Rv buying and not buying experience

[powerboatr]

This is sort of long, but its also good
Most know i have been looking very hard a change of pace and go with a new Class A, the brand i decided on was a Damon Astoria, most bang for the buck so to speak

So i have found one in Tyler, super price, dead on floorplan i want and everything was going great
198,000 down to 129,000 so i felt it was a good deal

BUT
last Thursday i was heading to Dallas to look at an older RV 1998 vintage, (i am a sucker for ladies, as she was royalty in her day, SMC Serengiti, 40 footer)

but as we were tooling down the road i spotted another Damon dealer, as was curious if they had the floorplan i had found and what there price would be, plus my trade values, etc etc etc.

so off we go and walk in the place, and find the lone salesman and ask about the floorplan we are looking for, he does not have one, but has a few other brands that are close and would we like to look em over. Sure i have nothing to do.... So he asks of we would buy today if he has what we are looking for, (i hate those questions, i mean if he beats my other deal then sure, but i am not going to tell him the deal numbers yet), I tell him he has to work it so i don't pay over 900-1000 per month for 15 years, ( this is easy if my trades are valued right and he doesn't stick me with a higher price, plus i already had financing for xxx amount at 5.65%)so we come back in after getting the nickle tour and are ready to go. but he asks if we could wait while he calls the other five stores, OK. sure no problem, I should have left right then.

so he goes to calling everybody but the Pope to find this floor plan, and no one has it except a guy in OK and my guy in Tyler.
so he says he has to see if they can get it and if they can run a credit check and talk about my trade and what I want for trade in allowance
1 Hr later its all done and i said we got to GO eat and run in to Dallas.
he says he will call us
Now i want to to brag, but my credit is in the top 13% of the country

so off we go to big D
i see my royal lady and am aghast, that it is in such bad shape.
so we go get a burger at Joe willies

on the way home , we stop back by the rv place and have to SEARCH for our sales guy
, wait 10 minutes and he finally comes bouncing around with a sheet and out loudly praising the deal on the paper
WELL, it was not such a good deal in my eyes and was no where near the 129,000, from the other place, (this i kept to myself and I hadn't at the time decided if i would even buy the other one yet)

so he tells me they gave me way over on my Rv and truck, but the cost from the other dealer they were buying it from was still a set price,
all in all it was a not so good for me deal. So like all my big purchases i tell him i want to go home and sleep on it and if its still a good deal the next day i usually do it, if it cant wait, then its not a good deal.

he insists on 1k to hold the deal and they will head out in the am to go get my new rv.
Again i said no and recanted the sleep on it, he was not happy so we left and promised to call back around 830 the next day and say yes or no


so Friday, comes around, and i had decided about 0100 i wasn't doing the deal , i was up late doing pros and cons

so at 830 the next day i called and said NO, and thank you and was very polite. WOW was he pizzzed off
he started off saying i came to him and they over allowed on my trades, etc etc and i had to buy it. so i said NO and good day and hung up

about an hr later he called again and angry and said we had to buy it and it was a great deal, and he was not sure why we said NO, but he wanted us to buy the rv and he had found us financing and all the good stuff
I said no and that i already had financing and it was 965 a month 15 years, so he really got pizzed and angry and said i had to buy the rv. so i reminded him , i was under no obligation and i wouldn't be buying it from him, for certain now because of the attitude.

i think they bought the rv from the other dealer even though i said not to the day the before and he was in HOT water.

needless to say I also decided that night to not buy the other guys as well and keep my rig setup and save some more $$

so it looks like i will be a forest guy a bit longer

[KyDan]

You let him run a credit check even though he had not met your price???

Now you have a pissed off salesman who knows where you live and has all your
numbers including SS and address and birthday etc.......

[powerboatr]

they ran the credit check prior to seeing if the deal could be made,
he told me they had one, while i was filling out the paper work on my rv and truck, and wanted to do the credit check and run all the numbers. he never said they had to go BUY one, before i left for lunch.
he left out an important few words. i think that's another thing that made me stop and say NO in the middle of the night.
the guy in OK,
i assumed was his other dealer, because they have a store up there.

never thought about him screwing with my credit...i will have to keep an eye peeled for activity, thanks

[NWJeeper]

Sounds like so many other stories I have seen on RV buying experiences. It would seem that the RV dealers haven't yet left the 70s car selling tactics behind and in the case of our local dealer it cost them a sale.

When we tried to make a deal on our Georgetown 378 at our local dealer they low balled us on the trade (which I expected but not that low!) and wouldn't deal on the price knowing they are the only Georgetown dealer within 120 miles.

We sat down to discuss the price/financing/trade, etc and the sales woman that wrote up the quote walked off and about 5 minutes of waiting later the sales "manager" came out. Picture your 70s disco lounge lizard type of moron with his gold chain around his neck and hairy chest showing sitting down to tell us that these numbers just wouldn't work for him. He pulled out his big crayon and started with the used car tactics of writing large numbers in a hasty fashion all over the page and shoving it in front of us.

I stood up, said that wont work and started out. He just stared in dis-belief at my wife (who was still sitting down) and said to her "really, he's just gonna walk out?" She said "I guess so". The chase then ensued with his manager following us out the door asking what it was that we were looking for. I explained that I had told them when I walked in what I was willing to pay and what I was going to put down and they were wasting my time.

