1989 Chevy Escaper

We've had our eyes out for a good motor home for months. I want a small one,20 feet or less, and those seem to be few and far between. And when they do crop up, they tend to go pretty quickly. I've had several that I've called on that are already gone in the few hours since the ad was posted and I made my call.

So when this one cropped up on Friday, I called the guy and made an appointment to go see it Saturday. Although the ad doesn't say, it's a 1989 Chevy Escaper, 20 feet long.

I called again Saturday morning just to make sure, and it was still available, so my son and I drove up to have a look at it. It was about an hour away. We had a good chance to crawl all over it - the RV was in a consignment lot, and no one came running when we pulled up. I gave my son the camera and told him to give us a tour.

The tires are on 16.5 inch rims. A guy in the know on RV's told me these are the expensive tires because only two companies make 16.5 in tires. He said look for 16s. The good news was these tires were pretty new. The owner said he'd bough them less than a year ago and had spent around $900.

The outside was in pretty good shape. No obvious signs of leaks, but there was a little bit of rust around the cab doors. The roof had been redone and rubber coated very recently.

The inside was really cool, sort of retro, and I really liked the lay out.

The guy started it up and ti ran fine. I asked about hooking up a power cable, but he didn't seem to interested in that, although he assured everything worked. He demonstrated the site and toilet. He said the A/C was new and would freeze you out. 

Now the not so good stuff. 

The generator hadn't been started in fours years and he didn't know if it worked. I considered asking about trying it, but who knows? Maybe it would catch fire. It was an Onan 3.2, so pretty common. Nevertheless, it didn't look in all that great of shape. 

Same for the furnace. He'd never fired it up, so no idea if it worked or not.

One of the head lights was out and the rear lights didn't work. Probably minor stuff (the head light anyway), but still stuff that needed to be fixed. 

Considering that the generator condition was unknown, and the furnace in the same state, I though $7,000 was way too much. I called my RV guy after talking a look at it and he recommended offering $3,500. 

In the end though, I decided to pass. It seemed as though it might need some expensive work to get it ready, and I'm beginning to think that for this trip I need something I can rely on.