dayman Posted November 11, 2023 Share Posted November 11, 2023 Hello, A little info about me. I have never owned an RV! I live in Denver and am curious about owning something to take to the mountains for ski season as well as summer camping! One more thing - I work remotely and drive hardly at all. Once a week to the grocery store and once a week to a class I attend. Odds and ends beyond that. So, it's possible this RV would also function as a driver around town. I have found a 1991 Toyota Winnebago in Denver. It has 39K miles, and asking price is $17K. I would probably not be able to afford that but would like to haggle. I'm curious the overall reliability of this vehicle. It is the V6 3.0l Dually version. It appears to be in great shape. The owner said that he fixed a leak professionally over the overhead cab and it cost him $4K. Maybe this is why he wants $17K.... Based upon my little research it seems that $12K would be a reasonable price. His ad also mentions that he has never used the toilet, shower, or sink but that the pump appears to be working. Would it be a problem if this system sat unused for years or is this a potential plus? Other random questions: - any other small sized RVs i should be considering? I like the idea that this vehicle is basically a toyota tacoma with an RV lol. Its also small for parking in denver - Winter Camping? any special considerations - Power: any special considerations for running heat in the winter? In the summer, it is cold enough in colorado I will likely not need to run a/c. - reliability? - toilet/plumbing reliabilty - Anyone else rv around the mountains here and have pointers for places to stay overnight? Sounds like ski season at the resorts may not be the best option Thank you so much for the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewanderlustking Posted November 11, 2023 Share Posted November 11, 2023 Hello Dayman! Welcome to the forum! Lots of questions, where to start lol... Toyota RV's are very reliable, with a few small catches. Both the 4cly and 6cyl models are considered underpowered. The 22RE 4cly gets an even worse rap on this than the 6cyl. But when I was done with it my 2RE powered '86 Mini Cruiser actually had more get up and go than my '93 6cyl 4Runner has. YMMV lol. In fairness I did a couple serious upgrades to the Mini Cruiser to get it there. 1) Upgraded exhaust including headers. Not hard, but not a quick/cheap buy 1 simple/full kit to do it type of job. 2) Rear end gear ratio swap. WAY cheaper than the exhaust, sorta. Parts were only $250 for this. But I am a mechanic and have access to a full shop. A coworker did the actual teardown on the pumpkin and rebuild after I pulled it out. Surprisingly this job was WAY easier than the exhaust. But if you can't DIY this one and had to pay to have the removal and rebuild done, it would easily be 5-7hrs of labor time. I bring this up as you mention "mountains" and should be aware of this. Plenty of our members here though have driven them everywhere. But power and brakes are more of a concern in that situation. Toyotas 3VZE 3.0 6cyl engine had longstanding recalls for blowing head gaskets. On the heavier RV's, this is even more common than on the regular trucks. Usually if the real ha been done, regular maintenance will go a LONG way to preventing further issues. I would not consider head gaskets on the 3.0 to be a DIY driveway job even for more advanced DIY type people. I would do it in mine, but I sure wouldn't be excited to do so... The 22RE 2.4 4cly engines are probably the most bulletproof engine Toyota has made. We do still see incidents on here of them popping head gaskets. But I think this is more a case of poor maintenance and older vehicles. These get worked HARD driving around with a house on top of them. I wouldn't flinch doing a head gasket on one of these in an Autozone or Walmart parking lot though. Autozone would be preferable, shorter walking distance to get supplies LOL! The drivetrain and rest of the platform are pretty simple, and reliable Toyota. You are talking about older vehicles, so pretty normal maintenance and nothing really stands out here other than avoiding the earlier axle issues (before 1985-ish). Oh one thing, Toyota used a proportioning valve for the rear brakes that can add in some shenanigans. There is a LOT of information in this forum on those though. The rest of the "house" stuff is basic RV, and pretty generic. Essentially all older RV's of this era used crappy power converters. If you leave them plugged into shore power, they overcharge and cook your house battery(s). Winter camping. Many of these have a built in furnace that runs on LPG. Never used mine, no clue on how good they work. A Mr Buddy heater though will solve any issues you have there if the Toy doesn't have one, or if it doesn't work well enough. Thats probably a try it out and see kinda deal. All RV's essentially have the same issues and solutions as far as this goes. Yes, there are PLENTY of awesome small RV' out there to pick from. In fact the wife and I went RV shopping today and fell in love with a Winnie on a Dodge/Mercedes 23j platform. But if your budget is less than 17k, that essentially knocks everything off your possible list except these Toyotas, and utter piles of garbage. The 2006 Winnie was $50k... And that's not a crazy premium dealer price for one either. There are a lot of Ford platform RVs out there that could come in close to your target. More power, WAY MORE gas guzzling. Most of the older ones run the V10. Pretty reliable overall, but known for injector and coil issues. And unless you are a very skilled DIY who loves to suffer, this is not an easy job to tackle. As a Mechanic, I DREAD working on these engines. It is also extremely common for these to need front end work. Even at lower mileages. Some have a weird twin beans suspension on the front that is prone to tire wear. Nothing can be done other than rotating tires regularly, and replacing them. If any RV on a Ford platform doesn't drive straight and smoothly down the road, walk away. I would not even consider one of these unless it came across my path at a very good price. The reason why these Toyota have near a cult like following though, is their reliability and ease to work on, ESPECIALLY when compared to other RVs of the '90's and '00's. I wouldn't flinch at getting one from the '80's either. Think about the fact that mot of these are 30-40 years old. And there are still plenty of them out there to pick from! They survive. $17k for one with only 39k on it could be a pretty fair price. Depending on how well repairs were done and how decent the rest of the house is. If you want a way better deal, be prepared to get your hands dirty and have some DIY projects to tackle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dayman Posted November 12, 2023 Author Share Posted November 12, 2023 Wow thank you so much for the info. Question that just came up, any safety concerns around the brakes going down the mountains? That could be bad lol… Should I ask the seller if the head gaskets have been replaced? If not, is it too late to have Toyota fix? