Purching 1st 5er

[kenandjudy]

hello everyone i'm a new member to MOC and very interested in Montana 5er. i have camped all my life (tent & popup). i can use all and any advice on the purchase.
kenandjudy

[Mudchief]

We are on our second Montana and have been very pleased with both. Just remember there is not a perfect unit out there. If you can get 90% of the things you want in a unit then you have done good. Once you find the unit you want if you are willing to travel to get it you can save a lot of money.

[BB_TX]

We bought an '07 3075RL new in July '07. Have had virtually no problems with it at all. Had a minor wiring error quickly corrected by the dealer just after we bought it. Has not been back for anything since. 11,000+ miles and exactly 100 nights to date.
Some have mentioned some problems with frame welds, microwave failures, and suspension problems. And graphics peeling have been a problem for some. But these kind of things have been reported by other brand owners as well.
But overall, I think most everyone here has been very happy with their purchases and feel they have been a very good deal for the price.

[richfaa]

Do not expect perfection with the Montana or any other brand. There will be problems. Remember forums report and talk about problems. For every problem reported there are thousands who never had one.

[CamillaMichael]

We searched and compared other brands to the Montana and decided the Montana (3400rl) was the right fit for us. As pointed out above, no perfect units out there (in terms of quality/construction or the right mix of features), but if you spend enough time comparing units, you may come close to "your" perfection. Good luck in your search.

[stiles watson]

Ask your questions. You'll get some good answers. You'll just have to figure out which are the best answers.

[kenandjudy]

I appreciate the response, my problem is I know very little about 5ers. Where do you start?
kenandjudy

[CORattler]

We looked for 2 years and comparison shopped them all. We kept coming back to the Montana. Finally bought ours in June and are very happy with it. No major problems so far. Welcome to the forum!

[Fire5er]

If you haven't purchased yet, do you have a PDI? If not make sure to get one and use it during your deliver checkout. Have the dealer correct everything to your liking before you give them that final check. If you are just looking you are ahead of the game. If you haven't purchased yet, when you do start to make the deal give them as small a down payment as you can so if things go bad with your deal you and walk away. The RV industry is not known for quality control so you will find some issue, usually small stuff. But when you pay as much as you do for one of these rigs you want the small stuff taken care of. Good luck, and you came to the beast place on the web to learn about 5th-wheels, especially the Montana line. We have a bunch of great people here with a great wealth of knowledge.

[jdvier]

We are picking our 3400RL up in about 4 weeks. The dealer is in Idaho and I think it is worth the trip. They are going to have a one on one training session on all systems. This goes on until I feel comfortable. If you need more info please let me know.
The dealer gave us the best deal we could get.

[kenandjudy]

We are going to Hershey this weekend and hope to decide on the Montana model. We think we have it down to 3 models, we found out all 3 will be @ the show. I was talking with the dealer about a slider hitch, he said with the new 5er design he is not selling alot of sliders. I would appreciate all opinions on the slider hitch.
Kenandjudy

[johnp4191]

Pay attention to the weight of the unit you buy and be sure to have an appropriately sized truck to pull it. Keep both in mind when you shop or you may end up with more rv than your truck can handle. It is best to just go to a few dealers and sit in a bunch of units. As you start looking you will find what layout you like and what you can do without. Pretent you are actually using it.

We bought a used 2003, 2880, which has a u shaped kitchen and has the tv at the back by the chairs and couch. The door is toward the front of the unit. All of those points were part of the layout that I wanted. Also it is a smaller unit which I wanted for towing. We tend to stay in state parks which haven't quite figured out that there are some larger units out there and sometimes the roads are too tight for longer units! It took looking at a number of units before we figured out what was and was not important. I would love to have a self contained bathroom instead of the bath being in the bedroom, but it wasn't available in the size and style we wanted.

Good Luck!

Judi

[RCMP03]

Ken and Judy, we have a slider hitch but, to tell you the truth, have never had the need to use it so far and I have sometimes got myself in some tight situations. Maybe there will be a day.