Recommendations on dealers in Florida

[HatulBitzot]

I am not sure if this is the right place for this post or even if this forum rules allow this type of question.

We plan to start our RV tour on February 2015 in Florida and I am trying to formulate a list of RV Florida dealers who sell second hand RVs and provide one stop full service, including the ability to receive payments by money transfers from EU banks, registration processing, mail address, insurance, etc.

If this is the place for such a question please recommend on such dealers in Florida or the neighboring states who have good reputation.

Since we must save our precious time in America, we would like to contact these dealers in advance, set appointments, and not waste our time on inefficient wandering around.

Hope the RV Forum community can help or provide links to reliable web sites where we can read reviews on RV dealers.     

[Tom]

I've not used them, but Lazydays gets good reviews from forum members.

Whichever dealer you decide to use, don't hand over your money until you've thoroughly checked out the RV you intend to buy and, preferably, they've fixed any issues. We see too many reports of dealers making promises to fix things and not following through once they"ve got their money. We have checklists in our forum Library (button in menu above) that you may find useful.

[HatulBitzot]

Thank you Tom for your advices and warnings, I put Lazydays on my list which I would like to expand to 3 or 4 recommended dealers. I intend to see them all prior of making any purchase.

I am looking forward for receiving some more recommendations from fellows who had good experience with dealers in Florida.   

[John Beard]

I just did a Google Search and came up with a dozen RV Dealers in Florida. I might suggest beginning with Google, visiting the various dealer' websites to search their inventory to find the floor plan you're looking for. You can visit Florida's Better Business Bureau (BBB) web site for an initial check of the dealer's worthiness and complaints. And of course folk will be responding here as well.   

https://www.google.com/maps/search/florida+rv+dealers/@27.9757279,-83.8330166,7z

[Wizard46]

The three biggest would be Lazydays, North Trail and Camping World

I have bought from Lazydays and had a very good experience

I have bought from Camping World and the purchase experience was good but would not recommend due to after sale experience with repairs

Never had any dealings with North Trail although I have visited their lot to look and was treated very well.

[HatulBitzot]

Thank you Oscar Mike and Wizard46, I will contact the dealers you mentioned and will check the BBB web site for information on the dealers found possible, this is a very good advice.
 
For me the major issue is to identify the proper and trust-able dealers out of the huge list that the web searching brings. There is nothing like personal experience of people who actually did business with these dealers and this is the strength of this forum's community.           

[Tom]

I must admit to not being a big fan of BBB, but they do provide a data point for consideration along with other data. It took several attempts to find, but here's the BBB data on Lazydays. Details of complaints and response/resolution makes interesting reading.

[John Beard]

I must admit to not being a big fan of BBB, but they do provide a data point for consideration along with other data. It took several attempts to find, but here's the BBB data on Lazydays.

I agree with Tom, BBB is a good Starting Point but by no means is the BBB the be all to end all in determining a businesses ethics.

[HatulBitzot]

Details of complaints and response/resolution makes interesting reading.

Interesting reading indeed!!!!

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Lazydays in Tampa has a huge selection and specializes in being a full-service store. They have tons of experience in assisting foreign buyers, including money transfer, title & registration, insurance, etc. Several non-USA members here have bought through them.  General RV and Le Mesa are also large dealers in that area and can probably do much the same, but I have no direct proof of that.

Camping World is striving to become a major dealer across the nation as well, but I don't think their standards of customer service are in the same ball park. Might be adequate, though.

[HatulBitzot]

Thank you Gary for the information, it seems that Lazydays is recommended so I wrote to them and received a prompt reply; definitely they are one of the dealers we will see once we are in Florida.
I am still in the learning process and hope to finalize soon the list of 2-3 dealers to visit on the first priority.

By the way, does anyone of this forum members has experience in buying a refurbished unit from Cruise America used RV sales yard in Kissimmee? Is it wise to buy a unit with high mileage that has 12 month warranty and is refurbished?

[camperAL]

Hi Hatulbitzot,

In regards to your question on buying a used rental unit from Cruse America, I have posted a link to that subject. There was another one that was recent and I couldn't find that. I can offer up my opinion on buying one of the units based on my rental of one of their units. Since it was only a one time thing (for 8 days) my experience is limited to that rental. We felt that the units are nice. They come from different manufactures. Ours was from Thor. I think I might be willing to buy a rental unit based on the condition of our unit. As pointed out by seasoned forum members, check out all aspects of the unit leaving no stone unturned. There have to be some nice units for sale and there have to be some that you would want to avoid. Good luck!

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,71426.msg658208.html#msg658208

Found the other topic of buying a Cruse America Unit here:

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,78892.msg717313.html#msg717313

[HatulBitzot]

Thank you camperAL for your comments and links, very useful discussions there.

We have some rented RV experience, I am not sure if the following shouldn't be on a separated post but anyway, in 2009 we rented a Cruise America 23A unit in Alaska for a month. We encountered some problems with that unit:

We got the RV with a flat tire in the inside of the rear axis but we found it only after entering the highway when the car swayed at speeds higher than 35M/hr. Having some experience with heavy agricultural equipment I suspected it is a tire problem, so I pulled over to a safe place and checked the inner tires on the rear axis and found the problem. Since Cruise America deliberately had no tools on the unit we had to wait 2 hours till they sent someone to change the tire.   

