American Motorhomes & Rv's, Your Basic Guide

Copyright (c) 2008 Kimberlie Hutson

This article will give you a bit of background and general information about American RV's or motor homes, I will explain a bit of the basic terminology and highlight a few things that you will need to consider before investing in one of these vehicles. The majority of the big American manufacturers first started building RV's in the mid 50's. However, it wasn't until around the late 1970's that they started to be distributed on a large scale in the UK, there are restrictions on what can be imported into the UK due to dimensions etc and it's due to this there are only around 12 manufactures in the UK.

There are quite a few differences between the American RV's and the European ones, one of the main differences is their size, Americans motor homes will be much bigger than European ones, there are also differences in structure, for example the American motor homes are built with aluminum and fiber glass making them as light, but also as strong as possible, European motor homes are build with wood construction. The engines and the chassis are also different as American motor homes will be much heavier and designed for more heavy-duty use.

Generally, manufactures that offer RV's will offer them with an engine at the front or an engine at the rear, it is for this reason that they will be referred to as either a pusher or a puller. Pushers will have the engine at the back and will typically be at the high end of the market whereas pullers will have their engines at the front and would be more entry level; this is because the engine at the back will give you a better quality engine and chassis and gearbox. Although pushers will be at the higher end of the market (and therefore of higher quality) they will be heavier.

Although you can get motor homes in petrol or diesel, these days front engine motor homes tend to be petrol whereas back engine motor homes will be diesel, although front engine diesels are available, manufacturers stopped making these in 2002.

Apart from the price and the location of the engine, pushers and pullers have a few other differences too; a puller would have a lease spring and mechanical suspension chassis whereas a pusher would have an air breaking system and an air suspension system. This is because the pushers are much heavier duty vehicles and therefore the chassis are designed to carry more weight they also have a better turning circle.

There are about five main UK RV dealers, all of whom import direct from the manufacturer and are authorized to do so. A grey import is a term used for vehicles which are not imported by the main agent, a manufacture could sell to a private person for them to import independently, this would mean that it may not have been converted properly if its come from another country. RV's are an American product so when they're imported to the UK they need to have professionally carried out conversions to make them safe and legal to drive on UK roads. American produced vehicles wouldn't come with a warranty because they would have originally be made for use in America, once these vehicles have imported by a main agent, that agent would then be able to offer the factory warranty. The third implication of buying a grey import would be their re sell value, an RV brought from an official UK agent would hold its value and be easier to sell on than a grey import.