Are you a fan of buying at RV Shows?

NekkidFish wrote:
I do plan on researching and shopping through the winter. I already know we will go to the Cincy/Dayton RV Show, and the one that is in Louisville. I've also got the names a few big dealers here and in Louisville that we will visit.

Nothing wrong with buying at the show - if you know what you want, what dealer you want to work with, and what you should pay. We bought our last 2 trailers at the local RV show.

But, my advice if you want the best price is to negotiate at the show, then walk. They write up all their sales leads and follow up like crazy the week after the show. The dealer we didn't buy from called back 2 days after the show and dropped $2K off the "best deal" they offered at the show - which was already $1.5K under the show special.

This will probably get you as good a price as you will get - but if you have your heart set on a specific rv, it might be sold by the end of the show, so you have to wait for them to get another one ordered.

ford truck guy wrote:

I had to wonder if the parts guy is running the showroom :B might be a GOOD DEAL !

Funny...We went to a local county fair where there was an area setup for the local RV dealers to show off and sell their campers. We ended up buying our used 23B from this fair. The person from the dealership who was at the show was the mechanic/parts-guy. He couldn't close the deal, only took down our info. :) We closed the deal at the dealership next-day.

Thanks everybody for the great input!

I have shopped at dealerships, I have shopped at shows. I stroked the dealer at the 2013 Hershey show, but that was not until I spent some time working on them for several hours and going off to look at other units and enjoy the show. In the end the price I paid I could not find one advertized that bested it.

Dog Folks wrote:

ford truck guy wrote:

NekkidFish wrote:

Dog Folks wrote:
Go to the dealership when all the higher pressure, high preforming salesman are at the show.

If you have done your homework, you can squeeze a little more out of the salesmen/mangers left behind at "home."

Ooooh, I like that idea!! :)

Not to poke holes in this idea....but.... MOST of the important , decision making managers are usually at the shows...you most likely will get someone who does not have the power to accept that low price you may offer.....

Maybe, maybe not. That is how we bought ours.

I was only going off my experience.. knowing all the folks at 2 local dealers.. and seeing them at shows.. I had to wonder if the parts guy is running the showroom :B might be a GOOD DEAL ! Glad it worked out...

When we bought our Hybrid Travel Trailer we bought it at the Atlantic City RV Show in March of 2005. We had been looking for a few months and had visited a couple local RV dealerships. We were fortunate to meet a knowledgeable representative from Forest River when we went to the show. We spoke with him about their Shamrock and Rockwood lines. We ended up going with the Rockwood because the Dealer was closer to home, about 15 miles away.

We left the show and did some research. The salesman told us if we decided to purchase it to give him a call and he would get us back into the show to sign the contract. We talked about it for a while, went to the Dealer and looked at the model we liked that they had on the lot. We spent a long time in it checking everything out. We talked about it some more and decided to buy it.

We bought it at wholesale price. We compared the price with the online RV Wholesalers and found that the price we were quoted was within $500 of the online Wholesalers. The dealer was true to his word and got us back into the show. Eight weeks later we were in the dealership taking delivery.

That worked for us because the dealer we bought from was local. This past January we went to the Tampa RV show, just to see what has changed in the last 5 years. We had no intention of buying at the show. After seeing the show prices there, we were glad we hadn't planned to buy there.

-Michael

ford truck guy wrote:

NekkidFish wrote:

Dog Folks wrote:
Go to the dealership when all the higher pressure, high preforming salesman are at the show.

If you have done your homework, you can squeeze a little more out of the salesmen/mangers left behind at "home."

Ooooh, I like that idea!! :)

Not to poke holes in this idea....but.... MOST of the important , decision making managers are usually at the shows...you most likely will get someone who does not have the power to accept that low price you may offer.....

Maybe, maybe not. That is how we bought ours.

The last RV show I attended we saw a family sitting comfortably in a $200,000.00 MO-HO... while their youngest was on the bed jumping off onto the floor.. The bedspread was laying in a ball,,

The models at RV shows have every available option installed. Go look, but leave your checkbook at home.

Do your homework period.......

Our dealer does not do shows & beats "show prices" all the time. They have low overhead & pass along the savings. Old building (Old 60s-70s VW dealership building) & 4 employees. For us they beat the "show" price of another dealer considerably.

Shows here are always in the spring, when they are trying to get rid of last years models.