Roadtrek price vs. N.A.D.A

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
R

Retired lurker

New member
Joined
Jun 26, 2012
Posts
3
Looking, learning and comparing: Why are retail asking prices of used units so far away from N.A.D.A book?  Is the market so thin that a dealer can expect to get what he asks?
Thanks
 
I suspect that dealers feel that to get what they want they need to start high and lower their prices as buyers make lower offers.  "Asking" prices are only that.  May be 30% above selling prices.
 
Retired lurker said:
Looking, learning and comparing: Why are retail asking prices of used units so far away from N.A.D.A book?  Is the market so thin that a dealer can expect to get what he asks?
Thanks
Click to expand...

I'm guessing the answer is YES!! There seem to be so few used Class B units around that the dealers has a free rein for now. Now that a larger number of older RVers seem to be wanting to down size from the larger Class A's and start getting into something a little more manageable. Just guessing of course.
 
High asking prices give lots of rooms for "discounts" or "big trade-ins", which always play well with buyers. Especially those that don't do much research. You may find this hard to believe, but many people just go shopping at a few stores and buy what they see & like.
 
Hi Retired lurker and all,

I've also been doing a lot of looking into B sized vans (mainly Roadtrek). Gary is certainly right on doing your homework before you go out and try to buy. I've seen this mentioned in about all the RV forums and information services when it comes to buying.

If you haven't already, check under the heading below in this section (Van Conversions) and Oldedit has some really useful information on how he bought his unit. It has a lot of good resources to check prices and so forth. Also check the forum libraries for other helpful tips. Good luck hunting and keep us posted!!

Bought 2006 Roadtrek Adventurous Freightliner
 
I was recently looking at a class A pusher new. MSRP was 252,000.00 after playing 2 dealers against each other I was offered the unit at 181,000.00 which was dealer cost (backed up by bank floorplan letter.) So the mark-ups are tremendous!
 
I don't consider that a huge mark-up (under 40%) and if the dealer sells at his cost he won't be around very long. And you may not be happy either, since he has no gross margin to cover the necessary expenses of delivering the motorhome (dealer prep, walk-though for you, etc.), let alone a commission for the salesman and rent on his store.

Mark-ups in retail businesses can vary from under 10% (grocery stores) to more than 200% (jewelry and electronics). The amounts reflect a variety of factors, including sales volume/turnover, shrinkage/loss/returns, inventory finance costs, customer delivery expense, etc. 40% isn't excessive for a big ticket item with low turnover and a lot of delivery expense.
 
Thanks for the comments.  It's always a balancing act when buying an auto.  Nobody believes that the dealer's asking is his bottom price.  Unlike cars, the knowledge is unavailable as to what a reasonable bottom line is ( on motorhomes). It comes down to setting a price that one can afford then doing as much as possible to maximize that expenditure based on one's own criteria of want/need.
 
The mark-up spread is narrower on cars than on motorhomes, but the difference of opinion as to what is a "reasonable" bottom line is probably the same. The dealer thinks he is giving the product away and the buyer thinks he is getting raped.  Such is human nature. And larger, high volume dealers give deeper discounts than smaller, low volume dealers becasue their fixed expense can be spread over a broader sales base.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 750 (members: 5, guests: 745)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,972
Posts
1,388,448
Members
137,722
Latest member
RoyL57
Back
Top Bottom