Adventures in RV buying... (Long)

[laknox]

I've been on the hunt for a new FW for over 2 years and had settled on 2 different FWs. My #1 choice was a KZ Durango 1500 D284RLT; my #2 was a Jayco Eagle HT 27.5RLTS. The Jayco was #2 for several reasons but the biggest reason was the anemic 32.5 gal black tank. Since we boondock several times a year, and I've nearly filled the 45 gal tank in my old FW on more than one occasion, I didn't want to give up any more capacity than I had to. Also, the lower CCC figured in.

About 3 weeks ago I took DW to look at a Jayco at a local dealer. She liked it, overall, but one of her first comments was "where's the pantry?" I knew that kitchen cabinet space was limited on this model, but didn't realize just =how= limited. We do travel pretty light, so I wasn't too worried about it, and we even talked about getting a closed tea cart that we could move around. Also, having a heater vent right under one of the recliners (which is =really= stupid) turned her off, as she was concerned about what the heat would do to the chair. Now, we used the furnace in our old FW =maybe= a total of 7 days in 13 years of ownership, so I thought this was a non-starter. :B Anyway, this caused me to take a harder look at the KZ. Being very similar to the Jayco, it is also limited in kitchen storage, though it =does= have shelves to the left of the stove, both below and above, that would work for a pantry. There is also an optional kitchen island that would work well for pantry space; the extra counter space is a bonus. Since I was really looking for a model with lots of open space, the island was a turn-off for me, and I was very enamored with the tea cart idea.

This brings us to 2 weekends ago. We drive about an hour and a half to one of the only 2 KZ dealers to look at a somewhat similar 277RLT that is in stock, one of only 2 Durango 1500s in the entire state. The nearest 284 is almost a thousand miles away, in NorCal, and there is no way we're spending $1 on something we haven't seen in person. Long story short, DW =loves= it! So, now I'm having to shift my 2+ year study of these FWs to a different direction. Not a hard decision, since =she= likes it. This particular unit has been on the lot for 10 months. I'd called the dealership before going down and just happened to get the owner on the phone and he shot me an unbelievable price. That pretty much sealed the deal for me...depending on what it looked like after we saw it. We ended up doing a "mini-PDI" on it and pointed out a lot of the small stuff you might expect on a rig that's been sitting for 10 months; loose trim, some scuffs and scratches, etc. Biggest issue we caught was on the facia trim where the pantry door mounts. There is a crack completely through the wood, about 1.5" long. Don't know if it's bad wood or shoddy construction, but the rig is under warranty, so we're confident KZ will fix it. (More on this later.) Salesman is saying "no problem, we can fix that" to everything we pointed out. We leave without putting a down or signing anything saying we want to talk about it. Called them the following Monday and put a down on it; refundable, of course.

FF to this past Saturday. We head down to sign paperwork, but we want to look at it some more and literally do a "medium-PDI", which we did. Made a list of a lot of stuff we'd seen before as well as acknowledging some of the repairs that they'd already done. The cracked facia on the pantry KZ had already turned down a replacement repair on, so some glue, stain and a reinforcing strap on the back side was agreed to. I can live with that as it's not really structural, more just aesthetic. Several other pieces of loose trim were pointed out; a few nails/staples will take care of these. We did find another wood piece that was cracked completely through as well as loose, and they said they's fab a new piece and stain it to match. Easy fix that =I= could do, but this is a new f'n rig, right? My other major concern came on the roof. 2 vents had severely cracked sealeant; all the others looked perfect. Don't know why those 2 cracked so badly, though. Also, I found a scrape on the roof. Not bad, but there was one bad spot, maybe 1/4" across, that was pretty deep. They're going to bead some Dicor across that area, which I agreed to, though I wanted them to run about 2' of Eternabond across it, and which I'll likely do after it goes out of warranty. I don't =think= it fully penetrated, but my "thinking" often gets me in trouble.

Now, to the bad...

Personally, I was dreading buying a new RV simply having to deal with salesmen, and this trip was no exception.

