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Originally Posted by GHTraveler
I'm (extremely) new to RV'ing. I just bought a GulfStream Sun Stream and can't wait to get going with it. Any caveats to know about?
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Hey, congrats on your purchase. We picked up a Tourmaster this past February.
- if you have the manual, use and build up on the checklist to make sure that you don’t inadvertently break something while you are new. Parts are hard to come by these days for stuff.
- know where you can find your spare parts. Visone is a great place to start and I’ve seen a lot of sun voyagers in their inventory that they are parting out with.
- make sure you catch up quickly on preventive and periodic maintenance and their schedules. Generator, seals on the roof and sides of your coach, etc A lot of folks focus their energy on their engine when in reality a coach needs maintenance all over. The good part is that you probably bought a used RV if I’m not mistaken and a lot of the initial bugs have been worked out but these things break all the time. You can offset a lot of the heart ache by doing a good preventive maintenance routine! One key and often overlooked area is periodic maintenance on any propane furnace, water heater, tanks etc. Folks focus on the tanks but you can do a lot to keep your furnaces and water heaters running strong by just taking care of them every year. Pretty easy to do.
- Spend a lot of time doing research on an RV maintenance facility that has a good reputation in your area. It is so hard to find when most shops have a three out of five star rating based on their reviews. It honestly took me several months to find a shop that I trusted here in the Phoenix Arizona area.
- There are a lot of resources out there to help answer your maintenance questions, particularly if you are handy. There is no problem doing your own work on your coach and you can find some resources out there where they have people on standby to help you.
- Get yourself some road hazard protection plan. FMCA and Good Sam are good places to start. Because these things break, a good plan can offset cost and they are worth it in my opinion.
I think that is all I can think of at the moment but get out there and enjoy your new baby. Have a lot of fun and you came to the right place to get some good tips, tricks, and strategies! (Apologize for any typos, I am on my phone ha ha)