Buying a rental Class C

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Cindyjane

New member
Joined
Oct 2, 2012
Posts
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Hello All -

We've registered and look forward to participating.  We're currently looking to purchase our first RV?.Winnebago Access 24V (or similar) seems to be a good fit for us.  Any thoughts, experience buying from a rental company like El Monte RV.  Most are 40-60K miles but only 1-2 years old.  The high mileage spooks us a bit.  Does anyone have any comments, suggestions?

Cheers,
Jeff & Cindy Douglas
Yorba Linda, CA
 
A rental unit has its pros and cons. The rental customers probably abused it, whether through ignorance or lack of concern, but the rental company probably gave it regular service and the big ones like CruiseAmerica and El Monte fix them up for sale and may even offer a short warranty. I know Cruise America has a warranty and El Monte replaces a number of items when they prep fr re-sale.

http://www.cruiseamerica.com/buy/buyers_resources/faqs.aspx
http://elmontervsales.net/FAQ.aspx

The mileage would not concern me much - it is no different than what you would expect of a 6-10 year old and not high for today's engines and trannys, which may well run to 150k miles even in a heavy vehicle like this. Rental units just gain mileage faster, since they tend to be on the road all the time.
 
Click the Resources button above and scroll down to RV Rental Companies. I can't speak for any of the any of the companies listed.
 
Some rental company's have their own vehicles, whereas the one I worked with a number of years ago also had customer owned vehicles. Not on consignment, but purchased through the rental company, placed in the rental fleet for several years, then either taken out of rental and refinanced by the owner or allowed the rental company to sell it to someone else. That owner would then buy another one and place in rental. It was an investment for them.

The purpose of the ones that refinanced and then took the RV out of rental for their own use was to be able to buy a new rig, but let the rental pay the loan fee each month until it could be refinanced so they could afford the payments themselves. The first year depreciation cost was then given to someone else. Those had a rental cap of either a certain number of miles or 2 years - whichever came first. That way, the owner was assured the rig would never have more than X number of miles or be over 2 years of age.

So that might be something to ask about. As mentioned previously, most larger company's will take better care of the RV than some owners do the one might buy from.
 
Probably all about price.  I would weigh what they offer against what you are seeing from private sales and then can determine if they are giving you a deal or not.  I understand that they maintan their rigs but only to the point where they can keep renting them.  Interior damage may not be noticed or fixed.  You may find surprises in a year or two.  Fine if you got the sort of deal where you have money left over to repair things that come up.
 
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