RV Direct, RV Wholesale or RV Direct Wholesale?

[trudinator]

I'd have serious issues with paying for a unit in full before I even see it. We went with a local dealer; he beat the RVW and RV Direct quotes by 2K. The first thing I asked local dealers when we were shopping around was if they would service our unit if we bought it from an out of state dealer. Their answer was always "well, we'd try to fit you in, but our customers come first." In other words......no.

[Los Popes]

Trudinator,
Surprised to hear a dealer scoff at a potential customer even if they didn't by their rig from that store - although dealers never cease to surprise.
The parts and service department is typically the largest profit center for a dealer and if they provide good service they could potentially capture a customer for life, including a future sale of a new RV.
We purchased our rig from a dealer about 3 hours away from our home but use a dealer much closer to the house for service and warranty work and the servicing dealer has been fantastic - they treat us just like someone who bought their rig there.
Good luck!

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by Los Popes

Trudinator,
Surprised to hear a dealer scoff at a potential customer even if they didn't by their rig from that store - although dealers never cease to surprise.

actually, with how many times this comes up, it's quite a common practice.
there are hundreds of posts on this subject, on every RV forum that i'm on, including this one.

we live in NorCal and drove to Chicago to pick up our HTT because of our 3 local dealers' unwillingness to deal and their statement that they would NOT do warranty work on any RV not bought from them.
this was from dealers in Sacto, Turlock and Santa Rosa.

luckily, FR found other local dealers willing to do warranty work, including one that didn't even sell FR products.

[janegraves]

I found that dealers say that if you mention RV Direct or similar. I don't have a local dealer for FR and that was the model I liked the best. My closest dealer is over 100 miles away, so I wouldn't be traveling there for repairs even if I did purchase from them. I shopped many dealers in NC and NH where I visit regularly and none could come close to the RV Direct price. Most wouldn't even talk to me if I mentioned RV Direct and wouldn't let me test drive their models, either. If these dealers want business, they should start being more business-like in their practices, and not act like old-time snake-oil salesmen.

[janegraves]

Also, one dealer even told me that if I bought from RV Direct, my unit's serial number would come back as a unit sold by RV Direct and all dealers would refuse to service it because they all dislike RV Direct stealing all their sales. I will avoid this dealer in the future.

[Triguy]

My actual experience has been that the service manager does not listen too much to the sales guys.

I've observed that there is a fairly bright line separating the sales and service departments at many, maybe even most, dealerships.

The service manager has production goals that would be difficult to meet if they excluded trailers except those bought at their dealership. More importantly, they are also in the business of building relationships and they want your business.

But, there are usually alternatives if your dealer absolutely will not work on your TT because you bought it elsewhere. My area has at least one dealership that advertises they will service any make RV and there are a half dozen independent service shops that will work on my RV or TT.

[caleb]

Forest River encourages dealers not to service units not bought from them. It's right in all their sales brochures. So be careful. Our dealer told us that they would service it if we bought else where and brought it in to them but they wouldn't bend over for us. They want to make you happy as a customer, but would stick to the book and if something was one day out of warranty you will likely be SOL. I've heard of a lot of dealers that will not work on your unit if it was not bought from them.

The problem with the "we service all makes" places is that sure, they'll service it but you are going to pay for it. Even if it's something under warranty, you're still going to pay for it.

I personally decided to skip the wholesalers and support my local dealer. I decided it wasn't worth the couple thousand I may save in potential headaches down the road. Also building a relationship with your local dealer may save you more than a couple thousand down the road when you're buying your second, third, etc RV.

Buyer beware with wholesale dealers.

[trudinator]

The difference between dealers we looked at was amazing. Not only in price for the exact same unit, but for friendliness, etc. One dealer we visited at an RV show kind of threw the price at us on a piece of paper when we asked about the model we were looking for. No discussion of options, no sitting down with us and pricing it out....nothing. Needless to say, we crossed that dealership off of our list. He obviously couldn't be bothered to actually sell a travel trailer instead of talking to his friends standing nearby. And yes, this was the OWNER. The next guy we talked to was very friendly, sat down with us, priced the whole thing out, went over their service department, etc. Then we got the big "no" when we mentioned buying it at RVW. We also sent our e-mails to two dealers asking them to give us a price on the Rockwood 8293RKSS. I was skeptical, thinking they wouldn't, but to their credit, they both did. We eventually went with one of them, about 50 miles from our house, and they beat the RVW price. So in this case, it definitely paid for us to shop around to get the very best deal.

[wnytaxman]

The variations between dealers is amazing to say the least. When we were shopping for our Berkshire we narrowed our choices down to the Berkshire and the Tiffin. We liked the Berkshire better than the Tiffin, but Tiffin owners always brag about how well Tiffin takes care of them, so we still had Tiffin in the mix. We tried dealing with two different Tiffin dealers, one here in Western NY and the other in NC. I don't think I have ever dealt with two more arrogant and unreasonable dealers in my life. I am amazed by the total lack of professionalism at both dealerships. Unbelievable!!

We shopped the Berkshire all over the country, but the best deal by far was in our own backyard at RV Direct's Buffalo location. They have gone way above and beyond for us and we have no compaints whatsoever.

BTW, the bragging by the Tiffin owners has to do with how well they are taken care of when they take the unit back to the factory in Red Bay, AL. From what I have read, when anyone has taken their Forest River product back to Elkhart, IN, they have been taken care of very well also. Bottom line is for our purposes, we made the best choice.