CHOOSING A NEW RV - New Beginnings Part II

As you may have read in Part I of this blog post, we made the decision to go with a truck and travel trailer for our next RVing experience. Since we didn’t want anything too big we settled on a 1/2 ton truck with a V8 engine and tow package. This would easily pull the size and style of travel trailer we were looking for without getting carried away. This vehicle, we calculated, would be a good choice as a tow vehicle and a relatively economical choice for a work/personal vehicle when at home.

Choosing the Correct Tow Vehicle

It is critical to do your homework when choosing a tow vehicle. Check one of the towing guides that are available online and check the specifications of the trailer you wish to pull and make sure that you don’t exceed the GCWR. (Gross Combination Weight Rating is the maximum allowable combined weight of the tow vehicle and the attached towed vehicle both fully loaded). Read about other considerations beyond the GCVR that may affect the vehicle and trailer you are considering.

At the end of the day we found ourselves with a Ford F-150 4×4 pickup truck with a 5.0L V8 engine and tow package providing adequate towing for the 25′ or so trailer we were searching for. We have a bit of an aversion to buying vehicles and RV’s brand new. Sure, you get warranties and less risk of problems in the short term with new, but the enormous amount of money you lose the minute you drive away from the dealer’s lot can more than make up for this. We started looking for our truck last fall by approaching our auto broker and told him what we were looking for, what are requirements were and our wish list of options we may want and let him go to work. Since we weren’t looking for new vehicle, we gave him lots of time to find it. At the end of the day he found us a 2015, only 3 years old at the time, with only 21,000 kms (12,000 miles), saving us more than $15,000 when compared to purchasing the vehicle new.

Our Ford F150 with Canopy

If you have never considered using an Auto Broker to buy a vehicle, try it, it is a totally awesome way to purchase or lease a vehicle old or new. If you are in Victoria we can highly recommend Noble Car Buyers, having purchased many vehicles from them over the years. We just told Russ, the owner, what we were looking for and what our requirements were and he did the rest. If you are looking at purchasing a new vehicle, whatever the brand, an auto brokers can still help you out. They can generally negotiate a better price from a dealer than you can and they will save you those horrible wasted hours at the dealer’s trying to get that deal you want. We are generally in and out of Noble Car Buyers with our new, or newer vehicle in our case, in less than an hour, and much of that time is spent waiting for the insurance broker to arrive and complete things. One final point, because brokers like Noble’s, work on a fixed price for their services they have no interest in up-selling things you may not want or need and they tend to be more honest when you ask them for opinions.

Accessories

Of course, when gearing up a truck for work and play it never ends there. You will always need more stuff to make the truck work the way you want it to. In our case, we needed a canopy, roof racks and hopefully a storage system of some kind. Fortunately, our broker, Russ Noble, has lots of contacts in the automotive industry that he knows are good people and give great service. For a canopy, Russ recommended Hornby’s Canopies, also a Victoria business. We wanted a cab height canopy…something that would give us storage and security for our gear plus something that we could attach roof racks to. We also wanted it to be low enough that we could reach up to load our kayaks. The Century Ultra canopy they recommended was perfect and looks great on the truck. Tip: When you are ordering things like a canopy and plan to put roof racks on them, talk to your canopy dealer, they can have the tracks that are designed for easy installation of roof racks installed at the factory saving you the hassle of having them installed later or having to drill holes in your new canopy yourself. As well, many dealers will be able to sell you complete rack systems and accessories if you want them. In our case I already had a great source for roof racks that I wanted to use. Check out our upcoming post on choosing roof racks for your vehicle.

The Century ‘Ultra’ Canopy

I’m used to working out of vans, so I find pickup trucks not as convenient for accessing gear, especially trucks with a canopy. It forces you to crawl into the truck to get what you need, so we added a Decked roll out drawer system, also purchased from Hornby’s. This is super handy for accessing my tools when working and great for organizing camping and RV gear when we are on the road, and it is more secure. The tools and gear are out of sight and additionally locked in the drawers!

Marc and the guys at Hornby’s did at great job helping us choose the right stuff and getting it all installed!