Close to closing the deal on our first RV but have concerns-need advice

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DesertRed

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Joined
Feb 27, 2013
Posts
6
My husband and I have figured out we want a used shorter gas Class A. We found one at La Mesa in Tucson that fits the bill. However there were some things that bothered me as we were moving toward closing the deal and I wanted to sleep on it. So I'm hoping for some sage advice on here.

Unit is a 2000 Fleetwood Flair. No leveling jacks. No rearview camera. It appears to be a super clean unit. Loved the test drive and looked over the parts we could get to with a fine tooth comb. During the sales process though it was discovered the original owner accidentally left his house key and not the basement keys and therefore "we couldn't look at the basement." When I asked if they could try to call the owner to rectify the key issue they said no. This really bothered me. Then we were told it would have a 30 day warranty during the sale and then told it was "wrong" when we sat down...they told us they'd give us a 15 day for the "confusion."Part of the deal was also new tires (Hancock's). It's got 60k miles on it. There were several little "red flags" that bugged me. They were minor...but it caused me to walk out to sleep on it when we got to the table. I felt like they were getting a little creative with their numbers. We are not financing through them and still it felt a little...creative to me. They told us it was a single owner but were evasive about prior receipts. Said it had all manuals.

Can anyone chime in on this? This is our first RV purchase and we don't want to purchase a problem. We want a fair price and not to break down on our first trip anywhere (who doesn't want that right?)

Thanks to anyone who can chime in!
 
If the little man on your shoulder is jumping up and down waving little red flags, RUN!!! There are thousands of RV's for sale. You will find another and one better with no questions.

If you can't get in the basement, what is wrong in there?
If the numbers don't jive, See ya!!
If they are crawfishing on a 30 day warranty, how will their service be after the sale.

You can do better.

Steve
 
What Steve said.  If it doesn't feel right, walk away.  There are plenty more RVs out there.

If the dealer is waffling over something as simple and basic as being able to provide a complete set of keys, he's either hiding something about the condition of the rig or there's some backstory he's not telling you.  Maybe the basement has evidence of flood water that didn't reach the coach floor but did submerge the engine, transmission and axles?

Any promises made during negotiations are only as good as the paper they're written on. Aural promises, representations, etc. are only so much hot air.  The contract, as written, trumps all.

If they're telling you one thing about a warranty, pricing, etc. while the legal contract they're asking you to sign says something different, guess which version gets upheld when (not if) a dispute arises after the sale?

And once the dealer has his money, what leverage do you really have?

I'd run, not walk, from any dealer pulling those kind of stunts.
 
Thank you so much for your advice. It was hard to walk out.

I did sign some paperwork but not the final contract or anything...and they refunded our deposit right there. We were NOT financing through them. Do I need to be concerned about anything I might have signed? Only thing I got copies of was the original deposit and the refunded deposit paperwork on a credit card. I'm feeling really nervous about anything I left signed or initialed given this situation. My husband signed nothing and both our names were on all paperwork so nothing was completed as written. Like I said we were halfway through this process when that final red flag made me walk.

Clearly today was a HUGE lesson. I just want to make sure I have nothing further to worry about with them so I may go further when we do find something.

Any other advice would be super helpful.

I don't know if it's appropriate to ask this but clearly La Mesa is not for us after this. Has anyone had good experiences with Pedata in Tuscon? Lazy Days? Anywhere else in the Tucson area? Thanks so much. We made a special trip out here as it's the closest area with the most availability-we live in a really small town. We would so like to find the right option for us while we're here but want to be wise about it too.

Thank you so much for all your help! All advice is greatly appreciated.
 
Hi Desertred...

I will "third" the previous posts. I would also be concerned about not being able to view the basement compartments, and the subsequent reduction in the length of the warranty. My always-suspicious mind says they may be trying to hide something and minimize the time you have to find it, and also the time they'd be on the hook for fixing it. I honestly understand how easy it is to fall in love with a coach you've discovered, but I promise you there are others. If that "little voice" is talking to you (and it seems like it is), I wouldn't proceed until I had all my questions answered. And by the way, I'd hold out out for a 30 day warranty on all the things that they're saying they'll only warranty for 15 days. JMHO

As soon as I posted my comments I noticed you had just updated yours. Regarding La Mesa RV, they are a large, multi-state RV dealership. I purchased an RV from them many years ago and, in my opinion, they are pretty middle-of-the-road as far as RV dealerships go. A lot depends on the individual salesperson but their job is to sell coaches for as much as they can, as fast as they can and oftentimes that means high pressure. I think you made a good choice backing out of the deal.

Kev
 
I would not worry so much about what was signed. They don't have your money and you didn't commit by signing a bill of sale or purchase agreement.

Moving on, I would recommend Lazy Days. I don't have first hand knowledge of the Tucson location, but the Florida location is top notch. I would assume the same for tucson. Just trust no one! get everything in writing and trust you instincts. (they seem to be doing very well for you.)

Don't get attached to any RV unless everything is perfect for you.

Best of luck.

Steve
 
Trust your gut! Look, look, then look some more. We found ours after a year of looking. Walked away from many lots just cause it didn't feel right. Sure glad we did as we found our "perfect" MH in Oregon thru a private party on CL. We made just 1 more call on our way to the airport to fly into Portland to look at several in the area. That 1 more call turned out to be the right one!
Take your time shopping, you'll be surprised by what you will learn in the process. 8)
 
Thank you all so much!

