The Mehlmanns
Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2009
- Posts
- 21
Hi all,
I just wanted to up date an ealrlier thread I started about UK residents purchasing an RV in the USA. You may recall that our intention was for three couples to jointly purchase an RV, use it individualy as couples for 4 months each then sell at the end of the year.
Sadly the group purchase fell through but we as one single couple decided to go ahead, which was our original plan, and do the business ourselves.
Well we did just that and are currently in Tombstone Arizona having cruised down the Californian coast on highway 1 as far as Los Angeles before heading east and south basically visiting anywhere that took our fancy.
Going back a bit to the purchase which might be of interest to others.
Our plan was to buy where we flew too, in this case San Francisco, do the registration and after our 4 month trip resell.
We did a lot of internet research before we came and armed with this information about local dealers and RV's for sale plus our international drivers license and a US address looked at about a dozen units. All of these were in the sub 10K$ region and mostly pretty tired with lots of miles. Several dealers tried hard to sell us stuff that was pretty foul, mind you our aspirations were realistic considering the budget we had but eventually we were directed to a dealer in Morgan Hill, called See Grins who had something clearly out of our range but was cosmetically in excellent condition and with only 26k miles on the clock. Not bad for a 1988 model!
The price on the screen was just under 14K but a check of NADA values suggested a much lower figure was more realistic so we asked the dealer to justify the increase. A test drive and good inspection confirmed to us that the unit had been lovingly looked after, mechanically all was in fair order with a couple of things needing attention.
Internally it has the twin aft beds we wanted plus all the usual items such as air con, heater, most essential for the winter , settee, three rotating chairs, excellent galley with microwave, huge fridge freeezer, 4 burner cooker and oven, hood etc etc. All in all the best we had seen so far.
Yes the house batteries were suspect, the dash air did not work and the charge monitor light was not coming on but it drove well, the engine sounded smooth with clean oil, they had just serviced it though, the genset ran and worked well and all round we were convinced.
We made an offer which was well below the asking price and finally ended up doing a deal at 9900$ 'out the door'.
This was for all the paperwork, registration, sales tax, 9% in California, and their time for dealing with it. They also arranged the insurance for us and by the end of that day we were in a position to drive our new 'home' away.
We cannot speak too highly of SEE GRINS and they even offered to take it back on consignment if we have not sold the RV by the time we finish.
So summing up our experiences, do your homework, look around at what is going but be picky as there is a lot of stuff and some frankly is pretty suspect.
Before you arrive arrange for a US address, we have friends out here, get an international driving license and if you can, bring cash. It talks wonders.
A private sale is fine if you are happy with the seller but don't believe everything they say and you may need help with the paperwork. You may pay more through a dealer but he knows the ropes so they can for a fee do the registration for you.
For information our costs to date have been as follows:
Purchase of van 8,800$
Sales tax, registration, dealers fee for helping and other government charges, 1100$
12 month insurance, includes road side assistance and any driver, through Progressive: 250$
Fitting out from Walmart which included everything from sheets, duvets, cutlery, crocks etc:: 600$
Out total commitment therefore is around 10,750$
and for this we have got a fully equipped 1988 Fleetwood Southwind 28 foot. 26000 miles, nearly 29000 now, in cosmetically excellent condition and returning around 7.2 mpg.
The faults: Dash air problem is a worn out belt, we shall change if the weather gets hotter,
Charge monitor is not working but the unit charges when supplied with 110volts via the genset or 'shore power'.
House batteries, renwed.
Roof leaks. Always an issue but there were two which have now been cured using aluminium sealing tape along the roof joints. Some slight residual damage internally but none of it really visible or structural.
Engine battery obviously a bit tired but works most of the time and is backed up by the house batteries if needed to start the engine.
As mentioned above we are now well into our trip by some three weeks and have clocked up nearly 1500 miles visiting many of the interesting sights along the way and meeting some fabulous people all of whom have been very kind and extremely generous.
An example: in the Joshua Tree National park, Belle Campsite, 5$ a night if you work the senior card, we were ushered into a pitch by an other camper. He had a fire going and invited us to join him around it, well it was pretty cold. His wife come out of their fifth wheel shortrly after and insisted we join them for dinner.
They told us of their plans to go on tro the Imperial Dunes BLM site further south and join them and their friends who were going to play with their quad bikes for a week.
This we duly did and apart from using their 'toys', were fed and watered for several days beofre we finally moved on ourselves. Totally spontaneous and incredibly generous.
We now have three more months before we return to Europe when we shall try and sell our super RV no doubt experiencing more of the same.
If anyone would like more infop on any of this please do email me or post here on the forum.
