Hi outdoorsman,
I'll respond here to your questions as this may help others too. I'll send you a PM also.
I retore campers as a retirement hobby. Yeh, I'm nuts for wanting to go play with rotted wood, or I really enjoy it. I have just finished my 16th camper dealing with water damage. Some are posted here on the forum but not all of them. Some were small repairs, others total restorations. The point being, water damage is the enemy of a camper. It is like cancer to a camper. I'm not trying to sell this as all gloom and doom, these campers are a lot of fun. We really enjoy camping with our Sunline.
There are 6 Sunlines in my barn right now, 5 are mine and one is our son's. Out of my 5 campers, the T310SR is our main camper, it is now going to be 20 year old in November and that camper is still better then many of anything new that is for sale, at least in my opinion. The other 4, I acquired as project campers, they were water damaged and I knew that going into the deal. We did finish the 2004 T1950. It was a total restore from the ground up. It is now in perfect condition, better than new. The other project campers are still in a pile for parts drying out waiting for me to get to them.
The 2006 T1950 you are going to look at, is a very nice camper. The quality of the Solaris line is the same across all models, just the floor plans are different. Sunline was ahead of the pack when it came to quality when they were in operation. Yes, you paid a little more when they were new, but they are worth it. Sunline took more care and pride in building the camper and they did not cheap out, like many other brands still today. The dealers we bought our first new 2004 T2499 from use to love selling them. His comments, "We just love selling these, the quality is high and there as very little to no come backs once they leave our lots. We cannot say that about the bother brands we sell." Buying a new camper, in this day and age, there are many horror stories about warranty claims of things wrong with a camper. Not all brands, but many.
OK you get the point, Sunline is a good brand. But water damage can happen to any brand of camper and sadly, Sunlines can leak too pending what the camper was exposed to and how the owner used it and stored it.
The best way I know of to tell if there is water damage hidden in the ceiling or walls, is to use a moisture meter and scan the inside surface of the wall or ceiling. If you have time, get a meter. See this post showing how to use it and the one to buy.
https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...per-17613.html. Some Lowes stores stock them. If they do not have that model, they may other pinless meters made by General. I know the wall mode scale on the General very well. It lists moisture in scale of % from 0 to 100% and there is a PDF at the end of that post explaining the scale. Do not confuse this wall mode scale to % moisture in wood, it is not that.
I can type for hours on all the little details of your camper, but I will leave you with this. It is a good camper when it was made. Not sure if the owner bought it new or used, where they stored it, covered, inside a building or out in the open. And if they did any roof and siding seal maintenance. As a fast check with no meter, let your nose help guide you. Water damage that has festered in the walls or ceiling will start to smell like mildew. Open every cabinet and storage compartment and sniff. You may not be able to see the damage, it hides well but the smell can still be there. That said, the meter will find damage you can "not" see or smell inside the camper. The walls etc may look perfect inside the camper, the damage hides in the walls until it gets bad enough to start smelling or to see.
Hoping you will find a gem. There are some out there, and if you find some level of water damage, that does not mean no, don't buy it, but it gives you a heads up to help decide, can your fix it or not? If you have and can use basic wood tools, they are fixable. They will take time though. Hiring this kind of repair at current shop rates is not practical to do a large amount of work. The labor cost will hit 4 digits real quick. But, if you have the wood working skills, you can do it. We have many members doing just this, not only me.
I myself, would have no problem buying a Sunline as I know I can fix whatever is wrong with it. I may be biased that way, but I'm trying to give you some reality as can be on a camper that old.
The price, with the whole Covid situation the pricing is nuts. Things have started to tame down but not totally yet. While the $6,800 pre 2019 might be considered high on a private sale, that camper if it was in pristine shape in 2020 - 2022 could sell almost instantly. The price you pay, is only for you to decide if is worth it or not. If the camper is in really great shape, you can see how good the Sunline is if it has been well kept. You may not find a better condition camper elsewhere. I call it low odds that for a pristine 2006 Sunline of that size, you find under $5K now a days. At a dealership, that camper even being wet, as long as it looks great, could be listed between $,8K and $10K now a days. A year ago, known by the dealer and the buyer that it was wet, a 2007 T2499 sold at a dealer for $10K they listed it for $13K. To that buyer, it was worth it and he is working on the water damage.
This is hard to give you and easy yes or no answer. If the camper has minor water damage found by the moisture meter, yet, you can not see or smell it, depending on where it is, you can, seal it up and live with it for a while. I have sealed up a "minor" leak to later come back 6 to 7 years later and the rot did stop. I got to it just in time.
There is only one other area that I will highlight on what to look for. The camper frame header behind the battery. That camper has 4" channel iron A frame rails. Pending how the camper was towed with a WD hitch, the frame header may have been bent.
There is a long post on this topic, but see here this shorter condensed one. I show how to spot it and how to fix it pending how damaged it might be. This repair was on a 2004 T2475 I bought as a project camper.
https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...tml#post148050
If you see the header buckled in the center, just eye ball site down it, then the problem is there. It can be fixed, but you can use that to help lower the price, possible $500. The owner may not even know it's there.
Hope this helps and good luck. We are here to help as we can. Take lots of pics of things you may question.
John
Happy Trails from Colorado. 1995 Sunline Saturn T1850. 2012 Ford E350
Linear Mode