We had to replace the house battery due to a problem with the recharging system that we discovered in our first dry parking in the Denali park campground. Over the phone they instructed us to some RV shop in Fairbanks, they replaced the house battery but I was not sure that they actually found the true problem. We lost some of our confidence in that unit and avoided dry parking (higher travel expenses).   

That unit had also a problem with the generator's activating solenoid, the operation time counter counted virtual hours constantly, unrelated to the actual running time of the generator itself. It counted hundreds on hundreds of "working" hours when the generator was off. We noticed this accidentally in the middle of the tour and notified Cruise America immediately, they didn't charge us for these virtual hours.

Last year we rented a RV for five weeks in New-Zealand (based on diesel Mercedes Sprinter) and had not even the slightest problem over the more than 5,300 km we drove.
   
I guess that Cruise America do not ship their used units from Alaska to the lower 48 states, and I don't know if the refurbished units they sell in Florida have miles on miles of rough roads behind them. I haven't made up my mind yet regarding the idea of purchasing a unit from a rental RV company, but definitely I would visit their yards in Florida once we are there.

[catblaster]

We got our from Giant Recreation World in Ormond Beach, they also have stores in Orlando and Melbourne. No complaints worth mentioning. They also worked with me on the price by coming down 19K on a used RV that finally sold for 30K out the door, they were in completion with the other branches at the time  and needed to make their share of sales.

[HatulBitzot]

Thank you catblaster,
I will check them too.
HatulBitzot

[lifejester]

I like la mesa rv... at last count they had a dealership presence in florida... Arizona and California......I bought a 2008 Winnebago voyage from the folk and am very pleased with their service and support.. pre and post sale.

I like them a lot better than camper world.....

that's my 2 cents worth

shel
2008 Winnebago voyage
searchin for a toad in all the wrong places

[HatulBitzot]

Thank you lifejester,
Two weeks ago I sent LaMesaRV an e-mail with a detailed information request. They have only one sales e-mail address for the whole nation. No replay until now. In light of your good experience with them I resent my info request to the service department in Orlando asking them to forward it to their local sales department. We'll see if this time they will respond.
Thank you anyway.
HatulBitzot

[cadee2c]

I like la mesa rv...

I looked at their site. Im really impressed with how many RVs they have. I plan on stopping in there in January when we are down there. Who knows, maybe I will drive home instead of flying?

[lindavid1]

Hi guys,

My wife and I are in the same boat as yourselves. We are both retired and for the past 7 years (I retired early) we have been travelling around Australia (Linda is Australian and I am British).
We sold our rig earlier this year and after visiting family in the UK obtained B2 visas and arrived in Tampa 2 weeks ago.
We  have been following a blog  http://rv-and.us (look at FAQ)  by a Brit which has been very informative.
He recommended a sales person at Lazydays here in Tampa called Sharon Harmon and we are in the final stages of buying a 38ft Diesel pusher using a Montana based LLC to avoid purchase tax.
We also joined Escapees RV club and use them for mail forwarding.
Lazydays are very professional and are carrying out a full Pre Delivery Inspection including changing leaking taps, cleaning carpets and lots of other small details.
We have also opened a checking bank account with Bank of America to bring the money over from the UK and pay for the RV and they will actually give us a credit card!
We intend to head west to San Diego then head up the West coast as the weather improves moving into Canada before our visa expires on the 11th May. The idea is to spend around 4 months in Canada then re-enter the US on the East coast and apply for a visa extension hopefully extending our second entry to 12 months when we will either put the RV in storage if we intend to go back or let someone sell it on consignment.
Everything has been relatively straight forward so far but I am sure things will change.
If you would like further info feel free to email us.
Good luck with your plans
David and Linda

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Sharon Harmon is a great person to work with - honest and diligent. She has helped several people here buy rigs.

[HatulBitzot]

Thank you David and Linda for the information, I will read the blog you mentioned. We intend to be in Florida by the second week of February 2015 and Lazydays is one of the dealers we are going to see.
Thank you also Gary for your recommendation on Ms. Sharon Harmon, it is always good to deal with people you know you can trust.
Our plans are similar to David's and Linda's, except for the total time span; we plan for one year only for both US and Canada together and we will not ship the RV back to our home.

As posted on our previous post "Questions on touring the US and Canada for up to a year" we are concerned with the new regulation regarding multiple entry E2 visa European tourists who probably cannot re-enter the US after visiting Canada without leaving North America first.
 
We hope that after 4-5 months in Canada it will not be a problem for us to return to the US for a month or two for completion of the tour, selling the rig and flying back home. If we cannot enter the US after the time in Canada we will be stuck with an American RV in Canada and will suffer a significant loss of money.

If it is OK with you we will be in e-mail contact with you to see how you are doing regarding the re-entry issue.

Regards

HatulBitzot             

[Tom]

we are concerned with the new regulation regarding multiple entry E2 visa European tourists who probably cannot re-enter the US after visiting Canada without leaving North America first

I'm a little confused. Your prior message referred to B1/B2 visas, but now you're talking about an E2 visa. E2 is issued to someone who is making a significant investment in the U.S. (e.g. in a company), or an employee of such an investor. If you're referring to E2, the last section of this USCIS web page suggests you only need to leave the U.S. (not North America) to be allowed re-entry. In any event, E2 is not a tourist visa.

Do you have a link to the " new regulation regarding multiple entry E2 visa European tourist" you mentioned. It would not surprise me to see conflicting web pages and rules on any of this stuff. Thanks.

[HatulBitzot]

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, it is a typing mistake. We have tourist visas B1/B2 and not the other one.