Let's Talk About The Longest Lasting Travel Trailers

I expect my Tundra to have at least a 25 year service life. I suspect most of you expect the same.

Time
Unfortunately travel trailers are not made to the same standard. There are a lot of good, fun, functional trailers, but We are here to talk about longevity. (and the financial impact that has)


15 Year Life Expectancy


https://duckduckgo.com/?q=what+is+t...f+a+travel+trailer&t=newext&atb=v245-1&ia=web


Most travel trailers are pretty clapped out after about 15 years. Go look at RVTrader for 15 year old travel trailers. You won't find much.

Spoiler: Screenshots

Out of 125k for sale there are 1.5k older than 15 years for sale. If you eliminate the covid/new campers then you are looking at 18k campers. That is still well under 10%. This tells me somewhere around the 15 year mark is when campers become so clapped out they are likely to just set in a field to continue the rot. If anyone else has any real statistics on the life expectancy of a camper I would love to see it.

Water Damage
Construction in the RV industry has not changed much. Generally speaking some kind of fiber exterior panel covering wood or aluminum framing with some foam insulation and glue to hold it together. All of that is glued together. After 12 years of being just a little wet, wood rots and glue releases. Check out the pictures. This is called delamination. It is not an if, it is a when on almost every camper sold today.

Sun Damage
Sometime in the 80's or 90's most RV companies started using copious amounts of plastic. In the sun the plastic cracks and then it starts leaking.

Long Lasting Trailers
There are only 2 types of travel trailers that seem to survive. The first are the fiberglass trailers. Here is a list of current manufactures. Most of these companies are building these like boats. They last for a very long time and by design are extremely resistance to moisture damage.

Fiberglass

• Bigfoot
• Casita
• Escape
• Oliver
• Scamp

Aluminum
There are a few companies building trailers on cargo trailer platforms. These should hold up in the long term. The only other trailer company that is building trailers that will last out of aluminum is Airstream. As of 2020 the only thing that can rot on a Airstream is the steel frame. Everything is impervious to water and there is no glue holding anything together.

Vintage
There are a lot of old airstream and fiberglass trailers that are in pretty good shape. Modern appliances can bring these survivors up to modern safety standards.










Some Good Trailers















We have several members that have these trailers:

 

Scamp and Casita are the two I’m looking at. Getting kind of spendy now though. A 16-17 footer with some options is mid 20’s for a scamp and upper 20’s for a Casita. New prices. Would love to hear anyone’s personal experiences with either brand!

 

Depends on what you're looking for exactly. My dad has a 1985 Vanguard. He bought it used about 15 years ago, sealed the roof up with silicone, drove it to our lake lot and parked it there. The previous owners replaced the fridge once shortly before he bought it. One thing he wasn't aware of was a short in the electrical system but, given that we have no power out there, it really hasn't affected his use of it.

Pros:
-Price was reasonable
-Older trailers seem to be built better
-No solenoid valves in the propane system so you can run the fridge on propane alone, without also needing electric power

Cons:
-Unsure of the condition of the wheels/tires/axles. Not sure if it would be safe to travel with (partially due to having sat in the bush for 15 years)
-Trailers of this age could have other unknown/hidden issues but, then again, so could new trailers (e.g. electrical system, furnace, etc.)

 

I am going to let @ezdog take this one. He is very familiar with vintage fiberglass jobs. I think @Cox3497 was talking about new or newish though.

 

Pretty sure the old Vanguard is aluminum but not shiny like the Airstreams.

I thought OP was just talking about long lasting travel trailers.

 

I have seen the fiberglass version like this:


Do you have a picture of yours? It looks like they also made some wood stick frame trailers.

 

Yes, I was referring to new. They are some of the longest lasting on the road. Figured if I go new it will last my lifetime. The other issue is when you order one, it’s about a year long process as the order books are full.

 

I have talked to someone with the little scamp goose neck. He had had for 20 years and said it was as good as the day he bought it. He also said it was worth more than the day he bought it - new. That is a theme that seems to go along with these long lasting trailers. You can basically use them for nothing and then sell them for what you had in them.

 

I found this on Google but it's pretty much identical to my parents'

 

I really don't know much about these. This looks like a stick built trailer. Keep the leaks out and it will be fun for a while. I would not invest a lot of money in it though.

 

Like I said, buy a cheap old one that's in decent shape and silicone anywhere it might leak (which I understand you should do with a new trailer anyway).

