Today I picked up our new motorhome, a 2008 Winnebago Tour 40TD. I've been looking at it for a year and really liked the floor plan. We've been using a Fleetwood Excursion 39P for the past 16 months and it served us well. The staggering thing for us is how far things have come in just five years.
There are so many new things for us. Some are subtle, like the roof vent in the living room. The old one was manual. With the new one, a flip of a switch opens the vent and starts the fan. The doors and basement doors all lock with with a remote. It gets better from there. LCD TVs, central vac, heat pumps (basement), electric awnings, fireplace, much larger tank capacities, 400 HP vs 330...we can't wait to get this puppy on the road. A nice touch was the 12v outlet on the back slope of the instrument panel for something like a GPS, so the cord isn't draped down the front.
We leave in nine days for the maiden voyage. Our first coach was Motorhoming 101, this one is the next phase as we learn more about what we want.
Hi! Congratulations! Hope you have a wonderful time in your new MH!
Wishing you all the best, and yes, things have come a long, long way!
We bought our first MH in April '08 it's a Winnie Sightseer. It's only a baby at 30' but, we have had a blast in it so far. After travel trailering for 27 years, we couldn't believe all that the Class A had to offer. It was a whole new world for us!
Again, Good Luck, and many happy miles!
kj, congrats. on one nice piece of machinery. We too have been looking at Winnebago for the better part of a year. Our coachc og choice is anything in the '08 40FD series, i.e. Ellipse, Horizon, Journey or Vectra as we wanted the fireplace as a way of addressing wife's arthritis on cool evenings. I thought only the FDs had that creature feature; but,now you spoke of the TD having it. Man when you put all those slides out you could have a dance in there. Again, congrats. and enjoy, Ken....
I like the idea of a remote control to unlock all the basement storage compartments, and have seen a few RV's with swing-open doors instead of the kind that swing up. They tend to make getting out stuff, especially if there is a slide-out above much easier.
One used RV that I looked at had a stern warning on one of the basement storage doors. Do not run furnace with this door open. The furnace just above that door blasts out hot air, and if the door is open, it will damage the paint!
I am glad that my water heater and furnace are not near a storage compartment door!
It might be, we bought it from Affinity in Prescott. I had been thinking about getting something like this for a while, talked to my wife one night and bought it the next day
From a buyer's perspective, the downturn can mean that the coach you've been admiring for a long time is still there and getting more affordable as it sits.
Even though we weren’t quite ready to buy our “final” MH, because I won’t be able to retire for another year or so, we took advantage of the fact that we could buy for cash at height of the economic collapse in the RV industry last summer to make an absolutely phenomenal deal on a brand new ’08 Journey. Not as nice as a Vectra, but very nice indeed. It was the proverbial “offer you can’t refuse”.
We’ve had ours for about a year now. In that year, we’ve spent a bit over two months living in the coach on the road and have put about 15k miles on it. So far, we REALLY like it – it’s so very much better in every way than our old Class A. It drives like a dream – I can easily do over 12 hours behind the wheel in a day. I was leery of new MH teething problems, but there have been very few and even those were nothing major – a slow windshield wiper motor that needed to be replaced, for example. We especially like the “S” shaped floorplan that gives an amidships TV and eliminates the submarine-like feel of typical MH’s that have pass-through bathrooms – ours has a nice big bathroom that you walk around instead of through. The tankage capacities allow us to boondock in wilderness places in total comfort for long periods.
My only real complaint about the unit is the relatively small propane tank (27 gallon, I think) that, like all such tanks on Class A’s, is a PITA to fill up. In really cold weather, we can burn through that amount of propane all too quickly and then we must drive (usually far from where we “camp”) to some place that sells propane and try to get people who have never seen a big RV before to fill the tank.
Here we are “at home” for the night in a rest stop (central Iowa, I think) on the way back from our most recent bird hunting trip to the western high plains.
Here tired huntin’ dawgs are sleeping warmly and snugly while we are “camped” in the middle of nowhere on National Grasslands and 17 degree 40 mph winds, sleet and snow buffet the big machine.
Looked like this outside:
I look forward to the soon upcoming day when we can spend 6 months a year in the MH; and I have no reason to believe that it won’t be ideal for that use.
Best of luck to you with yours. May you enjoy it for many years.
2008 Winnebago Journey 39z DP
2004 Jeep Liberty toad
Congratulations on the new DP! We have the same model except it is a 2007 40TD. We totally love it and will never part with it. Ours has pretty much what you say about yours except no F/P...they didn't offer them in the 2007's. We're OK with that (have to be) because at least we have a lot of storage space under the TV. We love, love, love the forward kitchen. A lot folks that I've seen posting here over the past year don't think the forward kitchen will hold up the resale value, but we're never getting rid of ours until we have to, so that is of little concern right now. We've been cross country twice in ours, from WA to Nova Scotia and back and last spring from WA to Florida and back. I know you'll enjoy every moment with your new "baby". Have fun...travel safe.
Margie M.
Fulltimer with DH and 1 Schnauzer
2007 Winnebago Tour 40TD model
2005 Ford Explorer 4WD
www.bruceandmargiesfulltimejourney.blogspot.com
www.myhealthylivingthruweightcontrol.blogspot.com
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