Anyone ever rent an RV for a road trip? The wife and I will be driving from southern Arizona to northern Indiana for a family event in July. About 2,000 miles or so, we figure to be on the road a couple of weeks or so and "look around" on the way. We are thinking it would be fun to rent a small camper-van type RV for the trip. We could stay at lakes, national and state parks, campgrounds, wherever.
A quick look at rental rates don't really look horrible, around $200 a night or so. Not sure about mileage rates yet, more homework to do. Just looking for thoughts and advice on this kind of rental for a road trip.
I987 I rented a U-haul RV for a Florida family road trip over Easter with my wife and 3-year-old daughter. She liked to ride up front in Pass seat as I drove. on 5th day of week-long outing, driving east on a 2 lane desolate highway 70 east of Aradia, it was mid day with clear weather but rather windy. RV bounced around a bit. Wife was on the couch reading a book.. Traffic was somewhat light. RV started to drift to the shoulder, so I corrected. RV kept heading to the right, but the steering was not responding. There was oncoming traffic.
Now my right front wheel is on the shoulder, and I am afraid if I hit the brakes, it will veer me into oncoming traffic. We are heading down shoulder at 60mph, wife thinks I'm having a heart attack because I wasn't saying anything, now headed to a lone off road telephone poll, so I timed hitting the brakes to get the RV to veer away from the pole. It worked, but as we flew up back out of the ditch the steering wheel came off in my hands. We are now knocking down barb wire fence posts as we enter a pasture full of cows. My daughter is laughing. The cows never flinched btw, must be common for them. We finally come to a stop a 100' into the pasture. The RV has numerous stickers posted inside and out not to drive the RV off road because of protentional exhaust fires and plumbing damage. So, I decide to get my family outside as fast as possible.
I open the door, oddly still holding the steering wheel, with the RV wrapped in barb wire, and my first foot on the ground steps on a snake, so new plan. Nobody is hurt except my wife got bounced around in back. People stopped to offer assistance. Highway patrol showed up Contacted UHAUL, they said I was not allowed to drive it off road. They would only tow it if I got it back on the road. Farmer showed up and was starting to fix the fence and trap the RV, I don't blame him.
UHaul finally agreed to retrieve it. Vacation was cut short, all the food spoiled.
Weeks later Uhaul adjuster showed up at home and said basically regarding the steering wheel coming off, "don't sweat it, it happens all the time" and only offered to pay for spoiled food.
U Jaul six months later stopped renting RV's.
That was our last and ONLY RV outing.