First trip, salesman was all upbeat and "we'll fix this, we'll fix that". Second trip, we managed to piss him off, with our extensive inspection. On top of that, we came about =this= close to walking on the deal after he came up with the b.s. of "we're taking a huge hit on this trailer, you're going to have to compromise some on this". I let my wife do most of the talking, though I did comment that I knew that dealers were caught between customers desires and manufacturer's reality, but this comment really pissed =me= off. I literally asked him what the difference was, warranty-wise, between this '17 and an '18 that came in the week before; =both= should be treated equally. His comment, again, referenced their loss. Now, the dealership's OWNER gave me this price, so I don't know if it was the owner trying to back-step a bit or it was the salesman trying to do the back-stepping, but it nearly caused us to walk out. We =did= tell him we needed a few minutes, which he gave us. (Remember the list of fixes I mentioned above? I ended up emailing it from my phone to the owner. He printed it out with what they would and wouldn't fix. We agreed to it and signed it, separately.) Another thing that irritated me was that when we looked at this unit the first time, the disconnect was left on and the battery was flat. They grabbed a jumper box to get the wardrobe slide extended so we could check it out. They =knew= we were coming down on Saturday and did not either swap out the battery or even charge the one that was there. Then, when I mentioned about replacing the battery with a fresh one, they said that they'd charge the one there and load test it. Now, I don't know about y'all, but in my experience, when a 12v "marine" battery goes flat (too the point where lights won't even flicker), that' battery's toast. Again, the salesman pooh-poohing things, which really pissed me off, but I let it slide. I'll try using it and charging it on my own, but if the battery goes flat again, they'll be putting a new one in, that's for sure. I plan on installing 2 6v batteries at some point anyway, but I still need at least =one= good battery.

We went ahead with the deal, gave them =more= down (which we weren't told about ahead of time, as they knew =my= time frame on getting funding) and signed the final paperwork. So, given that AZ has no "cooling off" period, which we also had to sign to acknowledge, we owned a '17 KZ Durango 1500 277RLT, at that point. We go down on Thursday to make final payment, do the final PDI and pick it up.

Whew! And we're still married!

Lyle

[ChuckV1]

Lyle

As I posted on the other form, Kz Customer Service is great, they will steer you to the right place before an after warranty... Under warranty the appliance's MFG for the first year are responsible, the Kz is responsible for the second year.

At the Kz Rally, Kz fixed anything that that was not right, even some owners out of warranty received help from Kz, their statement to us was over an over again they will stand behind our product 150 percent ... Now say this they may stand behind their product but getting a dealer to do so is a different story. Most dealers sell so many different products/trailers to keep their head above water they can't keep up with the service end of their dealership ....

So as you have read, may people bash a brand no matter what it is because the dealers provide bad service, to bad that MFG can't or in some case's won't dump a dealer for bad service or complaint's from owners. I complained about our dealer at the Kz rally, the 5th wheel line rep stated that my dealer was one of the top selling dealers in the NW for Kz... I stated, yes they sell allot of trailers but their service end really su#ks an that turns off owners to their product ... When I go back to the Kz rally this next year I will again make the same statement do to the fact of what happened to us this past week with service...

safe travels

Chuck

[DiskDoctr]

laknox wrote:
All but a couple things were very minor and the more serious stuff was fixed to my satisfaction, so I own it! 🙂 Biggest issue is going to be hiring a pilot car with 13' whips to warn me of low clearances that aren't on my list...like branches.

Lyle

What a terrific attitude! :C

With that approach, you are sure to enjoy your RV and camping. Congratulations and have fun!!!

[laknox]

ChuckV1 wrote:
LOL Lyle

You will get use to it, I stay away from older gas stations do to most of them do not have the higher overheads. I also look for stations that have the pumps parallel to the building an not facing the build, even thought I have fuels at some of the Love's an Pilots that have them facing the buildings, most go around back to the truck fuel pumps... I have not found any station that I can't get out of if the overhead is high enough, some are pretty tight I have to say, with about 58ft of truck an trailer it can be tricky LOL.

I had to back out of a Flying-J once, pulled in to the fuel pump out front, guy came out with a bunch of cones, set the up in front of us an started to paint lines an arrows an a cross walk. Now he know we were there so I have to believe he just want to see if I could back the 40ft trailer away from the pump an not hit anything, peace of cake, didn't hit anything an waved at him (no I didn't give him the one finger salute only a wave) as I left smiling 🙂

After driving truck off an on for 50 years little did he know 40ft was nothing compared to a set of doubles or a 53ft trailer 🙂

Safe Travels

I don't think I could've been that charitable, Chuck. I might've pulled over, grabbed an old pair of boots, and walked through the wet paint. :B You ever see that video of a driver, Aussie IIRC, pulling triples, and backing the whole rig into an enclosed warehouse dock? That's skill!

Lyle

[ChuckV1]

LOL Lyle

You will get use to it, I stay away from older gas stations do to most of them do not have the higher overheads. I also look for stations that have the pumps parallel to the building an not facing the build, even thought I have fuels at some of the Love's an Pilots that have them facing the buildings, most go around back to the truck fuel pumps... I have not found any station that I can't get out of if the overhead is high enough, some are pretty tight I have to say, with about 58ft of truck an trailer it can be tricky LOL.