Long story longer, I did some research and came across RVdirect.com. I ordered our rig exactly the way we wanted it, got financed and did it all over the phone and internet. I paid $3300 to have our rig driven out from the factory in IN. to Washignton state and still saved $17,000 from what our local dealer couldn't go below.

Its time for these low lifes to realize that we can buy just about any thing with a mouse click these days and RVdirect is proving that RVs are no exception.

We have had our rig now for four months and are heading out on Monday for a 10 day cruise down the Oregon coast just for a little get away.

Needless to say but I will say it anyway, we will never do business with our local dealer for anything EVER.

[powerboatr]

Originally Posted by NWJeeper

Picture your 70s disco lounge lizard type of moron with his gold chain around his neck and hairy chest showing sitting down to tell us that these numbers just wouldn't work for him.

[aintgotnun]

NWJeeper that is a GREAT story!!!

[steveqvs]

Wow, I hate dealers of all kinds. I have learned never ever work it from a payment because they have too much they can hide that way... I always do my home work and work from trade in price and price of the new unit... if they start mumbo jumboing with how much do i still owe or how much my monthly payment I want I will usually walk out. You see lots of them will not tell you bottom dollar for what you are buying and bottom dollar for what you are trading...

[NWJeeper]

Originally Posted by steveqvs

Wow, I hate dealers of all kinds. I have learned never ever work it from a payment because they have too much they can hide that way... I always do my home work and work from trade in price and price of the new unit... if they start mumbo jumboing with how much do i still owe or how much my monthly payment I want I will usually walk out. You see lots of them will not tell you bottom dollar for what you are buying and bottom dollar for what you are trading...

Boy you got that right! NEVER tell them what you are willing to pay per month! Really bad mistake. In fact no matter the type of vehicle you are looking to buy all the sales person needs to know is that your paying cash and you don't have a trade. Agree to a price FIRST then start asking about financing and trades. It's the ONLY way to negotiate.

What we found out with our deal was that our local dealer showed the list price on our 378TS at $149,995. They were willing to come down to $119.995, big difference. BUT when I priced the rig online through RVDirect.com with the options that the dealer had on their rig the price was an astounding $92,000 and some change! WHAT!!!! Could my eyes be deceiving me? Is that price right!!!

I also found out that banks that do RV financing will drop the rate and increase the term for loans of $100,000 or more. As I was wanting to put about $15-20K down I quickly found out that what I needed to do to keep the payment as low as possible I had to ADD some options! I ended up loading the rig up with almost every option that FR had and put about $5000 down and ended up with a finance amount of around $102K and that's including the $3300 to have it delivered to us, the payment works great for us and the term is 20years but my master plan is to pay it off in just 8.

The moral here is that the dealer is making a lot of money if he sold us the rig at $119K and he sure could have come down to the $109 I was offering them but they got greedy. I got more rig for less money and better payments! The markup in these things is HUGE!

[MtnGuy]

Our looking and buying experiences were a mixed bag. We searched for about a year or so looking for a conventional travel trailer to replace our Trailmanor. We wanted a small lite-weight unit, preferrable under 4000 lbs. empty weight. For the most part, the dealers lead us to bigger units after what we told them what our tow vehicles was with the comment "Oh, you can tow this puppy easily with your F150". I ended up looking at our current Surveyor 263 after I went and looked at another smaller unit, and realized the smaller unit just would not work for us. I took my wife back to the dealer, and she fell in love with the 263. Our salesman was the best. He answered our questions if he knew them, and found out if he didn't. He never mislead us in any way, or asked our financial status. He gave us time alone in the trailer if we needed it. He returned calls promptly, and even met us 1 day on his day off. We made a total of 4, 150 mile round trips to talk to him about this trailer, and the day that I called to seal the deal, the dealer had fired him the day before. We made the deal anyway through the another great salesman, but I hated it so much that the guy that did all of the work didn't even get the commission.

BTW, so much for us getting a small unit.....the empty weight on ours was 4614 lbs., and it is 28.5' long.

Chap

[eregan]

We are thinking about buying a Wildwood Park Model. This is all new to us because we have never camped. We will use it to avoid the summer heat of Florida by parking it in New York state. We too found a far better deal than the local NY dealers. My question, what happens if you need repairs and the dealer is 500 miles away? Is this a good idea? Is saving 8K worth it?

[Granted]

Originally Posted by eregan

We are thinking about buying a Wildwood Park Model. This is all new to us because we have never camped. We will use it to avoid the summer heat of Florida by parking it in New York state. We too found a far better deal than the local NY dealers. My question, what happens if you need repairs and the dealer is 500 miles away? Is this a good idea? Is saving 8K worth it?

I don't know about 500 miles but I do know our dealer will go 150 miles to Indiana Beach from Illinois to repair park models they sell. They have even sent the mechanic to our home to replace an oven vent that we lost on a trip and then another time they sent him out to check out the concertone and solve a problem we had with it. Both times it saved us from having to hook up to the tow vehicle and go to the dealer and we don't even have a park model.