A veery happy Stevce and Anne
I just wanted to up date an ealrlier thread I started about UK residents purchasing an RV in the USA. You may recall that our intention was for three couples to jointly purchase an RV, use it individualy as couples for 4 months each then sell at the end of the year.
Sadly the group purchase fell through but we as one single couple decided to go ahead, which was our original plan, and do the business ourselves.
Well we did just that and are currently in Tombstone Arizona having cruised down the Californian coast on highway 1 as far as Los Angeles before heading east and south basically visiting anywhere that took our fancy.
Going back a bit to the purchase which might be of interest to others.
Our plan was to buy where we flew too, in this case San Francisco, do the registration and after our 4 month trip resell.
We did a lot of internet research before we came and armed with this information about local dealers and RV's for sale plus our international drivers license and a US address looked at about a dozen units. All of these were in the sub 10K$ region and mostly pretty tired with lots of miles. Several dealers tried hard to sell us stuff that was pretty foul, mind you our aspirations were realistic considering the budget we had but eventually we were directed to a dealer in Morgan Hill, called See Grins who had something clearly out of our range but was cosmetically in excellent condition and with only 26k miles on the clock. Not bad for a 1988 model!
The price on the screen was just under 14K but a check of NADA values suggested a much lower figure was more realistic so we asked the dealer to justify the increase. A test drive and good inspection confirmed to us that the unit had been lovingly looked after, mechanically all was in fair order with a couple of things needing attention.
Internally it has the twin aft beds we wanted plus all the usual items such as air con, heater, most essential for the winter , settee, three rotating chairs, excellent galley with microwave, huge fridge freeezer, 4 burner cooker and oven, hood etc etc. All in all the best we had seen so far.
Yes the house batteries were suspect, the dash air did not work and the charge monitor light was not coming on but it drove well, the engine sounded smooth with clean oil, they had just serviced it though, the genset ran and worked well and all round we were convinced.
We made an offer which was well below the asking price and finally ended up doing a deal at 9900$ 'out the door'.
This was for all the paperwork, registration, sales tax, 9% in California, and their time for dealing with it. They also arranged the insurance for us and by the end of that day we were in a position to drive our new 'home' away.
We cannot speak too highly of SEE GRINS and they even offered to take it back on consignment if we have not sold the RV by the time we finish.
So summing up our experiences, do your homework, look around at what is going but be picky as there is a lot of stuff and some frankly is pretty suspect.
Before you arrive arrange for a US address, we have friends out here, get an international driving license and if you can, bring cash. It talks wonders.
A private sale is fine if you are happy with the seller but don't believe everything they say and you may need help with the paperwork. You may pay more through a dealer but he knows the ropes so they can for a fee do the registration for you.
For information our costs to date have been as follows:
Purchase of van 8,800$
Sales tax, registration, dealers fee for helping and other government charges, 1100$
12 month insurance, includes road side assistance and any driver, through Progressive: 250$
Fitting out from Walmart which included everything from sheets, duvets, cutlery, crocks etc:: 600$
Out total commitment therefore is around 10,750$
and for this we have got a fully equipped 1988 Fleetwood Southwind 28 foot. 26000 miles, nearly 29000 now, in cosmetically excellent condition and returning around 7.2 mpg.
The faults: Dash air problem is a worn out belt, we shall change if the weather gets hotter,
Charge monitor is not working but the unit charges when supplied with 110volts via the genset or 'shore power'.
House batteries, renwed.
Roof leaks. Always an issue but there were two which have now been cured using aluminium sealing tape along the roof joints. Some slight residual damage internally but none of it really visible or structural.
Engine battery obviously a bit tired but works most of the time and is backed up by the house batteries if needed to start the engine.
As mentioned above we are now well into our trip by some three weeks and have clocked up nearly 1500 miles visiting many of the interesting sights along the way and meeting some fabulous people all of whom have been very kind and extremely generous.
An example: in the Joshua Tree National park, Belle Campsite, 5$ a night if you work the senior card, we were ushered into a pitch by an other camper. He had a fire going and invited us to join him around it, well it was pretty cold. His wife come out of their fifth wheel shortrly after and insisted we join them for dinner.
They told us of their plans to go on tro the Imperial Dunes BLM site further south and join them and their friends who were going to play with their quad bikes for a week.
This we duly did and apart from using their 'toys', were fed and watered for several days beofre we finally moved on ourselves. Totally spontaneous and incredibly generous.
We now have three more months before we return to Europe when we shall try and sell our super RV no doubt experiencing more of the same.
If anyone would like more infop on any of this please do email me or post here on the forum.
A veery happy Stevce and Anne
