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Wildcat |
The Competition |
| 1. Stability |
 Wildcat
is owned by Forest River Inc. - Berkshire Hathaway, (a Warren Buffett
company) and is debt free. They are the strongest RV manufacturer
out there because of their financial backing and are known for quality.
This is important for your warranty, for parts to be available and the
value of your coach. |
2009 Stats - Many manufactures are on the brink of closing or
have already failed.
Fleetwood - Recently filed Chapter 11.
Weekend Warrior - Bank assignee is selling corporate assets.
Pilgrim - Indefinitely closes plants.
Keystone - To layoff 15% of workforce.
Jayco - Released 20% of workforce.
Monaco Coach (R-Vision) - Recently filed Bankruptcy.
Country Coach - In Chapter 11
Sundowner Trailers - Closes Elkhart operations.
Travel Supreme - Ceases operations.
National RV - Files for chapter 11 bankruptcy |
| 2. Sidewalls |
Vacuum Bonded Walls
Wildcat walls are taken into a "clean room" that the temperature and
humidity is controlled, where they aren't cutting 2x4's with lots of
dust in the air. A giant press comes down on the walls with
several hundred pounds of pressure for several hours to give a strong
bond.Wildcat is a vacuum bonded sidewall. This method is
statistically 10 times less likely to give you problems compared to the
pinch rolled sidewalls. |
Pinch Rolled Walls
This how 90%+ of manufactures still put their walls together since it's
too expensive to vacuum bond. This can lead to delaminating walls
where it starts to separate and moisture gets inside. If this
happens, most times the RV has to be taken back to the factory where
they have to fully separate the wall and then reapply it. It's
about an $8,000-$10,000 process. The other guys don't care because
this will usually happen 3-4 years down the road well after the warranty
expired. Make sure you don't
buy one that is pinch rolled. |
| 3. Construction, frame & floor
|
 Wildcat
has a 5/8" tongue and groove plywood decking that's marine grade.
There's an aluminum stud every 16" and then an addition frame around
every door and window. |
Most other products have floor made out of chip board, studs every
few feet (no joke), and windows are cut out of the wall and held in with
plastic clips (no supports). |
| 4. Lights |
 Wildcat
has toe kick lighting (night light) in the kitchen. |
No toe kick lighting |
| 5. Bedroom |
The bed is a standard residential size queen (60x80). Individual
reading swivel lights on each bed side. You also have 6'3"
standing height at the foot of the bed. |
 Lights in the middle of the bedroom and even if there are two
lights, they are usually not swivel lights.
The bed is a RV "short queen" (60x74). |
| 6. Air bed |
This air bed sleeper it super comfortable. push
button and it inflated - push another and it's deflated. The other
benefit is you have extra storage under the couch where you didn't have
before. |
No one wants to sleep on that sofa sleeps because it has that metal
bar that goes right across your back and you would of probably been
better off on the floor. |
| 7. Day/Night Shades |
Day/night Shades are the way to go. Slide the Day Shade down for a
little light or the night shade down to block out most of the light. |
 Mini
blinds rattle around, the plastic clips at the bottom become brittle and
break. Strips bend/crease and look bad. |
| 8. Stereo system & speakers |
Wildcat built-in stereo system is awesome. It has AM/FM, DVD, CD, MP3.
Turn on/off any combination of bedroom speakers, living room speakers,
or outside speakers. It's integrated in a 5.1 Digital Dolby
surround sound system with a sub woofer. You'll feel like your at
the movie theater. |
Most units have at least a DVD or CD player with a couple speakers built
in. |
| 9. Docking Station |
 The outside
shower is protected since it's not exposed to cold weather. Your
connections are protected from being messed with. |
 The
outside shower lines can easily freeze when it's just on the exterior
like this one. |
| 10. Cabinetry & Drawers |
Wildcat's cabinetry is second to none. Solid maple wood door
fronts. The drawers are stapled and screwed together and they are
made out of plywood. The cabinetry studs are solid pieces of pine
that are screwed together. Wildcat has a big pots and pans drawer
usually under the oven. The edges of the counter top are a nice
oak edge finish. Now Corian Counter tops offered! |
 
Most cabinetry out there is cheap paneling, particle board held together
with staples and T molding for the cabinetry. The problem is
everything is cheaply made and that plastic t-molding comes out a little
bit and gunk gets stuck in that crack and mildews. |
| 11. Oven |
Wildcat RVs have a bigger than normal size RV ovens. |
Here's the RV oven size you see in most of the RV's out there (not very
usable). |
| 12. Seat storage |
Wildcat uses a thick piece of plywood under the dinette seats.
