New trailer browsing

[bikendan]

I'm definitely not anywhere like those impulsive buyers.
I spent 5 years shopping for my new Avalanche, before I bought one, in cash.
I spent 3 years shopping for my last trailer, also paid cash.
I spent 3 years shopping for the F150 that replaced my Avalanche. Paid cash.
I'm one of those that shops endlessly before actually buying. And I never finance.
I've been shopping for the past 3 years, for the next trailer and have the cash. But I'm not going to buy one until I get the price I want.

[Iwritecode]

I've been thinking about it for some time now and can come up with more reasons to *not* buy a new trailer right now than I can to actually make a purchase.

Would it be nice to have a brand new trailer with all the sparkly bells and whistles? Sure.

Would it suck to have to spend the next few years finding and fixing all the problems that will inevitably come with a brand new RV? Yes.

Will it be a huge PITA moving and reworking my deck and shed to get the old one out and the new one in? Yes.

Is it bad to jump from a loan that is more than halfway paid off with a low interest rate to starting over with a new one at a higher interest rate? Yes.

Honestly, I can very well see us waiting for another 5 - 10 years before we purchase. Until then, we'll just continue browsing.

[stephndudb]

We bought our current SOB trailer factory-direct from a small manufacturer with no dealer network. Very different experience than our previous trailers. The price was fixed - no haggling. The salesman's main job was to help us pick the accessories and add-ons, most of which we figured out on our own through the forums and other online research, so he didn't have to do much. We paid cash, so no financing to deal with. The main downside was the wait for manufacturing, approximately 9 months from the time we put down a deposit to taking delivery.

I'll be honest. I kind of missed the haggling part, shopping between different dealers, comparing similar models, etc. If you have the time and patience that can be fun. I remember buying a car for my kid. The dealer tossed in an extra "dealer service" fee on the day we went to pick it up. It was a few hundred bucks. I got up and walked out. He actually chased us down the driveway as we left the dealer! He called 3 times that day. When I called back the next day, the extra fee was gone and we went back and picked it up. Remember, if it's not a life-need, the customer always has the upper hand.

[BehindBars]

Originally Posted by bikendan

I'm definitely not anywhere like those impulsive buyers.
I spent 5 years shopping for my new Avalanche, before I bought one, in cash.
I spent 3 years shopping for my last trailer, also paid cash.
I spent 3 years shopping for the F150 that replaced my Avalanche. Paid cash.
I'm one of those that shops endlessly before actually buying. And I never finance.
I've been shopping for the past 3 years, for the next trailer and have the cash. But I'm not going to buy one until I get the price I want.

I wonder if those personality traits go hand in hand. Perhaps those that patiently save their money for future needs, and don’t spend it simply because they have it, are also not ones to make impulsive purchases. A person might be able to walk into a car or RV dealer and instantly write a check that day for any product there, but they don’t because that behavior is not how they got to point of being able to pay with cash.

I’ve also noticed same salesperson’s attitude to change if I was to disclose that I’m paying cash. Maybe they realize their chance for an impulse sale are diminished.

[dieselguy]

I can totally relate to Iwritecode's point of sticking with a current loan at a low interest rate that's well on its way to being paid off compared to a new one with more money and higher interest. However, for those who have laid out their method encompassing years of searching before they buy ... we have a close friend that I see doing that very same technic on most everything major she buys. She's an ex-computer programmer that only see's life as black or white ... no greys. She spends hours, months, years researching anything and everything about a purchase all the while cataloging that info in notebooks with labeled dividers. Many instances the item is long gone by the time she gets everything all cataloged and narrowed down. Once she could have bought the exact tow vehicle she had been looking for for years, but it had heated and cooled seats yet she only had heated on her list ... no sale. I'm all for thinking a bit before the purchase, but for those of you that take years ... do you ever have regrets over the years that passed by that you could have been enjoying a truck or RV that was almost, but not quite everything on your list?

[BehindBars]

Originally Posted by dieselguy

I'm all for thinking a bit before the purchase, but for those of you that take years ... do you ever have regrets over the years that passed by that you could have been enjoying a truck or RV that was almost, but not quite everything on your list?

No regrets. Most of the time I already have a car, or RV, or motorcycle that is, or is almost everything on my list. To get me to buy means it has to be even better than that, or I’ll just keep what I have until what I want becomes available. My regret would come from buying something that wasn’t quite what I wanted.

[Formula1fan]

We have 5 dealers in our area. They always say, if the unit is locked, it might be or is sold. Unlocked, look all you want. From bottom of the line pop ups to $750000 units. One dealer likes to hover a bit, but I appreciate the freedom of browsing.

[Nick Danger]

Maybe I'm missing the point of this thread. But the sales staff is there to sell you things. The whole point of letting you in the vehicles is to sell them.

To those that take years to purchase anything - salespeople quickly come to recognize you as a waste of time. The trying to "build a relationship" is for repeat customers; not "just lookers". Would you"browse" the pharmacy to just see what medicines they stock even though they already filled your prescription?

