Buying Strategy (looking for opinions)

tragusa3 wrote:
Thanks everyone. JD, I enjoyed your story. Warms my heart that this hobby is so rich as a memory maker.

A brief report:

We spent an exhausting 6 hours at the dealership today. Not in the sales hot seat, but in the coach (alone). We went through it like nobodies business. I could see employees looking at us funny, but it is what it is.

In the end, we realized that the floorplan isn't better or worse than what we thought we wanted, just different. All trade-offs.

We talked numbers and are very close to making it work. Might be a Tiffin owner by next weekend!

Hi neighbor! We're just down the road near Greenville, SC.

We were very much in your shoes about 3 years ago. For many of the reasons you mentioned, we wanted to go beyond our fifth wheel. I had many future "out west" trips planned, and I just didn't like the idea of all that driving in the truck, "getting out to get in" as they say...

We got serious and looked at motorhomes at a few dealerships and then RV shows. We started looking at Class C's but for a number of reasons landed on a short list of Class A motorhomes to look at. Similarly, I set a budget of $50k and started scouring the used market.

Then I learned about Tiffin and - not to get into a kool aid discussion - but I really liked what I saw in the build of the coach and in the 35QBA floorplan. But I thought it wasn't going to happen because they cost more than the others in the first place, and the used demand was very high.

I shopped for months and was frustrated with availability on the market, and then got even more frustrated when I couldn't land anything on my list for a decent price.

Then I had a forum member get in touch with me who was looking to trade-in and didn't want to take the dealer's low ball offer - for a 2011 Tiffin 35QBA.

We had to do some serious thinking because this was about 2-3 years beyond our price point. But he was asking way below market ...

So we double checked our finances, committed to some adjustments and we've never looked back. We have had some amazing trips and planning more as the kids are in that perfect age for travel. And I'm amazed the amount of customer support I've gotten from the company, being a second owner.

For sure, we could have made the memories in ANY RV, and just about any Class A would have met our needs for being able to have certain conveniences. But waiting around for the right deal and being ready for it really worked out for us!

ALSO - just checking, either our counties are very different for taxes or maybe you could check into the property tax question again? We're in Greenville and on a 2011 we pay less than half than what you had in your original post above for property tax.

Anyway let us know how it goes!