It really helps. I realized last night on the paperwork that any paperwork we might have started isn't completed in anyway because my husband signed absolutely nothing and both our names were on it all. He was watching the kids while I read over every little detail and decided to walk away. Still makes me mighty uncomfortable but I learned a ton.

I think it's better to lose the deal you don't feel 100% YES about and than to shoot myself in the foot. I was in sales for years and I recognized the classic hard sale techniques. But wanting to find something soon got the best of me and that whole "it might not be here when you come back" garbage got to both me and my husband....I should have walked off the lot a lot sooner than I did. Lesson learned! Thanks for all the support and validation. We will be looking again today...but SLOWLY and with no intent to commit unless EVERYTHING is right.

What a great community you all are! Thanks so much!
 
I think the telltale sign is the fact that the dealer hadn't already replaced the missing key(s)! The locks on the compartments (and even some doors) are extremely basic. Sometimes manufacturers only make a handful of different keys. Often the lock itself will have a number on it representing the key cut. At worst it would have been a $50 call to a local locksmith to come open it and then cut the appropriate key. Does not sound as though this dealer is serious about customer service.
 
DesertRed said:
Thank you all so much!

It really helps. I realized last night on the paperwork that any paperwork we might have started isn't completed in anyway because my husband signed absolutely nothing and both our names were on it all. He was watching the kids while I read over every little detail and decided to walk away. Still makes me mighty uncomfortable but I learned a ton.

Stop worrying. 

You didn't sign the final sales contract...and you didn't sign anything binding you to buy the unit.  And what you did sign are understandings of details....nothing forcing you do to anything.  Even if you had signed the final paperwork, the dealership isn't going to go to any extremes to enforce anything....they have much bigger fish to fry....namely selling other units.  Spending thousands litigating a claim that they would likely lose and wouldn't net them much if they did win gets them nowhere.

Relax.....go find the RV of your dreams.  Plenty of fish in the sea.

As the others said...if it doesn't feel 100% right, walk away.  You did the right thing.
 
Can anyone chime in on this?

Once again, you did the right thing.

I bought a unit from La Mesa, but it was a new unit, special order from Winnebago. There was no monkey business on their part because I made it very clear from the start that I would walk in a big hurry.

In the process of shopping, I ran across Rocky Mountain RV in Albuquerque. I almost ordered the unit from them, but decided on La Mesa instead because they were a little closer to home (Prescott area). I was impressed with the folks in Albuquerque - just another thought for you.

Happy shopping.

Bill
 
Re the key.  As Michael mentioned, I can't believe they couldn't find a key to the underbay storage units.  Most RVs have pretty much the same key for those and they probably had a bunch of them in the office.  The person is either (a) hiding something or (b) just too lazy to look.  I'll bet if you were at a rally with a large group of RV Forum people several of them would be able to open your compartments.  You were smart to walk out.

By the way, make sure you see those manuals they say they have if you encounter that situation again.  RV dealers really strip out a lot of things and sometimes it's manuals along with a lot of other stuff.  Tell them you need to see the manuals because you want to know what the manufacturer says about "something".  If they say they have the manuals but can't/won't produce them, I'd leave.

ArdraF
 
There were lots of mh that were damaged by hurricane Katrina and now Sandy. I wouldnt buy anything you couldnt properly  inspect. Maybe there was flood damage in there and they didnt want you to look. Best to walk away if your gut feeling is off.
 
Thanks again everyone! I'm learning so much super fast from this forum (and from all the library books I've checked out and read!).

Early this morning said sales person at La Mesa called to see if we were coming back in and when my husband said no, we've decided to move on-he got very rude on the phone and hung up. 15 minutes later we had their manager call us assuming we were having issues financing the deal and they magically had the key on hand (suddenly that hard to get ahold of seller magically showed up). That REALLY torqued me. They knew we walked on the lot pre-approved and ready to make a deal if we found the right one. I very kindly told him why we walked and why we wouldn't be back. I was very insulted by both the sales person unprofessionalism and the manager's ill informed assumptions. I'm glad we walked. Even if we'd gone back and the coach had been just right for us I wouldn't have bought it from them at that point.

I so appreciate all the input. I hadn't thought about the flooding possibility of the basement. I'll definitely be keeping this in mind.

We're still on the hunt-a little slower maybe but a whole lot wiser! I look forward to sharing with you all our success when we finally find the right one!

Thanks so much again for everyone who chimed in. You've all been such a great help!
 
If you have a chance to look at a 2001 Winnebago Adventurer 32v, Ford Chassis, V-10, please do so.
IMO, this is one of the best units available for this model year and seems to be in the range of what you are looking for.

This unit has all of the extras that you need/want, can be used without the slide extended, bath is not 'tight', etc., etc.
We looked and looked and we found one of these last year and it met ALL of the requirements that we had.
After one year, we still know that we made the right decision.

Two Rules given to us when we were looking.
If there is ONE thing that you don't like, you will always key in on it EVERY time you get in/near your RV and wish you had something different, AND
Go through ALL bathroom motions so you KNOW you have enough room to complete ALL tasks.

If you have any questions on this unit, please email me.

Keep in touch...............We'd like to know where you end up.

 

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