At what point do you come to the conclusion that the dealer is in the business to sell products not to just show them? This why sales positions are disappearing to the internet MEGA sellers.

People should read the Mondays at the tire shop thread to learn how real customers act/treat sales people. Not saying you act like that but most do.

Don't need others to help me "understand" because I already do. You want to do what you want to do and if everyone doesn't cooperate they are the problem. Just my silly opinion!!

[Iwritecode]

Originally Posted by Nick Danger

Maybe I'm missing the point of this thread.

You are.

Originally Posted by Nick Danger

But the sales staff is there to sell you things. The whole point of letting you in the vehicles is to sell them.

And we hope to buy one... eventually.

Originally Posted by Nick Danger

To those that take years to purchase anything - salespeople quickly come to recognize you as a waste of time. The trying to "build a relationship" is for repeat customers; not "just lookers".

We are repeat customers.

Originally Posted by Nick Danger

Would you"browse" the pharmacy to just see what medicines they stock even though they already filled your prescription?

The next time I spend $50K on some medicine, I might.

Originally Posted by Nick Danger

At what point do you come to the conclusion that the dealer is in the business to sell products not to just show them? This why sales positions are disappearing to the internet MEGA sellers.

They are in business to do both. That's what they have large RV shows every single year.

[Nick Danger]

Originally Posted by Iwritecode

That's what they have large RV shows every single year.

And that's where you can look all you want because that's the reason they do it. But even there they actually sell them.

Good luck on your process and I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by Iwritecode

I think the salesperson misspoke. What she implied was that we would have to take the entire remaining balance of our current trailer and roll it into the new loan. Implying that either they would give us $0 for trade in value or we'd just end up owning 2 trailers for some reason.

I don't think she realized what she was saying when she said it, and I didn't correct her but it was a bit odd how she presented it to us.

For example: Say the new RV is $60K and we owe $20K on our current RV. She was saying we'd need to get a loan for $80K. That doesn't make sense...

I don't think they were thinking that there would be $0 in trade in value. What they were thinking is that they are expecting you are not able to pay off the loan on the current trailer

Here's the salesperson's thinking. "He's got an outstanding balance on the trailer. If he had the money, he would have paid it off. So we can give him what he expects in trade-in, but the trailer has to be paid off right now, so we have to loan the money to do that.

They didn't want you to be shocked that the loan was for more than
Negotiated price of new trailer - Trade in for old trailer.

[moose074]

When interest rates are high high I can understand paying cash. I have to say though I sold a few cars to people who could pay cash and wanted to pay cash. I talked most of them out of doing it. Most had great credit as well. So interest rate was lower or slightly higher than they could putting money in the bank draw interest or take buy a cd with. Money either isn’t tied up ( replacement time) or tied up for shorter period of time. In cars and Imagine rvs cash isn’t king anymore and hasn’t been for over a decade. Dealership gets paid in full not in payments once everything is financed they get full loan amount in a few days to weeks. If you pay cash you rob them of a chance to earn money from the bank on your loan as well.

As for impulse buying I went in December 31 to complain about service department and walked out new trl.

[Underthedog]

"Would you"browse" the pharmacy to just see what medicines they stock even though they already filled your prescription?"

Well, yes.

[Nick Danger]

Originally Posted by Underthedog

"Would you"browse" the pharmacy to just see what medicines they stock even though they already filled your prescription?"

Well, yes.

Good for you.

[Chuck_S]

The horrible reputation of car and RV dealers is well earned. And seems to be universal world wide.

Dealers get kick backs from financing so "paying cash" up front might not be the best strategy for the lowest price. Financing for a couple of months may be a good idea. Seems to work for us.

When my wife was rear-ended by a dump truck a couple of years ago her Honda was totaled. That same morning I went to a local dealer to look for a specific model to replace it. First two questions the salesman asked were "what's your driving style?" and "how much per month payment do you want to make?" neither of which had anything to do with showing me the car. I asked again to show me that model and he started asking similar questions. Both he and the sales "manager" followed me out the door.

Shopping for these things I always have a Priority List. High the list are mandatory. If I was buying a camper today the #1 item on the list would be a propane/AC refrigerator. No matter how nice the rest of the trailer was this is the war stopper for us. When I bought my little Honda S2000 (used as they were out of production) color wasn't even on the list. Make your own list.

-- Chuck

[sherman12]

A couple of quick stories... Shopping for my Kia Sorento daily driver. Three dealers in the area. The third dealer tells me aren't you running out of dealers to try and get "the price I want"? I ask the SM "do you know how many Kia dealers are in a 200-mile radius from here?" dear in the headlight look what am I talking about...I tell him over 150 dealers to shop from! Bought my car 60 miles away and saved over $2500 from what the local "3" dealers were offering.

