Good Luck Out There!
Good Luck Out There!
We didn't set out to be the RV industry's critics. We set out to live in one.
We bought our first RV, a Winnebago Navion (2018 model), and went full-time for two years. It was everything we'd hoped for: the freedom, the views, the strange tribe of people who live this way. We were converts. We thought we'd RV forever.
We had our first child and quickly outgrew the Navion. We needed more space â a real bedroom, a place for a car seat, room for the gear that comes with a baby. So we traded up.
The Coachmen Pursuit looked great on the lot. It lived in the shop. We started keeping a list â fixtures that fell off, slides that wouldn't slide, water leaks where there shouldn't have been water. We ate a lot of the cost ourselves because warranty work meant losing the RV for weeks.
Around this time we started paying attention to a pattern. Most of the legacy RV brands had been bought by two or three giant holding companies. The independent operators we'd grown up trusting were now subsidiaries with quarterly numbers to hit. Quality was the variable that gave when corporate pushed for volume.
We did our research and bought what we thought was the antidote: an Alliance Paradigm fifth wheel. Alliance was independently owned at the time, founded by industry veterans who said they were doing it differently.
Some were small â trim that fell off, switches that didn't switch. Some were not â major structural issues, water intrusion, electrical problems. We learned that "independently owned" wasn't a guarantee of anything when the industry's whole supply chain and labor pool were under the same pressure.
We started posting our story. The reaction was immediate and overwhelming. People weren't surprised â they were relieved. "I thought it was just me." We heard that hundreds of times. RV owners had been gaslit by dealerships, ground down by warranty processes, and told they were the problem. They weren't.
Five years later, the channel and the community are still here. We still RV. We still love the lifestyle. And we still think the industry deserves to be held to a higher standard than the one it's set for itself.
We are: an independent voice for the RV community. Honest reviews, hard questions, and pre-purchase guidance for people who don't want to learn what we learned the hard way.
We are not: paid by manufacturers. We don't sell RV products. We don't take dealership money. When we have a sponsor, you'll know â and it won't be anyone whose product we're supposed to be reviewing honestly.