Are old motorhomes worth it?

Last year, we swapped our relatively newish 2004 Winnebago motorhome for a 25-year-old beast in the hope that the extra three feet of internal space would make longer term travel more comfortable. Twelve months on and $20,000 in repairs, it's time to weigh up if it was was all worth the cost…

If you’re looking at buying a motorhome, an older vehicle can offer significant up front savings on a newer, shinier one and some of the old vans that appear on Caravancampingsales are pretty compelling.

The last motorhome we owned was a 23 foot, 2004 Winnebago Leisure Seeker. It was five years old on purchase and we kept it for five years and travelled 63,000km.

We purchased it for $89,000 (compared to around $145,000 new at that time) and sold it for $67,000.

The new (old) van we had our eye on was listed for just $39,000 and due to the shorter cab, it has an extra three feet of space inside which really makes a difference for everyday living.

Bunks in the rear, separate shower and toilet, single bed, double dinette and a double bed over the cab - this motorhome is seriously spacious even for a family! There was a catch however - the motorhome was located so far from our location, it took a car, a plane and a bus plus two days to get there just to view the thing.

As I stood in the middle of nowhere, admiring the old beast, the nostalgia of yesteryear I felt while viewing it on the internet faded and was replaced with that feeling you get on date night and you realise you have no clean laundry left.

Faced with leaving the house naked or wearing yesterday’s laundry, you find yourself assessing the impact those gravy spots will have on your night and trying to mask undesirable odour with too much deodorant.

In my case, I was weighing up buying the van or hitch-hiking home, but I think the analogy fits.

In the end, we bought the van for $35,000 with a year’s registration. The decider was the fact we’d been thinking about a bigger van for a while and the older truck offered more internal space for the same external dimensions than we could get in a newer van. Sure, the van needed a little fixing up but how much could it possibly cost?

Super Obvious Tip: Get a mechanical report from an independent workshop BEFORE you buy a vehicle with dubious running gear because as it turns out, fixing mechanical things on motorhomes can cost a lot!

I was probably around half-way home when I realised I had bought a dud. A black cloud descended on me… I mean a big black cloud literally descended on me as the engine began blowing so much black smoke that I could no longer see the road behind me and was losing sight of the road ahead.

I felt pretty mad at everything… then depression… and then, quite unexpectedly, I started to see the funny side of things. The whole experience was like one of those zany adventures we pay to watch at the movies and here I was living it!

As it turns out, I was rather lucky as the brakes gave up their valiant fight for life in the driveway of the diesel workshop I engaged to resuscitate the engine.

After the engine was fixed (I would post a list but I don’t think you’d have the time to read it), my loving wife, who never once suggested I brought home a giant white lemon, sewed some new curtains while I spent two months of weekends fixing the water leaks, painting the interior, replacing the fridge, toilet and water pump, overseeing the fitment of a diesel heater and the installation of a new electric step.

With all the hard work done, we drove our ‘new’ motorhome from Sydney to Gin Gin (Queensland) and back again with only one near-death experience when the return fuel line came free and pumped a few cheerful litres of diesel over a red hot engine and exhaust. I quickly noticed the billowing white clouds enveloping trailing traffic and made an emergency stop before things ignited.

Then there was the section between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast when the engine seemed to be getting louder but was doing so rather sneakily – I think it was getting us used to the din so we didn’t notice as much. After about an hour, I turned to my wife in the passenger seat and shouted, “Do you think the engine is getting louder?”.  Right on cue, the exhaust fell off where it connects to the manifold.

Since then, we’ve travelled about 9000km and the old girl has rewarded our love and copious amounts of money spent on her by putting her break-down days behind her. We definitely spent more than we intended on our ‘older’ van but she has so much more space and character we’re not going to hold such a trivial matter against her.

We prefer to think of that money as an investment in future fun and adventure. Just remind me to get a mechanical report when it comes time for the next upgrade.