I have found that with cars or rv's that negotiating will only help the dealer. You need to figure out what you will pay and that is it. If you need to, give the dealer a list of included items and say this is the price--yes or no. But you have to be willing to walk away. Just saying include everything is too vague. You need to be very specific--down to the brand and hitches, etc.
2008 Keystone Springdale 252
2004 Chevy Silverado, 5.3 L V8
Prodigy brake control and Equal-i-zer
Retired and traveling all we can!
You need to communicate better with the dealer about what you want included in the price. Does "everything" mean what it costs to buy the trailer, or do you want "everything" to include everything else you will want to buy to use the trailer? Or something in between.
When buying a vehicle, I don't want to see taxes and license fees included in the price, nor do I want to finance them over 20 years. Nor do I want documentation or filing fees included, so that I pay interest or taxes on these "services."
But I do want to see a breakdown of everything the dealer is putting into the price. The first dealer may have been including everything the second dealer included, but didn't show you an itemized list.
Working with the dealer, you really want to separate price from financing. There are too many tricks (like buy-downs) involved in working toward a payment you think you would like to see, that raise the price you will ultimately pay. Before going in to talk price on any vehicle, I pre-arrange financing so that I can talk about the cash price, and then I can talk separately about whether or not the dealer can arrange better financing.
Work your price of the unit first, then worry about how you come up with the monthly payment. You can add more down or extend the loan term to make the numbers do whatever you want (or the dealer wants)
You could end up with the $100 a month payment with a 50 year loan.
Around here we figure an extra ~12% for tax, registration, etc. (8-9% tax + 3% reg fees) Your state may vary. So you should be able to ballpark the monthly in your head if you know what term you want.
Quote: When we bought ours I told the dealer that it would be an all cash deal (no financing); we would write him a check for the full amount agreed upon. You have no idea how much leverage this gives you.
Cash has no leverage. If you finance through your bank or credit union, the dealer will get exactly the same amount of money that you would pay cash. If you use his financing he stands in most cases to make $250 to $500 extra kick back for writing the loan. When I bought a Toyota 4Runner from my local dealer, I said forget financing, I will get a check from my credit union. He asked, what rate are they giving you. I said 6.3%. He said he could write the loan with "my" credit union and could get me 5.9% and he would split the kick back paid for loan processing with me. I got half of $299. Yes I did check with the CU and they said he gets a lower rate because he does a lot of business with us. You have done only a few loans over the past ten years. Of course if you have the cash you won't be paying any interest over the years, but you will not get a better deal from the dealer. Money is money no matter where it comes from.
dkirwan wrote: Try campers barn.. i didnt have a problem.. love my rig.. service there is another issue.. may try 84 rv based on camping dutchman's recomendation.. what size trailer are you looking for?
You reccomend a dealership that service isn't good at? I would take a ****ty salesman and a great service department, but not the other way around. Service and getting things fixed right THE FIRST TIME is more important than a good salesman. Anyone can match or beat a price, it's the after the sale that matters.
Find what you like, ask about the dealership, ask about peoples experience, take all the comments with a grain of salt and make your decision.
Happy trailer hunting
2008 Chevy 3500 cc DRW Duramax
2009 Cedar Creek Silverback, it's here and pretty neat, now where do I put all my stuff
2004 United Specialties Sold, bye baby I will miss you!!!
I have my 5th unit currently on order. I have used the credit union each and every time. My brother-in-law and family finally decided to join the RV crew and purchase their own unit (i finally get my couch and dinette back).
They went through the RV dealer for financing -some 2 weeks later they were still faxing forms back and forth. After the 3rd week it came down to a mis-understanding of an issue resolved 3 years earlier on one of the credit checks. The dealer then wanted to start the process over.
I then, as in the past suggested they join the local credit union and work with someone face to face.
That Monday they went to the credit union at 11:00 am, joined and filled out credit app for their new RV. At 3pm they received a call with their approval to move forward with picking out their new RV.
Sad part for the initial dealer is, during the 2-3 weeks of aggravation my brother-in-law found another unit at another dealer he liked even more.
Last month he took the CU check and picked up their new toy hauler. Its a win win, they are enjoying their new unit and I can walk from my bed to the bath with-out getting fully dressed first
Quote: Dealers make little money on financing unless they are carrying the loan themselves.
Actually, my wife, a former bank loan officer, says that the typical commission to the RV or car dealer who writes financing for a lender is to pay 1-2% of the loan principle. In other words, a loan of $20,000 would pay the dealer a commission of $200 to $400, with no real expense to the selling dealer. A motorhome with a loan of $80,000 would pay the dealer $800 to $1600 so you can easily see that it does pay.
Extended warranties typically pay a commission of about 10% of the cost of the warranty. Dealer add-on items usually have about 40% profit in them.
By the way, the little woman has also worked in the auto sales business.
We looked up the trailer we wanted on RVDirect or RVWholesalers to see their price. We figured if we could get within a $1000.00 to their price (which we liked) then we'd buy. If not, we'd walk away and save more money (we paid cash for ours).
The trick is to KNOW what the MSRP of the trailer is. Just walking in and negotiating when your not sure of what your doing is just going to bite you in the end and get you frustrated.
Once you get the MSRP of the unit(s) you like, take 25% off of that price. If this is do-able then keep to that price when negotiating. Make the dealer work down to you - not you work up to their price.
Always deal with out the door price w/all options listed and their price. NEVER deal with monthly payments. We found that paying cash did not give us a leg up as was stated. In fact, it worked the opposite. When we said we were a cash buyer we had several salesman walk away from us without even starting. What I ended up doing when they asked how we were paying for it I would state "I prefer to work on the out the door price - and then we'll discuss financing when we come to an agreement on that price". We found they worked to get us a better deal (even though they couldn't get close to the price - they at least would speak to us). In the end we found a dealer that didn't play games and they're original offer threw us for a loop as it was lower than what we had anticipated. I countered with something a bit lower, they countered with "we'll split the difference" and we signed on the dotted line. 30 minutes from start to finish with no hassle, no badgering.
Also, don't be afraid to walk away. We walked away from several dealers only to find the perfect trailer when we weren't expecting it and we got it at 33% off the MSRP. Also remember there is no shame in going back in a month to pay their price if you so desire. Buying while emotional can be very costly.
I'm going to link an article for you to read. It's regarding cars but will help you to understand the entire business of buying and selling - and should help you with the negotiating process. This article has helped up buy all our cars and our trailer. We've never paid more than below invoice for any car we've bought and it's never been during a "sale" but usually in October/November on that new model year. The key is patience and knowing what you can spend and holding to that (at least initially).
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