Oopsies happen; don't trust the rv dealer to guide you the buyer through a thorough pre-delivery inspection and fix problems before delivering to you
Avoid the stress of a RV lemon. In this portion of our RV buying guide, we will stress the importance of a thorough pre-delivery inspection. No new Class B RV in either Ford Transit, Ram Promaster, or Mercedes Sprinter is immune from problems; all of the following arrive to the dealer less than perfect:
Even our beloved Midwest Automotive Designs Passage! All RVs are manufactured by humans and none are delivered 100 percent perfect when you agree to purchase them. Customers walk through and break this or that and don't tell anyone they broke something, things get bumped in shipping, workers forget to tighten a fitting, batteries are drawn down while sitting,.
Don't sign the papers until you are 100% convinced everything works
Please learn from our experience: we have compiled this RV buying guide to try to help you through the process of buying an RV and convince you to do a thorough pre-delivery inspection and make sure everything works before you sign the papers. Here are two secret that put the ball in your court: The dealer owns your van as long as you don't sign papers and completing a deal with another customer could take weeks. The dealer pays interest to their floor plan company for every day the van sits on their lot. Dealer will push heavily to transfer the thing into your name; absolutely, positively RESIST. Like magic, your dealer quickly fixes anything you find that does not work. But most dealers will only work magic while the van is theirs!
Once you have paid for your new RV, sales is typically done with you
In situations where we see dissatisfied Class B buyers, the RV dealer did everything right...except perform a thorough pre-delivery inspection. promptly answered questions, pushed financing through quickly, and made the customer feel important; in other words, the dealer attentively cared for their customer. But after signing papers, the new owner quickly discovered that the salesman moved on and they were now service department customers. And they also learned that the service department was swamped and could not get to their vans for weeks. Van.Life owners Brian and Colleen once owned a Roadtrek 210 Popular that spent literally 6 months of its first year of ownership at a dealership getting warranty repairs. We were naive and thought that the dealership would 100 percent be on our side. We were so wrong and that lesson separated us from our new RV for months.
Download our RV pre inspection pdf to see what we look for
Van.Life raises the bar in the RV industry. We execute a $4,000 value, 30-manhour pre-delivery inspection that ensures a thorough inspection of your new Class B RV to help you to avoid buying an RV lemon. Download the van.life RV pre-inspection pdf to see the tests we perform on all new RVs we sell here.