Something To Consider When Buying Out Of Your Area

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NCSU Dad

NCSU Dad

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 24, 2017
Posts
174
Location
OBX NC
I've read some threads here where folks buy from a dealer outside of their geographic location. Most likely looking for the best price.

My second career was at a boat dealership. They were a Yamaha outboard dealer which included repairs covered under the Yamaha warranty.
Located on the Outer Banks of NC we would get out of area visitors with outboard problems. Some covered under warranty some not. Usually fisherman down for a week or two. These boaters would come in expecting on the spot repairs. Unfortunately for them the dealership owner had a policy of giving priority to customers who bought from the dealer. In-season that meant "non-customers" would not receive repairs in their time frame. Warranty or not, repairs would not be done on your time line. You were not moved to the head of the line. No matter how loud you howled at Yamaha you were SOL.

So what I'm saying is if you buy from another dealer you may not get the prompt service you expect when you go to your local dealer for service.

I guess the exception to this for RV's would be repairs performed by the chassis manufacturer like FORD at your local FORD dealer.

I have no affiliation with any RV dealer.
 
This is one of many reasons I always recommend buying a used RV and paying a mobile mechanic to do any work that needs to be done. Much less hassle and cheaper than dealing with a dealership.
 
The same business practice is common at RV dealers, though not universal.  Further, the usual RV sales franchise agreement does NOT obligate the dealer to provide warranty repairs on units he did not sell, so the dealer is perfectly within his contract rights to decline to provide warranty service to "foreign" RVs.
 
If he is smart he will unless his business is so successful that he cannot accommodate any more work. The factory will take a very dim view of customer complaints and airing of dirty laundry on this forum. ;D I used to work on the sales and service desk of a national distributor in another industry., you should have heard some of the calls I got.
NCSU Dad, a local Merc dealership takes a different approach. He only has a 2-3 month window to make his money so every service job in peak season every customer is important. A boat comes in with a major stern drive problem, the drive gets exchanged for a rebuilt and the customer is on his way. The techs  work twelve hour days and bank their hours for the off season, in winter the cores are rebuilt. Of course this wouldn't work for most rv's.
 
The squeaky wheel still gets the attention.  At least that was our experience with a six month old Ford F250 that broke down 300 miles from home.  Another time with a new Keystone Trailer at the dealer where we purchased the trailer. 
 
Roy M said:
If he is smart he will unless his business is so successful that he cannot accommodate any more work. The factory will take a very dim view of customer complaints and airing of dirty laundry on this forum.
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Roy thanks for your response, imagine your boat is in for service and you find out it has not been worked on because of the squeaky wheel customer. I would be a PO'd customer. I'm not suggesting the dealer will refuse the work. In-season backlog can run 3+ weeks. We would offer off-season specials to get customers to bring their boats in for service. Most will not until it won't start. If you are down fishing for 1-2 weeks you are SOL in-season. The factory rep has no leverage on this. The rep can not tell the dealer to move anyone to the head of the line. What the rep wants is to sell the dealer more outboards & parts. IMO a dealer would need deep pockets to keep an assortment of outboard lower units in stock and collecting dust when you can order from the manufacture and have it delivered in a week.

We were always amazed at the visitor who would trailer their boat from Pennsylvania and it would not start here when backed in at the boat ramp.  They would bring it in for repairs and when asked when was the last time you started the boat they would answer "last year". The #1 culprit was old ethanol fuel fouling the fuel system.
 
NCSU Dad said:
Roy thanks for your response, imagine your boat is in for service and you find out it has not been worked on because of the squeaky wheel customer. I would be a PO'd customer. 
Click to expand...

The time I complained to the dealer, where we purchased the trailer, it sat on their lot unattended for a month.  So not always quite so clear about who get's priority service.  All I'm suggesting is, if you don't complain, they may think there's no rush. 
 
garyb1st said:
The time I complained to the dealer, where we purchased the trailer, it sat on their lot unattended for a month.  So not always quite so clear about who get's priority service.  All I'm suggesting is, if you don't complain, they may think there's no rush.
Click to expand...

Gary if they have more service work than they can handle in a timely manner that could be the problem. I know I'd be PO'd if they were just giving it the sunshine treatment in the lot.
 
I am actually quite happy with the service at my RV dealer. However it can be a 3-4 week wait for a service appointment. They are trying to get new units sold, and they only have two bays. We needed some axle shackles and bushings replaced, and we just don?t have the time to wait. We ended up going to another place that sales parts, accessories, and does repairs on all sorts of RVs, utility trailers, and horse trailers. An awful lot on our RVs is not specific to RVs. Things like axles are pretty common, and the repair shop keeps a stock of parts for the specific axle we have. I think it helps to open up our concept of appropriate service locations to well beyond traditional RV dealers. I know that doesn?t work for warranty work, but it does for other things.

Note we did use our dealer for a road debris repair that affected the underbelly plumbing lines. When the black tank valve line is displaced 6?8? from where it should be, that is pretty RV specific. We looked at a mobile repair guy, but if anything nasty was under there, we didn?t want it at our place <grin>. It still took us 4 weeks to get into the shop and get it fixed. We barely made a planned trip, and that was with calling the dealer every day or two for the last week.
 
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