Anyone in/near Houston, TX?

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.

scottydl

Site Team
Joined
Jul 1, 2006
Posts
9,080
Location
Land of Lincoln
The deal is that I've found quite a few nice-looking rigs for sale at PPL RV Consignments (www.pplmotorhomes.com), with which most of your are probably very familiar.  Problem is that I'm in Illinois.  Shayne has been sending my online ads by the dozen (thanks buddy ;)) in my perpetual search for "the perfect rig under $10k" and PPL has more than I'd expect that fall in that range.  I'm particularly stoked about this 1990 Fleetwood Flair for around $6500!

If someone is already in the area or might be cruising through PPL just for fun, I would be forever grateful if a couple of these units could be given the once-over from someone with MUCH more experience than I.  Let me know if so, and any other comments/experiences with PPL from forum folks is also welcome...
 
Scotty needs some help if you are in Texas  What a Shame Last year at this very time I was sitting at PPL viewing a unit only to find it was already sold.  Guess I didn't need it after all.
 
Scotty,

I live about 100 miles East of Houston and do go there occasionally, but I'm not sure when I will be going that way again.  I am going up to the Dallas/Fort Worth area weekend after next, but I will not go through Houston on that trip.  If I do go that way anytime soon, I will let you know and would be glad to go by PPL and check out any unit you are interested in.

Dan
 
Scotty,

By the way, there is a Fleetwood Flair that looks very much like this one sitting right next to mine in the storage lot.  It is a bit smaller and older but is a nice looking unit.  This one at PPL looks good and is about the size of my Allegro--just right for 2 people, although a bit crowded if there are more adults than that.  This one might just fill the bill for you and your wife and kids.

Dan
 
Scotty,

Some time in the next few days, I could swing by PPL and check things out for ya !
 
Man you guys  are super  I told scotty to list this question and sure someone would help.  He lives and Northern ILLinois and this could help him tremdously.  Thanks from me for assisting. Dan  See if you can get info on it for him.  Ken  I think he's real serious  now.l
 
Man you guys ARE great!  ;D  Kenneth please don't go to any trouble, but if you are close to PPL anyway I'd *love* if you could take a look at that Flair for me.  It's listed online as a 26' model, although in the photos it appears longer than that.  The information I'm most interested at this point is the age/condition of the tires... of course if other items such as the generator and AC could be tested also, that would be great.  :)

I am serious about buying anytime IF the right deal comes along, but I'll also wait for another year if that's what it takes.  ;)


P.S.  I e-mailed PPL with questions about the rig but no response.  I don't know if they really make any claims about the MH's on their lot, since they appear to be a consignment service and not a dealer that "owns" whatever they have for sale.
 
Scotty  Ron is to be in Houston this week also.  Perhaps  Tom  Too
 
I'll swing by there on saturday, the weather is supposed to clear up by then. Not out of the way by no means ,besides gives me a reason to speak with them (PPL) about putting "old faithful" on their consignment lot. I went there this summer for one of the forum members who lives in the UK, but the one he wanted was far from being in acceptable condition. They do have some nice buys on the lot from what I have seen.
 
Thanks a bunch Kenneth.  I too was curious about their condition labels... the Flair is listed as Good, but IMO should rate higher than that according to the photos.  I know the photos don't show it all, and I may be missing something important...
 
See Scotty  this should be a good example for newgies coming to thee forum,  All you have to do is Ask?  Glad kenneth is helping you.
 
Scotty,

Couldnt make it by there on saturday, will try again tuesday. Happy New Year !
 
Kenneth said:
Scotty,

Couldnt make it by there on saturday, will try again tuesday. Happy New Year !

No problem!  Also feel free to send me a direct e-mail anytime you'd like (click the envelope icon under my name).  Thanks again - :)
 
Sorry Scotty  It just means the that particular one wasn't for you and the right one will come along.  We'll all help you locate one that will be the right one for you.
 
Scotty  It doesn't have jacks  Many of the units without jacks were rentals.  No matter how nice they appear, buying a rental is not my cup of tea.
 
Looks pretty decent, but a few states away from me... currently I've swung back to trying to find something somewhat local.  I'll keep an eye on that Flair though, since I just recently started looking at them I want to get an idea of what they sell for.  Thanks for the tip -
 
Scotty, is the Flair SOLD or does it have a SALE PENDING?  If it's Pending, keep watching it.  I watched one for a long time and it went back and forth.  I made 2 offers on it.  They didn't want to deal with me and marked it as Pending.  I told them I was prepared to offer more, but they wouldn't budge.  They ended up selling it over 2 months later for a few thousand less than my top price would have been had they wanted to counter my offer.  Luckily I found THE motorhome for us by then and felt relieved about not buying that one.

DH and I think they don't care if they sell an rv or not.  They make their money on the $290 checkout fee that prospective buyers pay to give themselves an out if there are too many things wrong after the rv has been checked by their staff.  They don't fix anything, and they already know what's wrong because they've checked them out before.  By the time they sell one they've make a lot of money doing the check for several prospective buyers who backed out because there were too many things not being repaired.  The one I was looking at was a trade-in and owned by PPL, so there was not another owner who didn't want to come down in price, it was all PPL's dealings.  My guess is that when I was getting close to their ideal price they marked it Pending to get me to stop so they could keep making money off a few other people.  BTW, the $290 fee is optional and I marked it off the bid page.  When they saw I wasn't going to pay I think that is another reason they didn't want to waste anymore time with me.

They say they sell 1000 rv's every year.  So for each rv they sell they can collect that $290 checkout fee several times.  If they collect it 5 times on 1000 rv's, that's nearly $1.5 million in pure profit each year and they haven't sold a thing!

The sales people who show you the vehicles are very nice.  But they put their hard-sell guys on the phone to work the deals.  When you call back to talk to a salesman about finalizing a deal the person who helped you is OUT OF THE OFFICE.  They will be out all day, or the rest of the week.  Then they will tell you how the salesmen don't work on commission so you will talk to their closer.

Although we are perfectly happy with the outcome of our dealings with PPL, I still have bad feelings for their setup.  I know 2 other people whose PPL experience was almost identical to mine.  They do have a good website for browsing and getting an idea what you can find though.  I'm sure there have been a lot of people who had a perfectly wonderful PPL experience and goody for them.

;D










 
cuts_up said:
Scotty, is the Flair SOLD or does it have a SALE PENDING?

It is marked as SOLD, so I think it's officially gone.  Did you do all your dealings with PPL over the phone?  I tried e-mailing a couple times (one direct and one through an e-mail form ON THEIR WEBSITE) and never received a single reply or confirmation that they got my questions.  That kinda gave me a strange vibe too, so I guess it's all for the best.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
131,753
Posts
1,384,356
Members
137,524
Latest member
freetoroam
Back
Top Bottom