Advice for 1st TT Purchase?

I made a 4 day trip out of our purchase. Drove 16 hours to save @$8k. Do the walk through/ inspection on one day, spend that night in the TT to walk through and test everything. Any issues, you can take is back the next day for the selling dealer to repair - address issues before you leave. Its like any other large purchase, sometimes sellers simply cannot compete. Or don't want to.

Drove from SC to Muskegon Mi to buy a Passport from Lakeshore RV. Saved about 6k. Kept it for a year and a half then sold it for what I paid for it. Went to something a little bigger. Bought my next one from Canton Ohio. Good deal but not as good as the first. The place I use for service doesn't sell RV's. That's really nice. Their entire focus is service. And they do warranty work for about all brands.

Typically with ordering you'll put down a deposit, wait 6-8 weeks or so, then pick up once it gets in. Tell the dealer to do a good PDI before you go down to pick it up. When you get there, do an even better one. Spend the night in it and give it a good workout. When I ordered I didn't think twice about driving a couple hundred miles to finalize a deal with the dealer. I was prepared to go much further than that. When factoring in travel costs, the best price I had was up in Michigan, but my dealer matched it.

Why in the world would warranty work be a consideration? Most issues can be caught and fixed during PDI. If there's a local dealer then there's someone to perform warranty work. If there's multiple then there's multiple options. The whole idea that dealers cater to their own customers is a bit of a cliche. That may be true for some, but definitely not all. Countless times we see people complain how their unit sits in line at the dealer even though they purchased it from there. A lot of dealers don't care who comes first since they're going to get paid in the end anyway.

If you buy the TT and have no issues you made a smart move. If it is a new TT and needs dealer tweeking or warrenty work, not so smart.

What are the odds of a new TT being perfect?
What are the odds of the local dealer worrying about your problem?
Do you mind driving 6 hours?

Your money, your time, your choice.

I agree...6 hours is nothing! Certainly not worth loosing over $2,000 over! I even purchased my TV out of state, booked a one way flight to pick it up and have it serviced at the local dealer...no problems :-).

I suppose what I'm really trying to determine is advice on the purchasing process after the dealer is chosen (sorry, I should have been more clear). In other words, are there any pitfalls that I should avoid, what things do I need to verify in the contract, what should be inspected upon delivery, etc.

Thanks everybody!

We purchased our first TT from RV wholesalers in Ohio. We live in Texas, so it was quite a drive. We made a trip out of it, went to Cedar Point, ect. Saved a ton of money. As far as warranty service, we took it to a local place. They were more then willing to do all the warranty work. We even had an issue with one of the slides, that developed a crack, Forest River sent someone down picked up our TT, drove it back to the mgf. fixed everything, and delivered it back to us. I would not shy away from a 6 hour drive to save money. More than likely you will not have a problem getting the local dealers to do the warranty work.

Maybe you could pit the far dealer price against the local dealer and get them to lower the price.

I'd send the price info on your best price in an E mail to each dealer. Tell them you have money in hand and want to finalize the sale within a few days (if that meets your schedule). I'd bet you would get a similar offer.

Otherwise, if you're not one of those folk who have to bring the trailer back in for warranty work every time a screw gets loose or pipe fittings leak, travel the 6 hrs to save the money. I know that's what I'd do if buying new.

6 hours is a nice sunday drive, have them set you up for the night,and return home the next day,

The price difference is actually $2,375. If the pricing had been similar, I would have purchased locally. I even told the local dealer (they aren't small...have 5 locations in 3 states) that I would be purchasing soon and explained the lower prices I had found at other dealers. They just said that they couldn't meet the price and that the other dealers must sell a lot more than they do...wonder why? Lol.

Anything to watch out for in the process?

When we bought our current trailer we ordered it through a dealer that was about 2 hours away. We had seen the model we wanted weeks before while camping in the area when we stopped by the dealer to get a part for our awning. We were just looking at the time but a couple of weeks later we went to a large RV show. Two dealers at the show were ready to order the model we wanted, we got quotes from them and then called the dealer we had visited while camping. They were willing to beat the show prices by $2000.

Maybe you could pit the far dealer price against the local dealer and get them to lower the price.

By the way--- when our new trailer arrived at the dealer we picked it up and drove to a nearby full hook up campground to stay for a weekend and try everything out plus load it with our stuff. It was a great weekend in the new RV.