Old is good. Or not...

The Admiral has been doing her research so we can hit the ground running. Well... in my case maybe a fast shuffle. One of the things she did is get on the Thor Motor Coach Group on Facebook and search many of the topics.

It's beginning to look like most of the things Thor builds have problems when new. Odds and ends from blocked plumbing vents to failures in electrical systems and on to cabinetry. One owner pointed out that the complaints are largely from new owners while those that have a motor home that's older than maybe 2 or 3 years have significantly fewer complaints. Without giving it a lot of thought the first impression might be "they just don't build 'em like they used to!" Or maybe it's just apathy on the part of longer term owners. I think I may have a different take on it.

In the electronics world there is a phenomenon called "infant mortality" which predicts a higher than normal failure rate (failures per million hours) when equipment is first placed in service. The curve that describes that failure rate is called a "bath tub curve" because the failures are highest initially, then drop down to expected failure rates... 

 

Later as the equipment continues in service and starts approaching end-of-useful-life, the failure rate starts to rise again. That initial higher-than-predicted failure rate is called infant mortality- those are the components that fail early in the service life of the equipment while the rest perform as expected. With that real-world experience in mind...

It's my contention that buying a 2-5 year old RV may in fact be a better experience for the owner because the early failures have been corrected by previous owner(s). Yeah, it's nothing but conjecture at this point. It will take awhile before we know if it's true or if I'm blowing smoke up my own butt to convince myself we didn't do the wrong thing!

Speaking of which I found that blowing smoke up the ass isn't anything new:

“Oh, you’re just blowing smoke up my ass,” is something you might hear someone say when they think you’re just telling them what they want to hear. But in 18th-century England, blowing smoke up your ass was an actual medical procedure, and no, we aren’t kidding."

 You probably don't want to be the med tech if you're prone to hiccups!