An acquaintance of mine owned a local junkyard. Sold his scrap metal to a local steel plant. RICH!!! Makes his own hooch, and works his yard like a laborer. One day AQ and a buddy try out his fresh batch of hooch. Get liquored up and they go Cadillac shopping, work coveralls, and all. Goes into the best Caddy dealer in Buffalo, NY says he wants the red convertible on the floor. They try to throw him out. So he changes his mind and says no, I want that one, and a matching one. The dealer is ready to call the cops. He pulls out a WAD of cash, over 20K, and asks the dealer again, 'how quickly they can have the red one on the floor ready, and find a matching car. Drove home in 2 hours in his brand new red Cadillac Convertible!

[moose074]

Originally Posted by Chuck_S

The horrible reputation of car and RV dealers is well earned. And seems to be universal world wide.

Dealers get kick backs from financing so "paying cash" up front might not be the best strategy for the lowest price. Financing for a couple of months may be a good idea. Seems to work for us.

When my wife was rear-ended by a dump truck a couple of years ago her Honda was totaled. That same morning I went to a local dealer to look for a specific model to replace it. First two questions the salesman asked were "what's your driving style?" and "how much per month payment do you want to make?" neither of which had anything to do with showing me the car. I asked again to show me that model and he started asking similar questions. Both he and the sales "manager" followed me out the door.

Shopping for these things I always have a Priority List. High the list are mandatory. If I was buying a camper today the #1 item on the list would be a propane/AC refrigerator. No matter how nice the rest of the trailer was this is the war stopper for us. When I bought my little Honda S2000 (used as they were out of production) color wasn't even on the list. Make your own list.

-- Chuck

I don’t get the what’s your driving style question unless it’s local jargon for what type of car are you looking for. Now the second question one all sales man should ask is what are you looking to spend or what is your budget. A good salesman uses this as a guide to put you in the right price range. If you ask for a specific model or even a specific car. They should show you the car, but if you are expecting to pay $20k or $400 a month ( I’m not asking if you can afford the car I putting you in the range you gave me) but your looking at an $80k car even if you’re a billionaire. If I don’t start getting you to realize it’s not gonna fit into your budget and get you closer to a car in your budget then you’re gonna leave. In my short time selling I benefited from salespeople that didn’t do that, so the customer came to our lot maybe after hitting a few more dealers or even directly. Realizing that the car they wanted wasn’t in their budget, but because the other salesman didn’t soften the blow or explain the math I got the sale. I was extremely lucky as a salesman it never failed that at least once every couple of weeks. I would catch a sale because I was first one they saw and they would say something like. Give me your best deal on this truck or get that car ready my mom is on her way. I always got the numbers ( phone numbers) and was able to talk sales manager into getting numbers or letting me bring car up. That said I would starve waiting on those deals to happen once every 50-100 customers. If I didn’t work the other deals on the other 98% of the cars I sold a month.

[JWood422]

We took close to 3 years to buy our first and only RV. We went through 3 sailboats never getting exactly what suited us. My wife decided we were not going to make that mistake again.
During our 3 years of searching, every dealer treated us with respect while showing us their inventory and explaining what RVing is all about. We found exactly what we wanted at Camping World in Charleston, SC. We’re still thrilled with our purchase 3 1/2 years later.
We’d like to have a 5th wheel but there’s only about a million problems with that idea. The biggest is we don’t own a pickup truck. But just for fun we decided to take a day and drive to dealerships to get an idea of what’s available. We told every salesman straight up what our intentions were. They were all courteous, nice and helpful. I was pretty amazed at how open they were to showing us their inventory.
So yes, helpful friendly salesmen do exist in this world. In the end, though, when we do replace our travel trailer with a 5th wheel, we will buy from who has what we’re looking for at the price we’re comfortable with.

[ppine]

I have owned about 5 RVs and it is hard to stop looking at them. I am surprised how much everything costs now. The world is full of RV dealers. Find one you like with better sales people. It is a tough industry right now and sales people sometimes become too aggressive. The shows are the best place to get a lot of information in a hurry.

I cannot imagine buying a new RV or making payments.

[Iwritecode]

Went to the Chicago camping show this weekend and looked around. Was a bit crowded and hard to really get a close look at anything but didn't really see anything that we fell in love with.

On the way home we stopped at another dealership that was at the show and talked to a very nice and helpful salesman. He was more than willing to let us look inside any 5th wheel we wanted and didn't really pressure us on any sort of pricing or payments or anything. In fact we barely talked about it. Just looked through the rigs, talked about what we liked and didn't like and that was about it.

There are 2 models that are almost perfect, if they would just add one more slide. I don't know know if it's just not feasible because it wouldn't be structurally sound or if there's just not enough room but so many models don't have opposing slides in the bunkhouses.

These are both SOBs so I left out the brand name but these are really nice.





I guess we will just continue to stick with what we have and continue to be picky about what we want in the future. Possibly the far off future...