I had to back out of a Flying-J once, pulled in to the fuel pump out front, guy came out with a bunch of cones, set the up in front of us an started to paint lines an arrows an a cross walk. Now he know we were there so I have to believe he just want to see if I could back the 40ft trailer away from the pump an not hit anything, peace of cake, didn't hit anything an waved at him (no I didn't give him the one finger salute only a wave) as I left smiling 🙂

After driving truck off an on for 50 years little did he know 40ft was nothing compared to a set of doubles or a 53ft trailer 🙂

Safe Travels

[laknox]

Curly2001 wrote:
I think I would have cut out the sales person and have gone right back to the owner that gave you the sales price. The dealers don't want to do anything extra for the customer. Keep on them for everything to be completed and do not pay them until you are satisfied. Best of luck.
Curly

All but a couple things were very minor and the more serious stuff was fixed to my satisfaction, so I own it! 🙂 Biggest issue is going to be hiring a pilot car with 13' whips to warn me of low clearances that aren't on my list...like branches.

Lyle

[Curly2001]

I think I would have cut out the sales person and have gone right back to the owner that gave you the sales price. The dealers don't want to do anything extra for the customer. Keep on them for everything to be completed and do not pay them until you are satisfied. Best of luck.
Curly

[laknox]

ChuckV1 wrote:
Ok Lyle

Well we have two grand kids, one a boy 17 an is 6'5" tall an a girl 9 years old
an is a prince's or at least she thinks so, spoiled rotten by her dad 🙂

Shoot, that close you have to make the rally, we have 2500 miles to go to get
there. The DW an I are in hopes that Edd505 over on the Kz form may be out here
an may travel with us back to the rally 🙂

save travels

14 y.o. lives in CO with her mom. Babies are 2 y.o. and 6 weeks. 🙂 1818 miles from my place to Shipsewana by the shortest route, though it would be ~2,400, one way, by way of CO, MN and WI. 🙂

Lyle

[ChuckV1]

Ok Lyle

Well we have two grand kids, one a boy 17 an is 6'5" tall an a girl 9 years old
an is a prince's or at least she thinks so, spoiled rotten by her dad 🙂

Shoot, that close you have to make the rally, we have 2500 miles to go to get
there. The DW an I are in hopes that Edd505 over on the Kz form may be out here
an may travel with us back to the rally 🙂

save travels

[ol_Bombero-JC]

Wow - candidate for - Audio Books!!

Sometime ?? I might read it.

Hope others "enjoy", I'm sure it's good info.

:C

[laknox]

Chuck, thanks for the info. I'll be talking to DW about the Rally. She's got a jr. high girlfriend that she's re-connected with in FB and has been bugging me about visiting for about 2 years. Also, she's got family in the Twin Cities, so it wouldn't be a stretch for a 2 week trip to see all =and= catch the rally. My biggest issue would be not seeing the grandbabies for 2 whole weeks! We live < 2 miles away, so =we're= spoiled as much as we spoil them! :B.

Lyle

[ChuckV1]

Ok Lyle

Well I hope you have a great time in the new Kz Trailer, as I said before we love ours an like you we got a great price on ours as well...

I believe the dealer was telling you a story on Kz turning down the repair on the trim, as I said over on the Kz form an here I saw them repair stuff that was the owners fault not Kz to show that they meant what they said, they support their customer base one hundred fifty percent 🙂

Safe travel, see you over on the Kz form 🙂

[ChuckV1]

Lyle

Ok I see said the bind man, seen you user name over there LOL

Believe it or not those skeeters were not bad at all, can only remember one night were the DW said they were out an sort of bad to her 🙂

We had some nice camp fire discussions an maybe all the hot air from all attending such kept them away from us, one never knows LOL (snicker)

I have family in Ohio so it sort of nice to see them an visit as well as going to the rally. We will be attending again this coming summer again so we will be putting on another 6 or 7 thousand miles on the trailer again...

We will be taking the trailer in on Dec 4 for it's annual inspection an then winterize it Ugh 😞

Safe travels

[laknox]

laknox wrote:

Fireman286 wrote:
Laknox I have an 05 dmax. I have found that if you push and hold the tow/haul button for maybe 2 seconds it will shift to forth. I’m not sure if the 02 has this feature, I had one for 8 years and never had heard of this.

Really...? I'll have to give it a try. There's no info on any sort of "OD cutoff" feature anywhere in the manual or supplement that I could find. Even just standing on the gas, to the floor, it's hard to get it to downshift.

Lyle

This "trick" doesn't work with my '02, so no OD cutoff. 😞 DUMB, DUMB, DUMB! :M

Lyle

[Bumpyroad]

garyp4951 wrote:
BTW marine batteries are not toast when discharged all the way, just ask a fisherman.

yep, run that trolling motor full blast all day fighting current and wind,, slam a charge in them overnight and repeat the next day, etc.
I am always amused here when "marine batteries" are 'trashed". and the pros are doing this to make money, not to camp somewhere hooked up to 120.
bumpy