EJM, here's what we did when we bought our Berkshire. Our trade was a 2007 Itasca Sunova 35j. I looked on line for similar units being sold. I established what appeared to be the general market value of my trade. After I established that I looked for the rig we wanted. We narrowed it down to the Berkshire 390bh and the Tiffin Allegro. Both had similar MSRP's of around $225,000. We researched both units and found that there were a ton of quality issues with the Tiffins and many owners ended up having to drive to Red Bay, AL, and spend weeks and sometimes months getting their new units repaired. This, along with a very arrogant group of Tiffin dealers soured us on Tiffin.
So we decided on the Berkshire 390bh. We contacted all the major players, and some minor players from their on-line ads. This included Lazydays, Motorhome Specialist, RVDirect (also known as RVOne and their local names for their four dealerships) and others. We got trade prices from each one. The variation in the amount we had to come up with was over $36,000 from top to bottom. RVDirect at their Buffalo RV location completely blew everyone else away with the next closest dealer being over $7,000 higher than Buffalo RV.
That's the reason for my comment about it not mattering what they say their discount is. All that really matters is the bottom line. Some dealers throw on additional charges that bump up their "sale price" dramatically. We have a local Tiffin dealer who is notorious for that tactic. We just ask a simple question, "How much do we have to write a check for to trade for your unit?"
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2011 Berkshire 390bh
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