I'm needing some advice. I've spent a lot of time in a variety of RV/Toyhaulers etc over the last 30 years.

My wife and I have become completely disgruntled with what housing costs in the Santa Barbara area. We also travel a lot. I've got a 9 year old super-stoked son that we home school. We currently pay $2500 a month for a 2 bedroom 1 bath a block from the beach. If we move inland we can maybe drop that to $1800. Obviously if we leave the area we can get a lot more. I've been in the surf industry my whole working life, so moving far away for housing won't work. Realistically I'd have to move inland about 2 hours. F- that. I've got space in our production facility to park it. I also have parking etc with a family member who would love to have us there. I wouldn't be against parking in an RV lot for a couple weeks here and there. Longterm we will buy a house...but in the meantime giving our landlord $30,000 a year just bums me and my wife out.

So we started talking about getting a big 'ol RV and finding a place to park it. We also love to road trip. Really love it. I have my office and production facility here in SB. I've always loved the bigger RV's that use tractors. Such as this.

https://www.racingjunk.com/RVs-and-M...terpil.html#13

The advice I need is this. Is there certain engine/transmission combos that I should stay away from? I've always loved the Cat C15. My lord do they sound good.I've driven motorhomes like this before across the nation with the Mercedes motor and auto trans. I'm just not sure what to do, and where to start.

We would probably drive it 15k miles per year from SB to Seattle and other trips.

Before someone tells me to join RV.net or whatever I will probably do that, but I've spent a lot of time reading on powerstroke.org forum and feel like I have sense of trust about some of you (Ha!). I stumbled on this section and went straight down the rabbit hole!

Anyway, any advice on these types of RV's would be appreciated. I notice that a lot of you in this section have OTR experience and that is a benefit to helping me make a decision.

My wife and I did a ton of research when considering the RV life. We recently sold our smaller home in northern CA and moved back to Idaho for the better job and lower cost of living.

Being in California you have some extra things to worry about:

-most rv parks have time limits (usually a week to few months) so you will be moving around a lot.

-Most cities don't like boondockers (RV moving from place to place to camp

-Downsizing is an understatement. going from a house to an RV with wife and a kid is completely doable but most don't realize how much you actually need to downsize.

-RV value vs home equity: RV's never go up in value and the CA sun is very hard on the roof and tires. You will likely have to get your roof checked out every year or so and tires usually often esp without complete covers.

*You have a much much smaller hot water heater for showers and all but the most luxurious RVs only even have a very small stacking washer/dryer combo. Then you have to refill/drain the various types of water tanks etc.

I don't have much to offer in terms of engine/transmission combos so I am sorry. But we researched for about 2 years before going from a house to RV to larger 5th wheel to back into a home (al beit much smaller) It is totally doable but just do a lot of research before jumping into a nice diesel pusher RV etc.


Wishing you the best of luck. We are getting a tiny home about 36ft long and around 340sq/ft. We are looking at about 6 different lots of land and thankfully our county/state doesn't care if I live in a plywood shack as long as property taxes are paid lol.

Thanks! Good advice.

Anyone have any opinion on the 450hp Mercedes motor and 13sp auto transmission?

The plow truck I drove with the city was a Sterling with the 405 Mercedes. and 10 speed Allison. The thing was the biggest pos ever. Left me for dead by the lake because the transmission locked up and fried the computer so the truck wouldn't even run on acc. I almost froze before someone came along.(no cell service) I'm not sure what a outfit like your looking at weighs but with 30,000 Pounds of salt, liquid brine activator and 24' of plow it was super underpowered. Anything deeper than 2' had to take a few runs.

That's really the only rig I've run. It burnt up when our works garage burnt in Feb. Going to be in a new International HDX this winter.