This allows you to easily store those bigger items. The cushions
on the reverse side are Vinyl - nice if it's spaghetti night or your at
the lake and don't want to ruin the fabric. |
A lot of trailers out there have a thin piece of plywood or particle
board under the seat. They have to add inconvenient supports that
get in the way of your storage because the board won't support enough
weight other wise. |
| 13. Fantastic fan |
The Create a breeze fantastic fan has been said to be one of the best
inventions for the RV ever. Wildcat uses this in all their RVs.
This 10 blade fan pushes over 900 cubic feet of air per minute.
The benefit is it can replace all the air in your RV in under 2 minutes
and it will save you from having to use your Air Conditioner as much. |
This fan it what you see in most coaches and can push about 25-30 cubic
feet of air per minute. if it gets a little stuffy, you need to be
plugged in at an RV site or crank on the generator to turn on the air
conditioner. |
| 14. Toilet |
Wildcat toilet is a porcelain bowl. |
Most RV toilets are plastic like this one. |
| 15. Insulation - underbelly, dump valves, slides |
 Wildcat fully encloses the underbelly and sends heat from the furnace to
around all your tanks. The dump valves are enclosed as well.
The slides have insulation on all sides. The slide seals are made
out of a high tech material invented by NASA to with stand the sun and
weather so they don't become brittle and crack. R14 insulation in the
ceiling and floor, R10 in the side walls. |
 
With the valves exposed like this one, your valves can freeze open or
closed and crack. This makes a big sewer mess and is no fun.
The under belly is open exposing your tanks and also can create wind
turbulence lowering your gas mileage. You also lose a lot of heat
through your floor when the wind passes under there. |
| 16. Corners & Front Cap |
Notice how Wildcat's 1 piece rubber roof (12 year warranty). Wildcat's gelcoat cap is solid and the seem is away from the corner.
The shape of the cap helps your turning radius in a short bed truck. |
When your seems are on the corner, it exposes your RV
to troubles down the road. |
| 17. Water filtration & water heater size |
Wildcat has a 10,000 gallon residential water filtration system that
filters all your water - both sinks, shower, outside shower, all your
water. This is great because that means you can fill up at the RV
site or maybe at a gas station when you get close to your destination.
That will save over 300 lbs of unneeded weight and you'll know your
drinking filtered water. |
Most campers don't have a water filter and if they do it's just a sink
filter. |
| 18. Water Heater |
Hot water heater with a 16.2 gallon refresh rate per
hour |
Most camper have a 7.4 gallon refresh rate per hour |
| 19. Landing gear, pins |
The quick release front snap jacks
are really easy to use. |
The pin always has dirt and grease on it and it never goes in the first
time. You have to jiggle it just right to get the pin to go in. |
| 20. Central trash system |
I don't know why more RVs don't copy Wildcat on this. It's so
convenient. The trash is out of the way on the inside and easy to
empty from the outside baggage door. |
 Usually The trash can is in the way inside or tied to
the handle of the door either on the inside where it's a pain to go in
and out or tied to the outside where it looks tacky and the animals are
going to get into it. |
| 21. Sewer - Black tank Flush |
Wildcat has a built in black tank flush so that all you have to do to
rinse your sewer system is plug the fresh water hose on a port on the
side and there are sprayers on the inside of the tank. |
If you don't have a black tank flush you need to drag
your hose into your bathroom, open the toilet and spray the tank out
after each camping trip. You can buy an adapter spray wand to
stick on the end of the hose to stick in the toilet but that's not much
more pleasant either. |
| 22. Sealed Bearing System |
Wildcat is a Sealed bearing system and maintenance free. |
Others are using a bearing system which you can blow
out the bearings accidentally if put too grease in there. |
