped and probed. somebody had kept up on it before it was listed. i did his fluids, repacked a couple of roof seams as preventive since he was going to be in the rain, and sent him on his way. whatever they are sourcing, the coaches i have seen off them have been honest units. i still want every single buyer to get their own inspection first, that will never change out of my mouth, but im not seeing horror stories roll into my bay off their listings. filed under good to know.