Purchasing from Out of State & Warranty Work

Merging this thread with this one.

BigBoy11 wrote:
The local RV dealer who does not even sell Dutchmen Kodiaks but does sell other Thor products, serviced my TT under warranty with no problem whatsoever and it was purchased 250 miles away because of lower price. The dealer gets reimbused by the manufacturer so why should they care where it was purchased?






11

there are plenty of reasons the dealer should care about it…

first is to satisfy their own customers first… why should they care about the ones that already stiffed them…

second warranty reimbursement is lower than the cash out of pocket repairs from out of warranty repairs… so warranty reimbursement from local non-customers has the lowest priority of anyone, as they should…

third there are much better reasons to take care of traveling warranty repairs as part of a reciprocal agreement than there is for the local person that buys elsewhere for price savings…

the thing is every dealer that I know has more than enough service work to begin with and everyone wants it done yesterday and has travel plans on hold until it’s done… why in the world would a dealer any dealer schedule the local scab that price bought ahead of anyone else…

oh ha… to win you over for the nest buy :B:B:B what a joke that is…

The local RV dealer who does not even sell Dutchmen Kodiaks but does sell other Thor products, serviced my TT under warranty with no problem whatsoever and it was purchased 250 miles away because of lower price. The dealer gets reimbused by the manufacturer so why should they care where it was purchased?






11

I've purchased out of state twice. First was nine hours away since we couldn't find the model in stock locally. Second was three hours away since the local dealer was a jerk (and he was $5,000 higher).

I'd definitely do it again. Remember, the manufacturer's warranty is only (usually) for the first year. You'll need to find someone to fix stuff if you are not a DIY-er.

vindicator wrote:
I found a TT out of state for about $6,000 less then what I can get it for here at home.

Has anyone purchased from out of state and had issues with getting repairs and warranty work done back at home? Good and bad feed back please!

Yes, it's not the auto industry and many dealerships will refuse to do none traveling warranty repairs unless you bought it from them.

I ran into this when I bought fron an out of state dealership because they were thousands less. The local dealer refused and Forest River, the maker of my Rockwood camper, stated that is correct. If any dealership refuses to do warranty repair work, you must return the trailer back to the purchasing dealer for warranty repair.

I went through hell as that camper was made like a pile of garbage and literally falling apart. Instead of fighting with who will work on it(as the selling dealership could NOT fix anything without damaging more), I just traded after a year and bought locally.

Jayco is the only maker that I know of, that requires all dealers perform warranty repairs on camper, whether it was bought from them or not. Still one dealer still refused so I was driving 3 hours to get somethings done to my Jayco. After notifying Jayco, they did punish that dealer through some stock or another avenue. Jayco can not legally make them repair none purchasing customers campers but they can open up their dealership agreement with them.

I would buy locally if you can even if it's $1000 more, but if you can't, make sure to find a dealership that performs "GOOD" work and make a plan for them to do repairs locally BEFORE you buy without knowing.

I would be very careful of the 2 big online wholesalers that are out there. I can't remember which one without going through emails, but they were very rude and wouldn't offer any concrete information on how repairs would get done.

PLUS you have to pay upfront all repairs and be refunded, if the refund is even enough to pay the bill in full. NO THANK YOU.
Good luck.

I think there are TWO answers to your question:

If you buy NEW then your warranty should work in any state that has the same manufacture distributor.

On the other hand, if you buy USED, as I did out of state and you have problems then you are going to have a serious problem (and for those of you that say I should have had it inspected, well I did and made a list of things to be fixed, which they didn't do, and later told me I purchased it "as is". stay away for the RV Corral of Eugene OR).

If you are on the road you won't be near a local dealer anyway. Save some money.
Most of the warranty concerns are small things you can fix yourself anyway. Being able to do that is part of owning an RV.

B.O.

We bought a Forest River TT thru RV-Direct. Had one small warranty item that I could change out myself so they shipped the part to me. Also had a small leak in the gasket under the A/C. Contacted FR told them I wanted to take it to an independent RV Repair facility. That process is: said shop diagnose the problem then contact FR for the okay to repair. I paid the bill, filed the bill with FR & within two weeks had a check back from Forest River.

Warranty service may be impossible or difficult depending on brand but I still buy at the lowest price. Even if you pay for warranty work I doubt you will spend that $6000 savings.

I,ve done it three times no problems, service on most things in a rv have there own warrenty tag like the micro wave sink faucet etc, when I buy I go for price .service can be found any where. and if the local dealer don,t want your business ? you don,t want him working on your rv any way.