VintageRacer wrote: I don't think the price of oil has much to do with the down-turn in RV industry. If you can afford one (big DP, that is) you can pretty much afford to drive it places. The larger issue is lack of credit, financial institutions tightening loans, real-estate values dropping, mortgages coming due, companies in all industries tightening down...
I give it 18 more months of flat to reverse growth, then it's course will be run and the changes will be made, and things will start to get better again.
Brian
I am going to have to disagree with you there. The price of gas does affect the RV industry. Not all RV's made and sold are the (big DP), some are more moderately priced. At times people take a retirement lump sum or have a lump sum and buy a RV but with the price of gas rising (and we don't know where it will stop) they can't always take it to the places they thought they could and stay comfortably in their budget. If you check the reports the big DP's are not selling well. People are not wanting to buy diesel with the price being even higher then gas. I think it is a misconception that people who have RV's don' worry about money and the price of everything going up. The old saying is: If you can't afford to drive it, or pull it, then don't buy it, is catching up..... people aren't buying it.
I'm another one that doesn't think that class A motor home Mfgs will never see the sales volume from past years. Some will survive, sadly some won't. I believe that the high line bus conversions will still sell.
We have our Rev, and we aren't planning on getting rid of it. But, we won't be replacing it any time soon.
I'm at Newmar in Nappanee right now, and drove past Monaco yesterday. They have TONS of new coaches just sitting around, apparently they didn't slow down production when things started a downturn. They are going to be in a world of hurt when/if all these coaches don't sell.
VintageRacer wrote: I don't think the price of oil has much to do with the down-turn in RV industry. If you can afford one (big DP, that is) you can pretty much afford to drive it places. The larger issue is lack of credit, financial institutions tightening loans, real-estate values dropping, mortgages coming due, companies in all industries tightening down...
I give it 18 more months of flat to reverse growth, then it's course will be run and the changes will be made, and things will start to get better again.
Brian
I am going to have to disagree with you there. The price of gas does affect the RV industry. Not all RV's made and sold are the (big DP), some are more moderately priced. At times people take a retirement lump sum or have a lump sum and buy a RV but with the price of gas rising (and we don't know where it will stop) they can't always take it to the places they thought they could and stay comfortably in their budget. If you check the reports the big DP's are not selling well. People are not wanting to buy diesel with the price being even higher then gas. I think it is a misconception that people who have RV's don' worry about money and the price of everything going up. The old saying is: If you can't afford to drive it, or pull it, then don't buy it, is catching up..... people aren't buying it.
I too disagree. This all started happening in the last few months because of high fuel. People who own homes $500,000 plus and more, the news says are just leaving them! Can't afford to live there. Fuel is behind it all from high prices at the store to fuel in you tank.
So my Monaco could become an orphan?? Who is next with big cutbacks? Then the question would be who will be left in business? I bet they are all hurting. Stay tuned for more bad news.
Newmar, Monaco, Tiffin and Fleetwood are the most talked about in this forum. We hardly hear anything on other coach company's like Country Coach, Gulfstream, Damon, Foretravel, and Bluebird. I guess the big guns are the ones really feeling the pinch.
We just came back from the convention in Minneapolis.....Looked at a lot of coaches....Left our names with a couple of salesmen.....no call backs from any of them. One salesman for the Mandalay gave us an initial offering that was so off base we weren't even tempted (he would have had to drop it another 50,000 to reach 25% off), I got the impression they were not serious about making a sale. I have asked Demartini to give me a price....maybe he wants to sell a coach.
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