RV appliances

[Jared L]

I am lucky enough to be camping at lesser slave Lake. I am in my 1984 Bigfoot b-19 with the air conditioner running (mostly Because everything was getting damp though a bit of sunstroke from fishing all day is possible). This might not seem post worthy but it's the original AC unit. I have not had it serviced in the 9 years I've owned it and I doubt the previous owners did either. Most likely it's all original just like the made in Sweden fridge, Wedgewood oven & burners and the furnace, all working just fine.

I don't baby my trailer either. Since I've owned it, it has seen over a thousand kilometers of gravel or logging roads in addition to thousands of paved. Why can't we buy good appliances any longer? I'm going to repair mine rather than replace until they turn to dust.

Friends and family have had nothing but problems with modern appliances in their campers/trailers. Had anyone had good luck with newer appliances?

[ZachO]

Things aren’t built to last these days. I’ve heard with most newer appliances, if you upgrade the electronics, that solves most issues. Of course you shouldn’t have to do that...

My Bigfoot saw little use until I bought it. For the last 5 years it gets constant use 6 months of the year. I’ve had all kinds of problems, but none of my appliances have been replaced; only repaired.

Sounds like you’re having fun! Unfortunately named lake though...

[Defenestrator]

I think it's a few different things. Partly, early designs of anything tend to be over-built. Nobody has a good idea of what the failure modes are, so they build in extra robustness pretty much everywhere. Over time, that robustness gets removed where they can get away with it to reduce not just cost but also weight (and improve efficiency in some cases).

Partly, it's survivorship bias. Some of the older stuff was also built like crap, but it's all long since been sent to the landfill. So, by definition anything old and still around was well-built.