Trading in TT, what to take?

Yep - like others have said, take what makes sense for you. We traded ours, sight-unseen, and did the same thing. There weren't a ton of add-ons or accessories, but we took the TV's, grill, etc... and left it as bare-bones as we could. The dealer literally never even set foot in the trailer - it really highlighted how much wiggle room there is in the pricing that they could offer me what I felt was a relatively fair trade-in price for a rig they'd never even opened.

Anything you leave is one less thing the dealer can sell new. When I traded a travel trailer years ago they didn't even want the new hitch it had on it. I took it and sold id it on Craigs.

B.O.

We left everything in ours for our last trade in. The new one had everything we needed and wanted, plus more. If I would have kept all the add on stuff I put in, I would have just had put store more stuff somewhere at home. So we just let it go with the camper.

I even threw in the original awning, even though it was shreaded on one side. I tossed in the second television and mount on the wall. We don't need another television. I left all the towel bars, tea cup / coffee cup hooks, the paper towel holder, spare tire, spare tire holder, even the drill bit extensions used for manually extracting the slides.

After the fact, I wish I would have tossed more stuff in the camper. I've found more items I removed, changed, altered in that camper and now have a pile of hardware and used parts I'll never use for anything, ever.

Did any of this add any extra value for the trade-in ... No. Absolutely none! But it was a good way for me to get rid of unwanted and unneeded RV stuff I knew I'd never, ever use again.

And by the way, our dealer did the same with us. We gave them all the information over the phone about the condition of the RV and they gave us an offer for the trade in. We had the option to accept it or decline it. I think the offer was low enough, that even if the trailer was completely wrecked, they'd still make money off of it at resale. That's how they do it you know. They don't have to see it. They are already offering a low enough price on trade in, they are not loosing anything.

They gave you basically auction price for your trade, so they don't need to see it beforehand. Then asking you to document the condition is just for their records, highly doubt they took anything into consideration. May not have even read it.

As far as accessories, as others have said, take what you want or can sell, leave or throw-away the rest. Unless it's nearly impossible to remove the EMS, I'd definitely consider doing that and install it on the new unit (assuming both are same amperage). That is one thing I'd consider worth the hassle and their offer sure didn't take it into consideration.

Mike

Iraqvet05 wrote:
Anyway, the salesman (same guy we bought the 26BH from almost 6 years ago) told me I should take out any accessories I have added to the old TT before I bring it in that I wanted to keep.

I am not sure why you posted this question when the salesman already gave you the answer!

DownTheAvenue wrote:

Iraqvet05 wrote:
Anyway, the salesman (same guy we bought the 26BH from almost 6 years ago) told me I should take out any accessories I have added to the old TT before I bring it in that I wanted to keep.

I am not sure why you posted this question when the salesman already gave you the answer!

I just didn't know how far some people go to remove some of their stuff for a trade-in. Have you ever seen the movie with Richard Prior where he buys a house and the seller takes half the house with him? Maybe I'll be that guy :)

I left a lot of stuff that wasn't worth the headache of removing without possibly damaging the camper. Paper towel holder, hand towel holder and toilet paper holder in the bathroom, a shoe holder (that I had mounted behind the toilet to hold small items like shampoo, soap, bug spray, etc), bed spread, some magnetic cell phone holders that I had mounted by the bed, new curtains that I had replaced the crappy stuff that came with the camper, etc. New TV and remote that I had replaced the Jenson 12v tv with. It all stayed.

I took the stuff I felt like I could use in the new camper and was easy to remove without hurting the value of the camper.

Walaby wrote:
They gave you basically auction price for your trade, so they don't need to see it beforehand. Then asking you to document the condition is just for their records, highly doubt they took anything into consideration. May not have even read it.

When you bring in the trade they're going to look it over. If they find a surprise such as delam or some other large issue you can bet dollars to donuts they'll be wanting to adjust the trade in value.

We just traded our 2017 in yesterday. Originally had a cash price but decided to trade. Dealer made what I thought was a fair offer. When we pulled up he had us park next to power / water so they could check it out while we did the pdi on the new unit. They never brought the old unit up during the transaction so I guess they were happy, but it was a nice TT. We took off bug screens etc., left a rear camera that was not expensive.

Ralph Cramden wrote:
When you bring in the trade they're going to look it over. If they find a surprise such as delam or some other large issue you can bet dollars to donuts they'll be wanting to adjust the trade in value.

Traded in our 18 month old TrailCruiser which was clearly wearing the tires unevenly because of an axle issue and smelled musty, I assume because mold was growing inside the front wall. The first time the dealer saw is when I brought it in to pick up the new unit we were buying. Dealer didn't care at all about these issues and they made no difference to my trade in value. Several years later we traded in a K-Z Spree which was clearly de-laminating along the curbside sidewall, again the dealer didn't care at all and it had no impact on our trade in value.