Hi,
About 18 months ago I spent several months researching the various message boards in the forum, in preparation for our first motorhome purchase. We took the recommendations from many of you, and we rented. As we were buying a new house and devoting a tone of time to that, the motorhome dream was put on hold.
A few weeks ago we dusted the dream off and went to view more floor plans. Our must haves were diesel, plenty of galley counter space, and a strong desire for a king bed. We were firm on buying used, not new. Since we had looked at quite a few units before, we also had narrowed down the ?nice to have? items that we wanted, but that weren?t deal breakers.
One of our trips was to a large dealer about 30 miles from us. We looked at several and one in particular was pretty close to checking all the boxes. My wife asked if there were any others to see, and there were a couple. As we were walking up to the Tiffin, I was thinking there was no way that was going to be the one, because it was probably out of our range. It met the must haves and also had a stackable washer and dryer, dishwasher, vacuum system, solar battery charger, satellite TV..... more than we expected. When the sales guy was talking to me, the wife was behind him and giving me the thumbs up. When we had a chance to talk, she said ?I like this one? and that was it. The price had been discounted, but was still about $20K higher than our desired budget amount. We made a low offer and stipulated a list of things that we wanted replaced or fixed. They agreed to all, except replacing the tires that had about 2 years left on the age recommendation.
We hired an inspector, who I believe did a great job. I have to say though, the dealer had gone through the unit themselves and had listed almost everything the inspector found as needing to be corrected. The one big item the inspector pressed for was there was a crack about the size of a quarter on the passenger side of the windshield. He voiced his concern, I pressed a bit, and the sales manager and a tech looked at it. The sales manager said though it had been repaired, it did show the crack extending beyond the repair, so it will be replaced.
We are awaiting completion of the corrections before taking delivery, and looking forward to many adventures. Thank you to all the experienced people here for your advice. Anything can still happen, but I feel we were much better prepared for this purchase because of what we learned from you.
About 18 months ago I spent several months researching the various message boards in the forum, in preparation for our first motorhome purchase. We took the recommendations from many of you, and we rented. As we were buying a new house and devoting a tone of time to that, the motorhome dream was put on hold.
A few weeks ago we dusted the dream off and went to view more floor plans. Our must haves were diesel, plenty of galley counter space, and a strong desire for a king bed. We were firm on buying used, not new. Since we had looked at quite a few units before, we also had narrowed down the ?nice to have? items that we wanted, but that weren?t deal breakers.
One of our trips was to a large dealer about 30 miles from us. We looked at several and one in particular was pretty close to checking all the boxes. My wife asked if there were any others to see, and there were a couple. As we were walking up to the Tiffin, I was thinking there was no way that was going to be the one, because it was probably out of our range. It met the must haves and also had a stackable washer and dryer, dishwasher, vacuum system, solar battery charger, satellite TV..... more than we expected. When the sales guy was talking to me, the wife was behind him and giving me the thumbs up. When we had a chance to talk, she said ?I like this one? and that was it. The price had been discounted, but was still about $20K higher than our desired budget amount. We made a low offer and stipulated a list of things that we wanted replaced or fixed. They agreed to all, except replacing the tires that had about 2 years left on the age recommendation.
We hired an inspector, who I believe did a great job. I have to say though, the dealer had gone through the unit themselves and had listed almost everything the inspector found as needing to be corrected. The one big item the inspector pressed for was there was a crack about the size of a quarter on the passenger side of the windshield. He voiced his concern, I pressed a bit, and the sales manager and a tech looked at it. The sales manager said though it had been repaired, it did show the crack extending beyond the repair, so it will be replaced.
We are awaiting completion of the corrections before taking delivery, and looking forward to many adventures. Thank you to all the experienced people here for your advice. Anything can still happen, but I feel we were much better prepared for this purchase because of what we learned from you.
