Now that we made the decision to go full time, what RV should we get? Let’s just rule out a 5th wheel trailer since we don’t want to drive around in a huge pickup truck all the time. That leaves us in familiar territory: a class A diesel pusher flat towing a vehicle. We liked many things about our Tiffin Phaeton, so looking at an Allegro Bus makes sense. We also liked our Newmar Dutch Star, so looking at a Newmar product is a given (either a Mountain Aire or London Aire). We recently discovered a relatively new brand, Entegra, that makes some very nice coaches, such as the Anthem and Cornerstone that are in contention.
Backing up, I guess the first question is size. We managed our 5 month Alaska trip in a 41’ Newmar Dutch Star just fine, but we didn’t have everything with us. For the moment, let’s assume we would add the following if full time: car camping gear (tent + sleeping bags + sleeping pads), backpacking gear (another tent + backpacks + water filter + camp stove), spotting scope and tripod, paperwork (taxes, medical, real estate), luggage, books (hiking guides and maps for the entire country), mountain bikes, and more clothes. Even assuming some paring down, it’s hard to ignore the lure of space in a 45’ motorhome.
Will 4’ in length make a difference? While driving down the road, not at all. In most modern, private campgrounds, probably not. In some older or public campgrounds, definitely. The question is, could we have fit a 45’ RV in every place we fit a 41’ RV? Almost certainly, albeit with more difficulty in a few locations (mainly parks in Canada and Alaska).
Ok, so 45’ it is. The contenders we’ve looked at so far: Tiffin Allegro Bus, Newmar Mountain Aire, Newmar London Aire and Entegra Cornerstone.
We can rid of one right away: the Tiffin. Our 2012 Tiffin Phaeton had significantly better build quality than any of the 2017 Tiffin Allegro Buses we’ve looked at. Perhaps Tiffin chose to chase quantity at the expense of quality? We even looked at a Tiffin Zephyr, a $631,000 top of the line unit that should “knock your socks off” according to the salesmen. Well, my socks are still on. Very underwhelming. If you’re considering a Tiffin, do this: open and close every drawer and cabinet in the unit, noting how it feels and how flush the fit is. Now do the same in a comparably priced Newmar or Entegra.. If the cabinets have poor build quality, what else does?
In Part 2 I’ll look at the pros and cons of the Newmar and Entegra products.
