I bought. Here’s the experience

[Sweedish15]

For anyone looking to buy a new camper, here is my experience with the haggling that went on, what I learned etc.

First, I bought a microlite 25brds and it is absolutely awesome. I have been looking of years and locked in to this model after looking at it in person at the Tampa RV show in January. So we got some money together and started looking to buy.

We live in Pinellas County Florida which is mid state on the gulf coast. I mostly used RV trader.com to narrow down which dealers had a 25brds or a 2509s in stock. Here are the dealers I worked with and I’ll write my opinions of each.

Register RV brookesville-never again, don’t get me started.

Campbells RV Sarasota-high prices, very clean units, but won’t negotiate much.

Tampa RVone-very pleasant, hard to negotiate

Gerzeny’s rv ft Myers- for the most part great. This is where I bought. Buying was pleasant, one service employee ruined the whole experience.

Optimum RV Ocala-slow to respond

What I learned is that the msrp of this unit changed through the 2019 model year. This drastically effected the prices I was able to negotiate. The msrp for the unit based on what time of the year it was manufactured ranged from 33k-37k. To keep it simple, it took a lot of work and frustration to get dealers to the 70% off msrp mark. And they base their sale prices off their listed msrp, not the msrp of what another’s dealers unit is listed.

One of the main things I learned and wish i did differently is work with each dealer independently. The moment I mentioned pricing the unit at another dealer they all refused to provide any pricing in writing. And they flat out told me it was bc I was working with other dealers.

[Sweedish15]

For the most part buying was a very frustrating experience. After driving home I already have a warranty part on order. Some trim on the fridge broke during travel. Really no big deal though. Overall I love the unit .

It tows amazingly well. It came off the factory line at 5221 pounds. I towed it with a tank full of water that weighs 500 pounds. I use a 1200 pound Reese weight distribution trunnion hitch with sway control. My truck is an 06 Silverado with tow package, 3.23 gears, and 80k miles. With the older model truck I’m very close to my max ratings but everything is in spec when fully loses with family, fuel, trailer full of stuff. The truck is a 5.3l with the 4l60e 4 speed trans. I always tow in third gear with the tow/haul mode activated. I have a factory trans temp gauge and it only got to about 175 degrees in traffic.

[SquiggyFreud]

Originally Posted by Sweedish15

One of the main things I learned and wish i did differently is work with each dealer independently. The moment I mentioned pricing the unit at another dealer they all refused to provide any pricing in writing. And they flat out told me it was bc I was working with other dealers.

Ugh, dealers can be a$$es at times, but that is odd.

We had a local dealer we started pricing a geo pro 19fbs, at the time no one could keep them in stock. I was good cop my wife was bad cop, we asked them to email us a quote on the 19FBS, after a few days nothing. My wife went up there and asked what was up, the sales guy mumbled well, prices are supposed to go up, we been busy, blah blah blah. She called me and states where everyone in the office could hear, honey they dont want to sell us a camper.
That brought the owner out of his office and she was given a quote. We were told they needed a 500 dollar deposit to hold a camper for us.

I took the quote and hit up another dealer to see if they could beat it. They could not again at that time the Geo Pro was the hottest thing so no one needed to deal on them to sell them.

So I found a 2109S on clearance at this dealer, got a quote, then went back to the original dealer to see if they would beat it. They did, the only catch was they gave me a cheaper hitch, which I am looking to upgrade soon.

I would give the dealer we made the purchase at a C, they never followed up with us after the sale, and I will try to make any repairs myself before taking my camper to them.

Bottom line the MSRP on the camper was 32K, we added observation camera and slide topper. we got out the door for less than 22K total.

[Sweedish15]

Yeah on top of everything they demanded a $150 starter kit had to be included and could not be removed from the sale cost. It was in a sealed box, I’m sure some gimmick they bought and must sell. Anyways, the 150 kit included a broken sewer house that didn’t even have a fitting on one end, the cheapest 10$ water pressure regulator, a white hose, a 3 pack of drop in toilet Chems and two, yes I said two rolls of single ply RV toilet paper. I wouldn’t have paid 30$ for the kit if it was in a store, but oh well.