Just got back from a quick trip with the wife in the motorhome and I think my earlier advice stands. We've had the motorhome for about a year and I've done a combination of long trips with kids, short trips with kids, long trips with another adult, and short trips with another adult.
So far, it's been working out really well. During the summer months, the RV is stocked with food (except for the refrigerated stuff) and all the camping gear. I'll bring the RV over to the house and level it out the night before and get the fridge started (I'll jump-start it with four half-gallon milk jugs full of water that are frozen solid). The next day, we load the groceries, everybody puts their clothes away on-board, and off we go.
Updating the pros and cons:
Pros:
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Travelling with kids is much easier. They can run back to the bathroom when we're on clear highway in good weather or I can just pull into any parking lot or off the side of any road. No messing around to find shoes and put them on, no nagging about stopping at vending machines, just into the bathroom and back to their seat.
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Everybody gets to spread out a little more. I haven't reinforced the dinette yet so that it can be used while in travel, but two kids on the couch, one in the chair, my wife riding shotgun, and the dinette turned into a bed for the dogs to lie on. Very nice.
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I don't have to daily drive a full-ton pick'emup. Given the amount of space that I like to have, I would probably want a 5er instead of a bumper-pull.
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The opportunity hasn't arisen yet, but in the event that I want to travel to a Rallycross or a track day or if I want to go to a 2-day RallyX event, I can tow the car behind the RV so that I can have my fridge, A/C, furnace, bathroom, shower, and bed. If I had a travel trailer, I would have to tent camp or hotel it. Now, it's been a year and I haven't leveraged that use case yet, so this may not be as big of a deal as I thought. We shall see.
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On board generator. It may be only the limited selection that I've seen, but it appears that most trailers and 5ers don't have facilities for on-board generators. I like to be able to have AC power no matter where I'm staying and being able to reach down on the side of the bed and flip the switch to start the generator before I plod to the galley to make coffee in the morning is pretty divine.
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On the longer trips when we stop for the night it's really easy to hunker down for the night. If the spot is already pretty level, all I have to do is park, shut down the engine, pull the curtains shut, and we're done. If it's not level, I can work the jacks from the driver's seat to get us close enough. Leaving in the morning also doesn't require anyone to exit the vehicle. Much nicer than having to go back and forth with a travel trailer. Also, most trailers I've seen have manual leveling jacks. Why level, you ask? It's all about the propane fridge. They don't work and sort of catch fire when they're not level.
Cons:
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Two more engines to maintain. Not to mention another transmission, brake system, power steering system, four more shocks, etc.
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Gas mileage. Going from Northern Kentucky to Daytona Beach, Florida and back while towing a car was about 7mpg. Without the car, it's usually about 7.5. I can get 8mpg if I go nice and slow on flat highway. Running the generator doesn't move the needle too much. I'm not really sure what a big Powerstroke would get pulling a big fifth-wheel, so this may or may not be relevant.
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It would be a lot easier to drop a trailer and take off in the tow vehicle than to pull up, unload a car from the trailer, park the trailer, disconnect the trailer, then park the motorhome. A Blue Ox bar would probably make that a bit easier, but those systems are very pricey and I wouldn't be flat-towing the RallyX car. And flat-towing limits what your daily driver can be.
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Truck tires are way more expensive than trailer tires per each. And you usually need two fewer tires for the trailer.
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Because there's all the truck parts in a motorhome, they're more expensive. You can get a much newer and nicer trailer for the money. I paid around 7,500 for a motorhome but the trailers and fifth-wheels in that price range were way nicer.
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If you have a mechanical failure with your tow vehicle, you can stay in the trailer while repairs are being carried out. Or you can sell it and buy a new truck pretty easily to continue your journey. Finding a shop to work on an RV is a little more difficult and if you're working on a budget, it's going to be much more challenging to try to sell the broken one and buy a different one to head home with.
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While we're talking about mechanical things, working on a trailer really doesn't require much in the way of special tools. A motorhome is going to be bigger, heavier parts and require heavier duty jacks, jack stands, and stuff like that.
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And a final point on mechanicals: You'd work on your truck in your garage, right? I bet your garage isn't 40ft long and 12ft high. So now you're stuck outside doing truck repairs. That's not so much fun.
So would I do it again? More than likely, I will replace the current motorhome with another motorhome in another year or two. I know that ¯_(ツ)_/¯ had some pretty epic issues with his, but my experience has been mostly opposite. I'd stay pretty far away from anything under about $6,500 but just like pretty much anything else with an engine, you'll never go wrong following the advice of "buy the nicest example you can afford". The $10-15k range has some really nice stuff in it, but I'd break down the "is it junk" probability thusly: <$5k = 99% junk, $5,001-$7,000 = 95% junk, $7,001-$10,000 85% junk, $10,001-$15,000 50% junk, and $15,001+ 35% junk. I've never looked much past about $25k but I assume the junk probability drops tremendously.
If you're playing in the shallow end of the pool like me, I would look for older Winnebago products primarily because they used a one-piece fiberglass roof as well as a steel frame at the caps. Yes, there are rust issues over the windshield, so check for that. But assuming that's good, you have reduced the potential for leaks dramatically and you've added some rigidity to the whole thing. Eternabond is your friend, and for the love of all that is holy, don't even think about touching silicone anything. Having grown up around 454s in a boat, I have an irrational trust of the big block Chevys and that's what I wound up with, but the Deere chassis that use the Ford 460 tend to be a little more stout than the P30. Either way, go fuel injection, even if it's only TBI.
It is true that the older gas motorhome chassis are pushed to their limits, but if you remember that it's a recreational vehicle and just take it slow and steady, it'll be fine. A trailer will track nicely behind the RV, but you'll feel it going up and down hills. Get a vacuum gauge and you'll be able to keep it from downshifting over most hills as long as you let it sacrifice speed.
If you want to tow, most of the older gas units have 3,500lb hitches. Depending on how long the RV is versus how long the chassis is, you'll probably have some frame extensions that are very shoddily butt-welded to the factory chassis. A trailer will act like a lever on those welds and if that moves, it'll shift the end cap which will basically destroy the RV. I got some heavy C-channel and bolted in reinforcements to those extensions.
There are definitely advantages to both, but my long term plans involve replacing the motorhome with another motorhome.