Let’s talk about where the industry is as far as shipments via the latest report from RVIA.  Just keep in mind shipments do not equal sales. Shipments are units moving from the manufacturers to the Dealer lots.

For those that don’t know about the RVIA they are the RV lobbing group. They represent the manufacturers and component part suppliers of recreation vehicles, and lobby against regulations or legislation that could impact RV manufacturers.  I am not a fan, because I think they are detrimental to the RV industry having accountability and better quality – that’s my opinion.  Here’s a link where you will get a flavor for what I am talking about:

RV Industry brags about defeating RV lemon laws – RV Travel

On with the update

Overall shipments are up 7% over last year.  However, that’s all types of RVS.  So let’s talk about towables YTD compared to 2023.  Let’s remember however that 2023 was a bad year for the industry, down 37% over 2022s numbers.  This I’m sure was due to the end of covid (so demand dropped) plus a lot of folks dumping their RVs, adding to the used market, as we came out of it.

When you look at travel trailers, they are up 17.4% and Fifth wheels only 2%. This is just speculation, but I think that the frame flex issue could be impacting the fifth wheel market. It could be that folks are reluctant to buy a fifth wheel when they are reading about frame flex almost every day on social media.

Pop-ups are down 18.3% Truck Campers are down 12%.  The numbers of truck campers and pop-ups shipped each month do not make up a big shipment number, so it doesn’t take much of a drop to really move that number.

So overall the towable market is up 13.2% over last year (keep in mind last year was horrible so the bar is really low), BUT if you look at the entire RV market they are only up 7%. Here’s the really interesting part – all the Class A, B, and C are down double digits:

Class A and B- both down 32%

Class C down 17%

So right now, all the motorhomes are really down compared to 2023.  Some of this may be driven by the bad press they are getting regarding some states putting regulations in place that would require a certain percentage of a manufacturers motorhomes to be electric.  Another thing that could be impacting sales is that more and more quality issues are showing up on YouTube channels where folks are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a lemon – but this is just my guess at what is happening.

Let’s look at what has been happening over the last seven years. The numbers below show the year, number of shipments during that year, and then the percentage difference compared to the previous year. 2024 is just my guess at where shipments will finish this year.

We are nowhere in shipments where we were in 2017@504,599 or 2021@ 600,000, In fact in 2023 we were about half of that!!! However, has there been any change in quality?  Not that I’ve seen.

I typically hate government regulations, but given on how these are slapped together, one could certainly argue for it in the RV industry.  After all you are rolling down the highway and there are plenty of things that can, and do go wrong, that can impact innocent drivers on the road.  In fact, the NHTSA is currently investigating the frame failure issue in Grand Design Momentum and Solitude models. 

In my mind they could be investigating a lot more than frame flex. Why? because I feel all these units are under-engineered.  Why are the axles not rated to handle more the fully loaded vehicle weight, springs seem to break at an alarming rate, Frame cracks, and flex, wiring being different depending on who did it at the factory, plumbing connections from Pex to flexible hose, which will almost certainly lead to eventual leaks, roof membranes not adhered correctly.  I could go on and on.

So folks, regardless of new or used, do yourself a favor and get an inspection – that’s my advice.  Because quality in the RV industry has no correlation with shipment numbers at all.