friend has a 37 foot 5th wheel RV for sale. he bought it to re-sell it. its in pretty good condition, has a power slide out. its a 1990. thing is, no-one has tested anything to see if it works, the fridge, pumps and stuff. there was antifreez containers in there and pink stuff in the lines and toilet. he wants $2000, but if they start checking into things of course the price goes up.....

I am thinking of picking it up and playing with it, using it for awhile and selling it for some extra cash, is this a decent deal? could i possibly sell this thing for more money if i have it all cleaned up and working? YOUR THOUGHTS?

 

Don't know about up there but down here you can't get much for the big ones. Might be good for a deer lease though. Maybe a little profit but I wouldn't think much. One thing to think about is do you have enough truck to haul it properly. You would need 4:10's and an overdrive unit. You tear up your trans trying to haul that behemoth in the stock overdrive. Trailers that old can be in good shape, but more often they will have hidden problems like dry rot ytou don't see until something falls off going down the road. Had one drop the whole bedroom off the nose in Louisiana once!

 

What kind of 5th wheel, if you knew the make and model you would have a better idea of what goes wrong with it. Also like whiskers said you will need a 3500 at least and probably a dually as pin weight will be too much for a 2500.

 

The older 5th wheels were pretty heavy, If you do get it make sure you get some one that is certified to check all the propane,lines and fittings, the rest can be easy to do as long as there is no water damage, they rot pretty quick. good luck

 

i have the 2500, I do have an upgraded tranny. they towed it 6 hours from Minnesota with a ford, so I'm sure i can haul it! I will have to check out the make and model. I did look at the propane tanks and they were new, lines looked good where i could see.

 

I have a 1997 coachman 34' travel trailer I bought new. I would reccomend getting on the roof and checking all the edges for rot. I have some soft spots around the outside edges. It will be a big project to replace the roof sheathing. Above our slide out room there is some rot in the wall as well.

I keep it in the northern lower peninsula. It stays outside year round.

Personally I would not buy it without powering it up and testing. Drop the price to about $1000 and it might be worth it without test. Whatever you do good luck to ya.

 

Fridge alone could cost you $1000. Check the big stuff, like for rot as said above. Then appliances, ac, heat, and the converter. Plumbing is easy and inexpensive.

 

just went and took a better look at it. it is a Kropf model 2532 37 foot. 14,000 GVW. its major problem that i see is the plastic coating on the roof is peeling off exposing the underlying wood (lauoan) they said most of this blew off on the trip back from Mn, but there was a spot that was gone before, it does not look rotted, everything inside seems solid and dry. they did tarp it when they got it here a couple months ago.

everything else looks to be in good shape, its kind of nice inside. looks like it was used, but taken care of. so what products do they have for coating the roof? he said i could go over and plug it in, throw a battery in and fire anything i want up. so maybe next week i will take a night and try it. but need to figure out how much the roof is going to cost first.

 

Up here in Alberta we cover trailer roofs in a latex product called Sno-Coat. It works really well. Roll on a pretty thick coat and it is like a new roof. They sell it at all of the RV dealerships.

 

Once again, at 14 thousand pounds, you better have 4.10 gears or more and like running at 2600 rpms, or you will be surprised at what our great Dodges will not tow well! There is a big difference in moving a trailer because you have to and doing it because you enjoy it!

 

FIL bought a Cardinal 36 foot and blew the tranny on his dodge 98 automatic first trip south with the new trailer, cost him $4000 to repair on the road. He bought a 01 3500 dually manual and has pulled that trailer with no problems since. The difference between the dodge and the ford is the ford engine is not as heavy so the truck can carry more. I would like to bet I could not legally pull your trailer with my 2011 3500 SRW.

 

I know i can haul it, pull it and drag it. that will not be an issue. I have hauled 25,000 pounds from lower IL and 20,000 from San Antonio. Right now more worried about how much it will cost me to fix the roof. and wondering if i will be able to make money on the deal once i get it all fixed up.

Thanks Tallguy, will check that product out.

 

Call a RV dealer and see what it would cost for products and labor. Use that cost as worst case price. It can only get better for you from there. If you get it you can look for a place like ICKES RV in Montplier In. They are a surplus store for RV parts. They (or places like that ) can save you a bundle.

 

3.73 gears, 2000 rpm, 63 mph, pulling 15-18,000 pounds EVERY DAY! And comfortable doing it.

 

You could put a rubber roof on it for less than $500 in materials, providing the roof is solid and you don't have to do a bunch of wood replacement.

Myself, I don't see enough room to profit for the amount of work. One major or even a couple minor appliance/component issues could quickly turn it into a looser.

Now as a project to keep and use and to lets say customize and tinker with maybe.

Looked up the value, orig msrp on all the 37ft er's was over 30k. In good working and usable condition the RETAIL value is now $4400-5400.

Around here in presentable and everything functional it would be on the lot for $4495 and bring somewhere between $3800-4000.