 

Sort of. I would never use silicon on a trailer. It holds up for a long time but when it fails you have to mechanically remove it. Nothing will stick to it including more silicone. There are some good poly based sealants.

Dicor Lap Sealant is a popular choice and probably what most factories use. I have had good luck with 3m 430.

 

So an Airstream will last a long time but even that won't last forever. In particular the roof joints are sealed with the same sealant that's used on all campers. That's supposed to get replaced every 5 years. If not, you make get water intrusion, followed by mold and rotting wood on the inside. So sure the exterior skin itself might be fine but the inside is still constructed like most campers: cheap as possible. Same exact appliances too. (I used to have a regular $20k aluminum camper, now we have an Air$tream... it's nice but much of what you pay for it just the name or 'aura' surrounding them.)

 

Inside the exterior aluminum skin are aluminum ribs (studs) Attached to the other side of the rib is the interior skin. Inside the empty space is fiberglass insulation. Everything is mechanically fastened. Water can't hurt any of it. This is the primary reason AS are one of the few old trailers that are still in service. If water does get inside the wall it often runs harmlessly through and out. Everything structural above the floor is impervious to water. There is no wood in there.

Where they fail is the floor. If the water runs down the inside of the wall and leaks through the C channel through a bolt hole and ends up on top of the floor it can cause the floor to rot.
With that said, I have a 50+ year old that has the original floor. As of 2020 all traditional models have a waterproof floor.



The financial side of it I am still researching. Do you know what depreciation would be on yours if you sold today? I don't know if it always works out but I do know several people who have gotten into used AS used them for a decade and two decades and sold them for roughly what they paid for them in the first place.

 

To start off with, we have owned 7 trailers now, 2 tent trailers, 2 big travel trailers (parked at a lake front park), and 3 Fibreglass shell trailers. The Fibreglass shell trailers built by companies like Escape, Casita, Oliver, Scamp and Bigfoot and also older models like Trillium, Boler, UHaul and Burro to name a few are so much better than 98% of what is being built.

We had a 1977 Trillium 4500 15’, great little trailers, we had it 5 years and sold it for $150 more than we paid. Then we have an 2007 Escape 17B (bath) for another 5 years and sold it for $2k more than we paid for it. Both trailers in excellent shape and had never leaked.

We wanted a larger trailer with a permanent bed so we sold the 17B and started looking at what was available locally, even driving into Toronto. We looked at the Outback, Connect, Winnebago Minis, and Lance. I wasn’t impressed with anything we saw. We had been watching for a used Escape 19 but they rarely come up for sale here in Ontario. My wife says, you know you won’t be happy, just get a new Escape 19. So we sent the factory a deposit and had one custom built.

PROS to Fibreglass trailers, they don’t leak, they depreciate very little, many owners claiming to get back their investment when they sell, aerodynamic, fairly light, no sway and easy to tow. If your an American customer ordering from the factory, Currency exchange is your best friend, my 2020 19’ was $34k with AC and some options, that’s about $26k USD. A plus, if you decide to sell, they usually sell with days if listed on the Escape forum classifieds.

https://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f16/



Cons, their only factory direct. The wait list last spring was 5 months, I understand it’s as long as 16 months now. Please confirm with the factory. Other cons, even in the used market their hard to find. Other cons, they don’t have lazy boys or fire places, their small, but that means you can pull one with a 4Runner.

I can’t say enough about the quality or Escape as a company, every owner is very happy with their purchase. Check Escape out on YouTube, there is many spreading the word.

https://escapetrailer.com/

The last picture is my friends 1978 Trillium 1300, the shell is in the air ready to receive it’s freshly painted frame. He paid $3300 for that trailer 10 years ago and has turned down many offers over $8k.

 

I am learning a lot in this thread, carry on.

 

The Escape is built like a boat. Watch this episode of How it's Made from Discovery TV.

Escape Trailer Industries; How It's Made - YouTube

I beleive the Escape 5.0TA is the best trailer on the planet. Many have commented you can't full time in that, actually many couples spend their winters in them.

Our Escape Fifth Wheel-DO WE REGRET IT? (272) - YouTube

Learn from other Escapers, browse the Forum

Escape Trailer Owners Community (escapeforum.org)

 

You guys are selling me on fibreglass. Can you get something around 24' with bunks and a slide? (Those are my wife's requirements.)

 

No and you never will either.
The whole point of the Molded Fiberglass trailers is a long life by being simple designs and construction and nothing about a slide out unit fits that profile at all.

