Etiquette on contacting past owner of your new RV

This horse is dead! This horse is dead!

I once sold a '73 Vw van to a woman. During her test drive it was immediately obvious she had never driven a standard. I questioned her judgment and tried to steer her away, but to no avail. About a month later she showed up demanding I buy her a new clutch, I refused. A couple of weeks after that I was in small claims court defending myself,(I won).
If I sell something it is yours, I do not want a relationship with you!

If I sell a vehicle directly to someone, I will answer questions after the sale, as a common courtesy. Otherwise, the sale was "as is".

If I sell a vehicle to a dealer, after the paperwork is done, if contacted by the buyer the dealer sold the vehicle to, I'd probably tell them to speak to my attorney on their own dime or just pound sand.

I generally am not that rude, but I've had an acquaintance or two actually get asked questions (like how the vehicle was driven, how much traffic on roads, etc.) by the person whom the dealer sold the vehicle to, then a lawyer calls with a demand letter for how much the vehicle is "really" worth, and to pay the difference.

Just personally thinking through this situation. One may think that it is a big deal but it is a bigger deal then what one might think. We typically just trade our RV to keep from the hassle of selling it. We decided that we really did not want to talk with everybody about every detail so traded the unit. When we made that decision we sacrificed a lot of money as we accepted a trade value and naturally could not get retail value. So now the dealer sells the unit for retail and we are the ones that have to answer the questions. Why??? If you are dealing with a good dealer you should be able to get some sort of a limited warranty when you buy the used unit. Looking at it another way; when we traded our last RV the dealer did not ask about any issues that we were having. After the trade I tried to make them aware of a few minor issues with the unit but they did not care to know. At the end of the deal we are in good standing with our dealer which is a nice position to be in when it comes to getting service on the new unit. Now the new owner of the trade calls and you tell them of all of the issues that you might have had with the unit. They then go to the dealer and try to force them to make all of the repairs for them. The actions of that person could end up affecting the service relationship of the person that make the trade and paid the premium. When one buys a new unit there is nobody that you can call to see what warranty problems that you can expect with your new unit. Why should somebody who is buying your used RV expect to be able to call somebody about what problems they might have.

lakeside013104 wrote:
I am not as self-centered as some, so please feel free to contact me about my former RV. I would be more than willing to be helpful to a polite, courteous, and respectful potential RVer. I am happy to answer your questions, but show me disrespect, ignorance, and or become argumentative and all you will hear from my end of the line is silence. IMHO being kind and decent to others is only common sense which usually pays positive dividends.

Lakeside

It really looks like your stretching pretty far with your self centered analogy. Protection of ones personal information is serious issue these days and the lack of it in this conversation is what is being discussed.

Some trade there RV's in to not have to deal with people who hold you accountable for every detail that goes wrong not to mention they would have a lot of your personal information to hound you. The expectation is that information isn't shared with anyone but the banks. As a matter of fact you sign paperwork where they explain who they share it with, and I know for a fact it isn't the next buyer of my old RV. Protecting ones personal info doesn't make someone " self centered", and is really none of your business.

For a dealer to give you that information could cause legal implications for them. What you do with yours is up to you and really most people would care less.

Francesca Knowles wrote:
Would you want to be called out of the clear blue sky by someone that just bought an old car that you thought you'd seen the last of at a dealer's? I know I wouldn't.

Truth be told, I'm surprised there was anything in the rig identifying the previous owner...seems to me that the most appropriate course would be to have the dealer contact them and get their permission for you to call them.

When we bought our camper, the information included:

1) Copy of previous owners' title with their full address
2) Satisfaction of Lien in their name
3) Their insurance card
4) Terms of Sale when originally purchased, showing address and phone number and other info.
5) Screen print from loan, calculation of payments, rate, etc.
6) Work Order from original RV sales with buyers' name, address, work and business phone.

I am not as self-centered as some, so please feel free to contact me about my former RV. I would be more than willing to be helpful to a polite, courteous, and respectful potential RVer. I am happy to answer your questions, but show me disrespect, ignorance, and or become argumentative and all you will hear from my end of the line is silence. IMHO being kind and decent to others is only common sense which usually pays positive dividends.

Lakeside

If I, personally, sold it to you, ask any questions you want while we are still talking together. Don't contact me again after you leave.

If you get it from a dealer or someone else, don't contact me.

My FIL sold a TT to someone in his town. He was hounded mercilessly for years. Every time something broke, the buyer thought my FIL owed him for it.

I wouldn't mind it at all and I would go as far as to I would encourge it. Before I got my new 5er I was looking at a used camper, but the roof had a strange coating on it and was wondering what the coating was with us being new to camper and such. I know people coat their roofs and I was just going to ask if was routine or if there had been a leak. The dealer said he would get us their number and never did, so we walked away from that camper.

Skid Row Joe wrote:

AprilWhine wrote:
And from the other side:

There's no way of knowing who did what to a coach when buying used. The last thing any previous owner wants is trouble of any kind. I took my coach to the factory it was manufactured at in hopes of getting several things fixed properly. Not only did every single repair they make fail in a matter of months, before I left their facility, the refer quit working on 110AC mode. They were working on the 110AC electrical system and coincidentally the reefer's electricity mode quit. When I pointed this out to them before leaving the factory, they said it wasn't their doings and refused to accept responsibility for it breaking or fixing it.

Wow. That would be horrible! Sorry to hear it!

I will call them soon. I'm just going to say we bought their old coach, and we love it. Anddddddddd that we'd love to ask them a few questions, but if they aren't interested in talking, we won't bother them again.

It's been great hearing all of these stories!!!!

Ang