wholesaler price vs. local dealer price

Just remember. Adjustments are not covered by warranty. When a dealer sells you a rig they will make these little fixes for you for no cost because they sold you the rig. If you bought it from someone else your local dealer won't be able to help you with these as they don't get paid by the manufacturer and they will lose money. They may also charge you for extra time on a job that the manufacturer doesn't cover. eg, a warranty repair job takes two hours but the manufacturer only covers 1.5 hours. You are on the hook for the rest. I did a stint as a service manager and manufacturers don't always allot the require amount of time for a repair. If a dealer sold you the unit they may suck up the difference but obviously not if you didn't buy from them as they just lose money. Last but not least, don't call them for advice on how to fix things as this is just lost money for them. Not that they are not willing to help but they are busy with paying customers. They are not being mean or jerks, they are just trying to run a business. Not trying to talk you out of anything, just go in knowing all sides.

Hope it works out for you. Happy camping.

The further the dealer is from the factory the more the shipping costs them, it's not like vehicles where it is averaged out.

Unless you are a retail trailer DEALER you cannot purchase wholesale. Dealers like RV Wholesalers or RV Direct talk a lot about wholesale but in fact are just another dealership selling RETAIL to their customers. Their big advantage is volume business and a much smaller stick n brick facility compared to their total sales. SOME of the large dealers can (not necessarily will) match them im prices but not many. Best way to find out is to ask and be prepared to walk away from any dealer who tells you they won't honor warranty unless you buy from them. You likely don't WANT those folks working on your RV anyway or they'd be looking to make money from doing the warranty work. If they can't fix things in one try they'll try to get OUT of doing warranty work because factory will pay for a repair only once.

If ANY dealer will repair only units they sold it defeats the entire CONCEPT of an RV which means traveling with them. If you travel with them the chances are MUCH greater you'll need repairs done FAR away from wherever you purchased the unit so those dealers are actually only wanting to sell you a "cabin in the woods" not an RV.

Good luck / Skip

Do a search on the forum for the name of the so called wholesaler. Some have been happy buying that way and some haven't.

If your local dealer can get close to the price it would probably be best to buy local. After all, you want them to be there when you need help, right? No matter where you buy, you will most likely be expecting the local dealer to handle warranty work.

Francesca Knowles wrote:
I'll bet you think "your wholesaler" is selling you this rig "wholesale", right? Since he's selling to you, he's a retailer just like the local dealer is, just may not have the same overhead....

Correct, unless one has a dealer's license they are buying retail, not wholesale.

Is the $1500 difference on a $60,000 rig or a $20,000 rig ?

Having purchased two trailers, happily, from such a dealer, I will tell you that I would have spent $1,500 more, in a heartbeat, to purchase from our local dealer. There are advantages (primarily cost) to buying from one of the low-overhead, large-inventory, dealers. There are also, however, negatives. We would have readily paid $1,500-2,000 more to have a relationship with the local dealer. The $7,000 more they wanted for a $30,000 trailer, however, was more than we could swallow!

I'll bet you think "your wholesaler" is selling you this rig "wholesale"...right? Since he's selling to you, he's a retailer just like the local dealer is, just may not have the same overhead.

Is the $1500.00 difference inclusive of shipping from the "wholesaler", or is that yet to be determined? I ask because many such outfits close price gaps by putting themselves in charge of "arranging shipping" for the customer, and themselves get a piece of that action.

If you buy from the wholesaler, where will you have your warranty work and servicing done?
The dealer may not have time to work on your unit because he's busy taking care of his customers.... JMO