We didn't know if we should sell our fifth wheel camper and get a
Class A motorhome. So we drove one. i'm scared
welcome to the channel i'm paul and i'm liz and these are exciting times to push past fear
build confidence and live amazing and you will certainly live amazing if you have the right rig
if you watched our previous video about whether we were going to sell our fifth wheel and get a class
a then you know we've been thinking about that we want to thank you so much for weighing in we've
learned a lot from you so many people said well you better drive one you better drive one rent one
whatever and it was just so wonderful we love the a-team we love that jill and darren reached out
and said drive ours the way that started was so cute because she had said oh we just got a class a
and i jokingly said well we should swap and then she said well if you're ever in the area let us
know yeah and we were how many of you with a class a a brand new one at that would let us drive one
yeah right yeah i mean i don't know that i would have done that for somebody that i didn't know
well we're very very uh touched that they offered so what they have is a brand new 2021
thor venetian r40 they've only had it for three months so it's a 40 foot long diesel pusher jill
and darren basically spent you know the whole day with us showing us the whole rig inside and out so
we could learn the setup how the slides work and so that we could drive it we took it out and drove
it around their quaint little town and then we went up on the freeway okay all right so float
on the brake right there all right okay so it's in neutral right now see can you see this how it has
a d turn turn the wheel slightly in you'll yeah okay so drive is forward you just turn the center
reverses backwards so when you're ready you put it in drive push down and push that in right there
which happens first uh either one i usually take the brake off first but that works just as well
now push that in push it in hear that noise yeah okay that means you're good to go so as soon as
you let off the brake she's gonna move all right cool all right should i try making a turn uh not
yet i just drive it straight a little bit we'll go down to the corner and make a turn all right
oh man it floats all right it's up to you whenever you're ready okay am i gonna
everybody hang on i can make it like can i make a right here well that's a court you can go on
the court and flip around and go forward and backward if you want to use devices go
straight okay it'll make a left as we go out of here all right so front foot on the brake yep
air brake off put her in drive there you go and we're going
you can get gun it a little bit see how she takes off whoa
she's it's not bad for a man for 38 000 pounds that's not too bad
some of the things that you guys were saying in the comments about that last video
was be careful some of the class a's you can't see eight feet in front of you right yeah yeah and we
actually talked to them about that before either of us got behind the driver's seat and and darren
said no he said that there's there's no eight foot blind spot up there i bet some of them
have that blind spot but this particular one i mean unless you flattened yourself against the
front you would be seen if you walked across the front so the biggest thing to keep in mind with
a class a you're actually sitting in front of the axle slightly right if you drew an imaginary line
through your hip that would be about the point where you're going to start the turn
all right so we're going to make a right hand turn here okay so am i positioned right in the
lane you're okay yeah you know that's no straight you don't want to pull up to the curb like you do
in a car yeah and then as soon as your hip kind of goes fast it just start turning it's like right
now yeah you're totally fine this is a big long turn so we're good oh i'm staying in the lane
i'm sure the older rigs don't have this but theirs has cameras so you can see when you're driving
down the road you can see what's going along on the side of the rig in your blind spot yeah it has
a neat feature so when you turn on the left turn signal it lights up the left camera in the big
display in the in this in the center stack you're now seeing it what's what's next to you people
say that it's noisy in a class a did you find that wind noise at freeway speeds okay hang on baby i'm
hanging
no okay now it's floored i was about three quarters away
let me know if the camera's bothering you no you're good look at that 50.
what was that gravel on the wheels maybe
yeah i see what you mean about the wind noise it is just a little bit because that's a flat
windshield and you definitely notice that that wind and i'm sure it's different for each class
a and even darren i was thinking that there's something he's looking into where this wind
noise is coming from because it it does seem to be a little higher than normal but uh i
i have no comparison so i don't know inside is unbelievably quiet well this is not bad at all
that doesn't feel bad right there wasn't any pots and pans rattling or anything
like that and i think that's something that else that you get used to but you also i mean i've
had a couple class cs you know you just kind of get used to padding everything but that was not
it did not feel like you know we were rattling at all down the road it felt very quiet uh very nice
ride no engine noise at all being a gear head you know i the engine noise is his music to me so so
so i i kind of hear it but it's not nothing like what we listen to when we're driving the truck
so now i didn't get to do this but you got to back it how was that like with a backup camera it was
fine you'd have to be asleep to run into something well one point that i want to make is a big reason
that we are considering going from a fifth wheel to a class a is that we feel our maneuvering we've
had gotten ourselves into some tight situations it's been not so easy to maneuver it and one thing
that we've noticed now that we've been staying in campgrounds for over two years solid is we
never see a class a struggle that you know to get into a campsite now it is campground entertainment
when somebody comes up on a weekend with their trailer and they're trying to back in they come
forward back and come forward i mean we have not seen that no not with aids no no i was impressed
by how adjustable those big rigs are because you are basically driving a bus yes you are and
the foot pedals adjust as well as the seat and the steering wheel yeah and yeah it up and down and in
and out and yeah yeah darren took the time to fit us and if you do go to test drive a class a that's
something i'd recommend to do is to make sure that it fits right for you because i've heard from some
petite women from this video who said they didn't think they could drive one i mean i'm pretty small
i'm five foot six i got the seat and steering wheel in the in a comfortable position i was fine
all right how's it feel it's it's great yeah it's easy to drive there's no no effort at all yeah i
mean i worried about you know the the turning and and and hitting curve you know scuffing a curve
with it but yeah it's easy once you know that the hip rules right so do you think you could take it
to a campground and put it in i think so yeah i am leaning to stay in the fifth wheel because it
is just so spacious inside and the and the windows make it just so nice but it's encouraging to see
that the newer class a's have big kitchen sinks and more counter space when we look at older ones
we find that the kitchen is just not usable the way we want to use a kitchen for us it's a balance
between the comfort of moving and the comfort of living and right now the moving part is still is
still kind of stressful for me as the main driver right but the living is absolutely perfect there
is no compromise yes and i think that's what if you're going to pick an rv or a camper or trailer
or whatever that's the biggest thing you balance do you want the nimbleness so easy to travel and
back and be able to fit in any campsite or do you want to once you're parked have no compromise like
we have a larger fridge than we would ever find in a camper van or a little travel trailer and
we like that we like that we aren't on top of each other we were locked down for 76 days in this rig
last year we never had cabin fever before then we both suffered from cabin feet yeah i can't imagine
that lockdown in in our previous rig which was five feet shorter yeah yeah that would have been
that would have been very trying so we may revisit it again and also that's the other thing it's not
really a great time to be buying right now there's very few decent rigs out there for sale there's
a lot of junk on the market but there's very few good ones on the market and we're so glad that we
got the opportunity to drive an a yeah thank you to darren and jill for letting us drive one and
it was fun it was really a lot of fun and and it's still i mean when we bought this rig to often say
it was a coin toss between the the fifth wheel and the class a and obviously we chose the fifth wheel
and you know that's what's so good about rv life is that you can have so many different
ways to do it so let us know in the comments your favorite whether it's a fifth wheel class a
classy truck camper motorhome whatever yeah we'd like to hear what you guys have to say
move out of my way buddy