The New ETCTA-2016 Fleetwood Discovery

Well the deal is done! On Saturday August 26th we will be proud owners of a 2016 Fleetwood Discovery

Thanks For Everyones Help!

1-1st and foremost there is no way that I could have pulled off purchasing this unit with  my wallet and sanity in tact with out the help of my DW (Mrs. UrbanSuburbanRVer). 

2- David Lester, who helped me keep it “real” by providing realistic costs/values for the unit that I was trading in and the unit that I was buying. If you ever want an honest appraisal of a unit that you are either buying or selling send David an email his rates are minuscule compared to the value received. 

3-To all of the super nice, friendly and knowledgeable sales people who provided open and honest feedback about the units that I was interested in. I appreciate your service and dedication.

4-To all of sales reps that are only in it for the money or don’t fully know the product you are selling. Well hopefully one day you will see the light.

5-To everyone who has written a blog or Facebook post about there specific RV, what they like and didn’t like

The Process of Buying Our The New ETCTA ->2016 Fleetwood Discovery 40g

1-Research, Research, Research

2-Stay out of high pressure immediate buy situations

3-Be realistic

4-Get all of your ducks in a row

5-Continue to research

6-Do as much communicating back and forth via email, if possible

7-Set the parameters of the sale and when you pick up your unit

Research, Research, Research

In my spare time at work, on a plane or just down time at home I would read different blogs about peoples experiences wth their specific units. 2 of my Favorites are Habbs on the Road & Gone With The Wynns. 

Habs on the Road-Is a blog about a family who are traveling the US in the 2016 Forest River Berkshire 43b. We were seriously considering purchasing the sister unit from Total Value RV in Elkhart,IN

During my research late last year I saw 2 XLT 43b’s  with the same amenities pop up on Total Value’s Website with concurrent stock numbers so there is my deduction that is was the sister unit.

Gone With The Wynns are 2 super cool people who used to be full time RV’ers.  Weekly they post information about places that they have been (i.e. Alaksa) or product reviews (i.e. Solar Power). In one of their video blogs they did an RV Smack down Gas vs Diesel. 

Google Search-When a particular unit peeked my fancy I would do a google search and plug in “negative” at the end of the search string to pull up all negative comments or “sale” to find what units were for sale in the area and my favorite was “walk through” which showed all of the videos posted by either cheesy RV salesmen who wanted to sell a unit or someone who posted about their PDI walk through.

Stay Out Of High Pressure Situations

There is an old saying “There is only 2 things in this world that you have to do…Pay Taxes and Die”

When looking for our new unit I did my best NOT to go into an RV dealer. I found the pressure to BUY NOW or it will be gone to be an instant button pusher in a bad way. When I see or hear claims of “ We Will Finance You With No Money Down” all I can think about is 1-this jackwad doesn’t care if the new owner is strapped with a $3000 payment that they cannot afford or 2-This idiots are doing to the RV community what the mortgage bankers did to the housing industry by providing mortgages who could not afford them.

Luckily I found a sales rep and dealer who were super tech savvy and did a great job of responding to emails, texts and phone calls.

Be Realistic

Me and Mrs. Urbansurburanrver went back and forth about our needs, wants, and wishes for our new RV and then assigned a cost to each. Where we wound up was what we think a great combination of needs, wants, desires at reasonable price.

Also to bring me back to reality I enlisted the help of David Lester who was able to provide me with an accurate valuation

of my current unit and the unit that I wanted to buy. Without going into detail I was grossly overstating the value of my purchase and even more overstating the value of the unit that I planned to purchase. David provides a much needed service/reality check  for anyone who is in the market for purchasing an RV.

Get All of Your Ducks In A Row

In other words get your financial position in line. 

Make sure you know your credit score. Make sure you know your actual credit score not the one that  you think that it should be. 

Make sure you know realistically how much money you can afford to put down without breaking the bank.

If the deal goes through—>How much more will you pay in insurance,? Where will you park it?

Figure all of this out in advance of committing to buy an RV

Continue to Research 

Once you have narrowed your preferred unit  continue to research. I would start to look at dealers—>Which dealer are you going to trust for the next 5,10,15 years? Which one has the BEST customer service reputation  and has the unit & floorpan that you want available at the lowest reasonable cost?

Do as much of the communication back and forth, if possible

It provides a written trail of what was committed to by each side and cuts out the miscommunication. Also in my situation I did not have a lot of time during normal work hours to follow up with our dealer so we just went back and forth via email.

Also, when doing your research and your dealer has  less than stellar reviews this is an easy way to hold them accountable and to ensure that you do not become the next victim. 

Set the parameters of the sale day.

When we purchased our 1st 2 RV’s we had the dealer tell us when to pick up the unit & how long it would take for the PDI..etc. NO NO NO NO. 

Today YOU are the bride and it is your day! You and your significant other are getting married to an expensive vehicle set the time table based upon your needs and wants don’t let them set it for you.

Our dealer is great. I provided him with a schedule of how I wanted the day to go and his response was this is your day take as much time and space as you need.

My schedule

1-Final Test Drive

2-PDI Inspection (which we will video tape)—>In addition to the basic PDI where we will go through all systems I want the person who is doing the inspection to spend extra time on the following: (I gave them a list so that whomever is working with us will be prepared)

3-Complete al final sale paperwork. We did all of the financial and extended warranty stuff ahead of time. My goal are a few signatures, hand over a sizable check, shake hands and then we are done

4-Move out of our existing RV and into the new one. 

Just keep in mind that this is YOUR day.

Cheers,

Eric “aka the Urban Suburban RVer”