Need help buying/negotiating travel trailer from dealer

Wow, thanks for all of the really good advice I can't believe how friendly and helpful everyone has been.

Here is a excerpt from an email I got from the sales person Mike who is been very friendly




The list price is $26,941 less the discount of $6,946. Our price is $17,995 plus tax, Lic., and fees. The price I give you has no hidden fees or other undisclosed costs. Hitch work and brake controller would normally run $1,344 but we have discounted it to $998 including all installations.

Your Out the Door price with all the above will be $20,844.91.



He said also included in the price is a Prodigy 2 brake controller and an equalizer 10,000 pound Equalizer sway bar.

The MSRP price of $26,941 also includes a dealer prep charge of $789 and a freight delivery charge of $3888

For a freight shipping charge of nearly $4000 am I better off just driving halfway across the country and picking it up myself?

I also heard that these dealer prep fees are also junk fees which they have embedded into the MSRP.

Beside negotiating price.....
Don't let the dealer talk (scare) you into also buying:

• extended warranty/service contract
• paint protection package
• upholstery protection.

Also try to get the dealer to upgrade the tires. New units usually come with marginal, cheap Chinese tires.

Enjoy your new adventure.

Insert your model, year and brand into google search and see what your specific unit is selling for across the country. RVtrader.com would also provide pricing for your unit and you will find that it can vary quite a bit.

Of course dealer will try and upsell you an extended warranty among other items that greatly add to their profit margin. Most travel trailers are relatively easy to maintain/repair if you are handy with tools, plus most problems are usually fixed during the warranty period provided by the RV manufacturer.

The only price that matters is the out the door price, some dealers may appear to have the lowest price on the unit you are interested in but their out the door price is higher than their competition. Once you have searched for pricing on your particular unit you will have an idea of the range of pricing and can negotiate an out the door price you can live with.

The price you want to be negotiating is the out-the-door price. If you are focused on just the sales price for the unit, those fees could surprise. Also, realize being in CA, which is quite far from the factories, the unit will have had a high transportation cost to get to the dealer that you will pay in the deal.

Simple to say very hard to do. When talking with the salesperson discuss the price "out the door." Remember in California we are talking about 10% sales tax, and there will be a license fee which you can check. So keep adding at least 10% every time a price is mentioned so it becomes clear you are think "out the door." Then when the paper work is placed on the table by the Sales Manager or Finance Manager be prepared to push the chair away from the table and say sorry, I like the RV, I don't love the RV, and we negotiated an "out the door" price. Walk if you must, you will probably get a phone call to come back shortly. I realize this is not easy, in fact, it is very hard, as you and yours have developed a mindset of liking the RV in front of you. When we purchased our current RV in November we had already visited numerous dealers throughout California and Las Vegas. Some threw out prices we new they would never support in the end. We ended up purchasing from Cher Lyckman at Mike Thompson RV in Fountain Valley. I was extremely pleased that the price quoted after negotiations was the price settled upon, and there was no attempt by managers to up-price the sale. Very soft sell.
Good luck.

Have you looked at on-line dealers for the unit you are considering? When I ordered my travel trailer, I went in to the deal knowing what I could get the same trailer from before negotiation at two other dealers and I triangulated the quoted MSRP. I ended up paying about 75% of MSRP.

There is a huge mark up in the RV industry. Without any specifics the general rule of thumb is pay 70% of MSRP plus TTT. If you can provide more detail it would help.