Fun Town dealership

dougrainer wrote:
For those that believe what Larry Cad stated. WHY WOULD YOU BUY AND SUPPORT WHAT YOU PERCEIVE AS AN INDUSTRY FULL OF CROOKS??????????????????????????????????????? Doug

Hey Doug - My experience with my two purchases of new RVs was pretty close to what Larry described. Maybe that makes me dumb, but I think it's more a function of being inexperienced. It's not like new car purchases where we do it every few years. I bought a new RV from the dealer in 2004, and then I kind of got amnesia and kind of figured my first experience was a fluke. And then I bought a second one from them and my experience was even worse than the first time.

Does this mean that the folks at my dealer were crooks? No, not at all. (Maybe they are, but I don't have any reason to call them crooked.) But they're certainly inept.

I ran into the owner of the dealership in the parking lot and he struck up a conversation. He said that his #1 cost was real estate and it was killing him. I told him that he could clear out a ton of room if he stuck a boot in the butts of his service team (especially the service manager) and cleared out a bunch of these units that were sitting for warranty service. He looked at me like I was nuts, but I told him:

1. Bring the units in for an appointment and fix what you can and/or figure out what parts you need to order.

2. Send the customer home with his unit while you order parts. This way you don't have a bunch of dusty units sitting around taking up space. Plus the customers can actually get out and camp (if possible) while the parts are on order.

3. Schedule a second appointment when you know that the parts have shipped.

4. Bring the customer and the unit back for that appointment and hopefully finish the service while the customer waits or send the customer home and keep the unit for the day or two that it takes to actually do the service.

This way the units awaiting warranty work are only on the lot for a day or two while they're doing the work. And those units shouldn't even be on the lot; they should be in the service bays getting fixed.

He kind of shook his head and asked me "Have you ever even met my service crews? They could never pull that off."

Regardless, I won't be back to that dealer again. I'll buy from someone else who isn't so inept.