By Chuck Woodbury
If you can’t read the small print in the ad below, then here’s what it says: Camping World is enticing buyers to finance this entry-level motorhome for 20 years. Camping World pushes such long-term loans to anyone it can sucker into doing it. Other dealers offer the same deal to stay competitive.
In this ad from 2018, the cheaply built 28-foot Thor Freedom Elite is offered for $76,995 (MSRP $102,300) — $469 a month at 5.25 percent interest. That’s based on 10 percent down and payments for 20 years. At the end of 20 years, the total amount paid on the RV will be roughly $120,000! The RV will be worth next to nothing.
Or how about this — paying that $120,000 for 20 years averages $16.40 a day for 7,300 days. Or, put another way, 68 cents an hour for 175,200 hours!
At the end of its first two years, the RV will be worth roughly $51,000 but the buyer will still owe about $65,000. So if something happens and the new owner must sell the RV, he or she will need to write a check for around $14,000 just to come out even. It doesn’t get much better for most of the loan.
Think about that 20-year loan for a moment. Let me try to provide some perspective. If, today, you were about to make your final payment on a loan you took out 20 years ago — that would have been in 1998 — here’s what was going on in the world when we first wrote this article in 2018:
•Google.com was founded by two Stanford University students.
•President Bill Clinton admitted he had an “improper physical relationship” with intern Monica Lewinsky.
•The average price of gas was $1.15 a gallon.
•Pop and country star Taylor Swift was 9 years old.
•Pop star Justin Bieber was still in preschool.
•Camping World and Good Sam CEO Marcus Lemonis was too young to drive.
•St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire broke baseball’s single-season home run record.
•Assembly began of the International Space Station.
•Europeans agreed on a single currency, the Euro.
•Apple Computer unveiled the iMac.
•Frank Sinatra and Tammy Wynette died.
And. . .
•It would be 3 years until the terror attack on the World Trade Center.
•It would be 5 years before the start of the Iraq War.
•Facebook would not debut for 6 years, YouTube for 8 years.
•The first iPhone would not be sold for 9 years!
•And you were 20 years younger!
Do you have an infant child or grandchild? If you take out a 20-year RV loan today, that child or grandchild will be halfway through college before you make your final payment!
Don’t ever let an RV salesman talk you into a 20 year loan. And a 15-year-loan is nearly as bad.
This article previously appeared in RVtravel.com.