The fewer moving parts that need to be watertight the better.

The fewer convertible anything the less that they can stop functioning thus shortening the usable life of the trailer.

Scamp,Bigfoot,Northern Lite and Airstream and a few others have also tried Motorhomes in the past but the idea also really flies in the face of simple and they stopped making them too.

The real beauty of the Fiberglass rigs is just that there is less to go wrong because of water ingress and they are also less likely for water to get inside if maintained too.

Wood Rot os the real killer of most RVs and the less wood overall then there is just less that can rot and wear out the rig.

All rvs will get water inside anywhere the hull is penetrated by any opening and to the extent that you can seal and keep these openings sealed the longer the rig will last, Fiberglass is no exception here and neither is Aluminum,they will all leak when the seals go bad and then whatever is in the waters path will rot if it can.

So as long as they can keep them simple to maintain the better your chances of having a long lasting trailer no matter the construction details but the easier units to keep water tight tend to last longer if maintained.

It is not complicated or abstract it is just common sense really.

So I have owned a lot of trailers and once I switched to FG there was just no comparing how much easier they are to keep tight.
Most FG rigs also have FG furniture and structure inside so if the water does creep in the FG there can not rot either. The Casita has a floor entirely encased in FG too and though it is Plywood inside it is less likely to get soaked through the crispy FG shell and should last longer too.

But more than anything it is just the openings in the shell that need to be kept watertight in the first place to get longer life in all rigs!

Also FG units are in general smaller than others and will not usually work for families of more than say 4 people but there are also people that full time live in a Prius so by that standard even a 13' trailer is like a Castle!
It really comes down to what you want,what you need,whats it going to cost and are you willing to pay the price like most things in life!

 

The slide will be your deal breaker. I don't think anyone does a fiberglass slide. Chopping a big hole in the fiberglass compromises everything that makes the fiberglass so impervious. Same reason you don't ever see them as toy haulers. They only work if they are a complete shell.

 

I'll see if I can talk the wife out of a slide. I'm not a fan of them as a potential water or rodent ingress point as you guys say, plus I'd have to burn batteries every time I want to put it in or out at the lake.

 

We had a Forest River quad bunk with a slide, it leaked from day one, every time I checked the floor was wet in the slide, I am pretty diligent, all the seals were good, I couldn’t find the source of the leak. We sold it after a few years and bought the old Trillium.

When we go camping, we spend most of our time outside. My teenagers sleep in a tent or sleep in the Tundra. We setup a large dining tent hangout in there. Only once in 10 years did we pack up and head home because of the weather.

My friend has that trailer with the bunks and slide, he says it’s too big to go too far. He takes it up to the lake, 1 to 2 hours depending on where he goes. I towed my Escape 17B from London Ontario to Los Angeles and back getting 14 to 17 MPG with the 4Runner.

 

If you buy a stick built trailer with a slide, expect to lose 50% over 3 years and you’ll be a year trying to sell it. I made money on my last 2 Fibreglass trailers and they sold within days.

People are happy to spend weeks on a small boat, a trailer is no different.

My friend LJ bought a Bigfoot Fibreglass trailer last year for $1300, the owner had gutted it and gave up. My friend renovated it, new stove and water heater and sold it for $13,000 with offers from all over Canada. LJ also bought a Lance truck camper and realized the front section was rotten, by the time he removed all the soft wood, the whole over cab section was gone. He rebuilt it as new. The local RV shop begged him to help him fix RV’s, he had a years worth of repairs. My friends dream was to get a Bigfoot or Northern Lite truck camper for his truck but they always sold right away for big cash.

 

Preaching to the choir. I will not buy a camper with a slide out. My preference is toward the Escape Trailers, but if I were to get a trailer I would need a toy hauler.

 

Kind of subjective in a way cuz if you take care of your stuff it will last a very long time. Problem is people neglect campers for the most part especially if they only use them part time. They will last surprisingly long if taken care of. The scamps, casitas,etc.., can take neglect a little better than the others.

 

Maybe somewhat true but if you have to store one outside it is probably just a matter of time before the leaking starts and often even longer before you realize it!

 

Agreed, and that falls under the neglect part.

 

I loved my 4500!
I fixed it up nicely and flipped it for huge profit too but am always a little sad when I think about it !

Gotta keep flipping them once you get 1 footitus,know what I mean?

 

I would like to see inside that trillium.

 

I often see lance brought up in quality trailer discussions. They claim to have made truck campers for many decades. Like most they seem to all be rotten .