Buying local vs the national dealers

[GR8SKP]

It may be time to begin thinking of replacing our fiver. If we do start searching, what experiences do you folks have regarding buying from a smaller local dealer that is closer vs a big national dealer thats farther away ?The deep discounts look very appealing, however, when problems develop, Im sure its nicer to be closer to home. Your thoughts will be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[NMDriver]

There are 5 "local" dealers within 40 miles of our house.

One is Camping World and I will never go back there. I felt like I was kidnapped by the salesman. I finally started walking back to the exit rather than get into the cart and be driven further away.

Two are in town and across the street from each other will all the major brands and mostly new units. Sort of like a mini-RV show and they are very low pressure. So low that sometimes you cannot find a salesman to answer your questions.

One is mostly used units about 40 miles north on the interstate. I shop there a lot and their prices seem a bit high to me but I do like the sales staff and they seem to do good repair work.

One is 20 south and is another used lot. I bought from them and was happy with the price but felt like they failed to disclose some problems. They ran the refrig. on electric and did not demo propane. My trusting nature lead to me finding out the ref. did not working on propane until after the 30 day used warranty period. A lick on me but I have never been back to them.

As for repairs: I use a non dealer repair facility in town and I have used mobile repair guys when I was on the road, but prefer to do my own when I can.

Bottom line is check your local dealers but buy where the price is right.

[PCronin68]

I bought remote twice. First was a travel trailer from Holman RV which saved me about $5-$6k and most recently a Class A from General RV which saved me about $20k. Both are located on Ohio and it worked out fine

[ljr]

I very much prefer local but the one that sold my last 2 stopped doing warranty service. I bought my current factory direct.

If you can find a reliable local dealer you're lucky. Stick with them.

[ford_truck_guy]

We did our shopping online and out of town while traveling.. When we became ready to pull the trigger and purchase , we gathered up ALL our info and took a ride to the local dealer...
Its best to lay it all out on the table , tell them where they NEED to be in order to get the sale (after they give you their price)...

IF they match its a no brainer... IF they get close , you have to decide if the savings is worth the ride. . .

[RustyJC]

In our case, we got a 30 day paper tag from the selling dealer. When we got back to Texas, registration cost us no more than if we had bought it in Texas. Certainly no additional taxes; the only additional fee was for a safety inspection/VIN verification which the Texas selling dealer would have either eaten or buried in the selling price in his "document fees".

Rusty

[jffnkrn]

We found what we thought we wanted, price was right and worth the drive. 1300 miles. NOT After we headed home had some issues, manufacturer wouldn't deal with it, got the stuff finally done here locally under warranty, a two plus week battle. Then paid county taxes here, which we knew about and just within the last two weeks, got another $440 bill from the state as the city tax of 1.8% was not collected. So basically for me, never again out of state, maybe out of town. So do your homework about the taxes and fees for registering form out of state etc. As far as warranty work goes, most manufactures should authorize repairs to be done at another facility. Good Luck & Be Safe ! ! !

[stickdog]

I'd take the cash. We brought a 6 year old 5th wheel to fulltime in and have been traveling 5 1/2 years. There has been nothing in it that I haven't been able to repair myself. Most of the stuff that goes bad are the components that are supplied by other manufacturers and are warranted by them not the RV builder. So the need to deal with selling dealers repair shops never caused me any worry.

[B_O__Plenty]

Who cares what their service shop looks like and how good their service is...The several thousand you can save will offset a lot of that. If you travel you won't be close to your local dealer when it breaks anyway. I bought mine locally and received terrible service...never again.

B.O.

[omextreme]

We just picked up our new 5er from a out of state dealer. Our local dealers would not even consider playing ball with their prices. We even offered 1 local place 2k more the the quote from the national place just for the convenience and they still turned it down.

the MSRP for what is worth on our 5er was about 64k, all the local dealers came down to about 52 - 54k.

Ended up out of state for $43,500

[ol_Bombero-JC]

GR8SKP wrote:
The deep discounts look very appealing, however, when problems develop, Im sure its nicer to be closer to home.

Never could figure this one out..........

It's only nicer *if* you happen to be close to home when/if "problems develop"...:W

If you vacation/travel/camp - in your "backyard", guess "close to home" is understandable.

IMO - (for *me*, "best deal" wins)

"Shop" the best deal far and wide - always "apples to apples".
That deal is your "benchmark".

If a dealer closer to you will meet (or come close to) your "benchmark" price - *you* can decide if traveling or buying close to home is best for *you*.

Of course, if you must have an RV that's in dealer stock, you are then in the "negotiating pool" and most of the above are moot issues.

Good luck.

~

[FlatBroke]

Service from the dealers I have dealt with was poor at the best. I learned my way around them and fix e'm myself. Even the warranty on the prior one. The one we have now I bought used 1100 mile away and picked it up. I expect nothing in return and receive the same. Saved a bunch.

[4AggiesMom]

In the past, we bought 1 pop-up and 2 travel trailers locally. We were pleased with the price and service was fine. But, when we did research on our new 5th wheel, price was a deal breaker locally.

We ended up ordering from a national wholesaler and picking up in Iowa (a 900 mile trip for us). We figured it was worth the trip to save $15,500 over MSRP and $7,200 over the best price we could get locally. We were able to order the trailer with all the options we wanted and didn't have to worry about it sitting on a lot somewhere with all kinds of people in and out of it.

It was a little scary going to pick up something we had never seen, but it turned out GREAT! We love the trailer, the walk-thru was very thorough, and we haven't had a single problem.

Now, we know a problem could arise, but we are confident that our manufacturer would handle it and we would be able to get things fixed. Plus, we usually fix the "little things" ourselves because we know we will do a better job than most dealers.

[CarlT100]

I bought from a dealer about 80 miles from home. I am satisfied with their service and 80 miles is not far.

[Us_out_West]

Us out West wrote:

WyoTraveler wrote:
Depends on amount of savings. If it gets into the thousands I'm into the savings.

Yup, how about $7K we saved after our local dealer would not deal. We had purchased a new TT from them 2 years earlier.

Not worried about service from that dealer, which they used as a tactic to buy from them, as any service we've needed Jayco approved at another local dealer.

We gladly took a road trip to get our new unit.

Oh forgot to mention our rig was an order out and not sitting on the lot.