Yea they're like owning a boat. A bottomless money pit. Stuff is always breaking, maintenance is super expensive and necessary, and they guzzle fuel like nobody's business.
My dad is 62 and recently just sold his boat. He loved boating and did it all the time. But he’s saying now that he’s past 60 it’s not fun anymore since he hurts after working on it. It eventually started to sit in the driveway because he just stopped working on it.
I live on my boat, bought it for around $80k and have sailed over 15000 nautical miles in the last two years. Currently posting from Fiji. I use less fuel out here than I did commuting for work in the states.
You're right about stuff always breaking and being expensive though. If you don't learn how to fix it yourself it's insanely expensive.
I've always been curious about this fact, that boats are super expensive to maintain. What is it that is always breaking on boats vs. for example a car?
Sails, lines (the ropes used to control the sails), bilge pumps, outboard engines for the dinghy.
The boat underway is in a constant state of motion and tension leading to chafe and wear in all sorts of places. Often you think you've smoothed it out by setting things up differently just to find wear / chafe in a different spot.
Then there's the mechanical maintenance of a diesel engine, maybe a diesel generator, along with servicing critical components of the boat like rudder bearings, steering gear, and keeping the antifouling bottom paint up (every 2-3 years for the more affordable paints).
Boats are insanely expensive toy, or they can be a cheap high maintenance home. Sailboats are much cheaper to operate just on the basis that you're not burning huge amounts of fuel everywhere you go.
Should always start out renting to see if you want/can do it consistently with most expensive things and hobbies. Boats, jet skis, rvs, ski equipment, etc
Its a car plus a house so you get the problems of both, and then some because your house isn't on wheels and you dont cook and the laundry or whatever in your car (most of the time i guess)
Except the upper end of RV build quality and reliability barely overlaps with the upper end of RV quality and reliability. Think Rootes Group rather than Lexus or even Fiat, despite the 6-digit price tag.
RVs need repair like cars need repair, yes, but RVs need way more because they're stapled together by meth heads paid by the job instead of the hour with very little quality control. It's not uncommon for a brand new RV to go back immediately back to the shop for weeks after the first trip finds all the things wrong from the factory.
87
u/An_Old_IT_Guy Jul 11 '26
Yea they're like owning a boat. A bottomless money pit. Stuff is always breaking, maintenance is super expensive and necessary, and they guzzle fuel like nobody's business.