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toycollector47 Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 (edited) My limited experience with my dolphin says that brakes really shouldn’t be too much of an issue. At least coming down some of the passes in Montana the engine brake effect had me not even touching the brakes. Im looking forward to getting it up into the mountains here in Colorado (am also in the Denver area) It would be a small fortune to have Toyota do ANYTHING with that truck, so that’s not really an avenue you really want to look at. There are however several shops around that specialize in older Toyota trucks (granted mostly 4x4) but they’ll gladly work on one of these too! Edited November 12, 2023 by Toycollector47 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dayman Posted November 12, 2023 Author Share Posted November 12, 2023 4 hours ago, Toycollector47 said: My limited experience with my dolphin says that brakes really shouldn’t be too much of an issue. At least coming down some of the passes in Montana the engine brake effect had me not even touching the brakes. Im looking forward to getting it up into the mountains here in Colorado (am also in the Denver area) It would be a small fortune to have Toyota do ANYTHING with that truck, so that’s not really an avenue you really want to look at. There are however several shops around that specialize in older Toyota trucks (granted mostly 4x4) but they’ll gladly work on one of these too! Any advice on places to park overnight near any of the resorts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toycollector47 Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 Lol! Nope, sorry I can’t help there. I’ve been priced out of skiing for a couple decades. now I don’t think my body will tolerate it anymore! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dayman Posted November 12, 2023 Author Share Posted November 12, 2023 1 minute ago, Toycollector47 said: Lol! Nope, sorry I can’t help there. I’ve been priced out of skiing for a couple decades. now I don’t think my body will tolerate it anymore! It’s a shame there’s not more lots/camping spaces etc. seems like the resort towns want us to stay… at the resort! Lol im wondering if there’s some nice public land outside of summit county. Anything to keep me off the i70 mess during rush hour Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdahoDoug Posted November 13, 2023 Share Posted November 13, 2023 Dayman, Regarding winter camping near the resorts. Our camping van has been a VW Vanagon for years, starting with a 4wd model called a Syncro and now a 2wd. We fully insulated it for winter camping, but it's tough to do. In winter, vehicle camping is far more logistically challenging than you're thinking. Resort parking lots are the only option if your intention is to ski out of your RV. This is due to the simple realization I had when seeking winter spots, that the plows don't open up all those nice little spots we use all summer. So you are on a country road with several feet of snow on each side, and you simply can't get off the road due to a huge berm. You're totally limited to what the plow does. Same effect on all the beautiful forest roads here. You can't get off the roads to access the back country. Thought you'd want to know that. Hope you get that vehicle - sounds like a nice one and it is super low mile, but not worth that price. Especially post COVID price insanity, which is over somewhat. And especially in Colorado in November. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewanderlustking Posted November 18, 2023 Share Posted November 18, 2023 On 11/12/2023 at 1:16 PM, Toycollector47 said: It would be a small fortune to have Toyota do ANYTHING with that truck, so that’s not really an avenue you really want to look at. There are however several shops around that specialize in older Toyota trucks (granted mostly 4x4) but they’ll gladly work on one of these too! On 11/12/2023 at 10:48 AM, dayman said: Should I ask the seller if the head gaskets have been replaced? If not, is it too late to have Toyota fix? I think the question being asked is if Toyota would still honor the warranty/recall repair. The camping was quietly ended around 2004, but you can always try. I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Both the brakes and the head gaskets are not critical concerns, just something to read up on. Take care not to overheat the engine. I run Toyota coolant and add in a thing of Redline Water Wetter to mine. Overkill? Yes. But it makes me feel better and the Water Wetter does give me about 10-15 degrees more cooling. My old Mini Cruiser also ran, well runs Toyota red coolant and it never gave me or its current owner any issues. I think it is actually showing up later this weekend lol! The pictures of it look very promising! I can't really see anything of concern. Just look over the front section VERY closely in person. 17k seems a pretty reasonable price. Have the owner show you everything is working, and how to operate it all. You might ask he has the fridge going too prior so you can verify it gets cold. Here is a link to some further details on the recall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 Who ever told you the head gasket repairs ended in 2004 was very wrong. We have members here who were still getting it done in 2017. Also overheating the engine has nothing to do with them failing. The material was faulty. because there are still motorhomes out there with under 50,000 miles some of those bad gaskets simply haven't failed yet. Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewanderlustking Posted November 24, 2023 Share Posted November 24, 2023 Toyota told me that, so are they wrong... ??? And if you also pull up Toyota's official recall campaign, it clearly states 8 years from time of first use or 100k miles. But I also know that others have gotten Toyota to do it much more recently. Hence why I said: Quote The camping was quietly ended around 2004, but you can always try. (I misspelled campaign lol...) The head gaskets all fail, almost every single last one, at the very same point. Back side of the head where the crossover pipe goes by. It is a very well documented issue, head over to any of the off-road Toyota forums and it is easy to find. Keeping the cooling system functioning well helps, and most don't delver any further into it. The heat shielding Toyota used back there is also a big help. And some go and wrap the exhaust crossover back there also. The actual issue is the exhaust being too hot and cooking the head gasket. Yes, keeping the engine running cool helps a lot. Why? A hot engine runs leaner, leaner exhaust is hotter, hotter exhaust cooks that head gasket. Then you add in the EGR system and you add another layer of oops to the problem. It also isn't that the head gaskets were actually defective. It is a poor head design, specifically poor cooling in the back. Another reason why improving the cooling system actually helps with this, and overheating it can cause a premature failure. Hence why some engines needed MULTIPLE repairs, and some never needed any. This was from one of Toyota's internal campaign documents, and I have seen this referenced in some of the head gasket manufactures docs. Toyota solved this by changing the head gasket properties and completely redesigning the head gasket. They went from a partially mollebeyum coated gasket to a full coated one, and drastically increased the bore rings. Yay, I actually found a copy of that campaign note! Another factor I have yet to see mentioned, is an old or damaged catalytic converter. A clogged catalytic can/will also increase exhaust temperature, cook the manifold and crossover pipe, and overheat that corner of the head. I am not trying to argue, but these things are not usually black and white and because of that I am VERY careful with the words I use. I rarely speak in absolutes, so please be careful before you come back telling me I am wrong. I also know that people tend to skim through my more detailed descriptions, so I try to simplify and frequently that leaves bits of information out. There is also a huge difference between a campaign and a recall. Campains have an expiration. But in my own experience of working at a dealership, the service advisor can choose to honor an expired campaign. Recalls are different and have no expiration if they are safety, compliance, or emissions related. The 3VZE head gasket issue here, was a campaign and NOT a recall. Lets get back to the statement I made though, "You can always try." I am not sure how many of you own new Toyotas and have had experience dealing with them. Toyota is NOT your "normal" company satisfied with an "average" customer experience. They strive to be the best and and seriously care about their reputation and the customer experience. They go an extra 100 miles for their customers, not just 1. I had a weird issue and needed a special Toyota ABS diagnostics tool for my 1994 4Runner. This tool hasn't been made in well over 20yrs... I went to my local dealership parts department and explained the problem. Cost wasn't even an issue, I needed the tool. Another parts advisor overheard this and thought he knew where one might be. A few phone calls and a day later they handed me the special tool ON LOAN. It had been hand delivered from across the state! Yeah, it helped that I personally knew the parts guy, and had worked with him and the parts manager before, so perhaps they assumed some risk for this others might not have, and they knew I actually knew how to use said tool. But the other store had no such relationship with me and still went out of their way to get it to us. Toyota knows it is cultivating a relationship like this that pays off and generates customers for life. And it does. Last weekend we bought a brand new 4Runner with only 2 miles on it off the showroom floor! So with that said if there is any way they can get away with honoring the campaign, if the right people are involved there is a better than average chance they will do so. But technically, it is long since expired and they don't HAVE to do so. This can be seen and proven Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted November 24, 2023 Share Posted November 24, 2023 The earlier years expired sooner but the mid-nineties to at least 1993 expired 9/2018. I posted this and forgot Document: (nhtsa.gov) Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 If you're interested here are the original Toyota Docs. The 8 years or 100.000 miles was a Special Policy Adjustment and that did have a limited availability. Mid 1990 to some all the way through 1995 had no such termination date. Toyota V6 Head Gasket SPECIAL SERVICE CAMPAIGN V06.pdf Even though they have ended this program I would be likely to argue it if it was me. No end date on original docs sounds like a legal loophole to me Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyinby Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Maybe better late than never, but wanted to mention that Toyota can look up to see if the head gasket had been replaced. 2-3 years ago when we got our '93 Itasca, I called the local dealer and they were happy to look it up, and found it had been done at 75000 miles. Also, in reference to the original LP gas heater mentioned in an early reply, I had expected it to be junk, but tried it anyway, and works great! A small forced-air furnace with thermostat on the wall (at least on our Itasca Spirit), and the fan is a bit loud, but it heats the place up so nicely and quickly, I've never had to use the Buddy heater I carry as a backup. On a cold morning, just reach up and click on the thermostat, and within minutes it's nice and comfortable in there. No fumes, and it uses very little LP gas, judging from how long the tank lasts compared to not using heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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