After reading and researching and dreaming on and off over the past 10 years we finally bought our Airstream. We decided on a 2010 19' International CCD and purchased it in Portland, OR. at Airstream Adventures NW
www.airstreamnw.com Purchasing it in the U.S. was a simple solution as the price difference and our CDN$ at par (in October) made it a terrific deal. The other deciding factor was that at Airstream Adventures NW they only sell Airstreams so we had our pick of sizes, models and styles. We had narrowed down our choice but it was great to be able to sit in each one and really take our time. The people at the dealership were fantastic. No pressure but lots of information. I liked that we were able to talk not only to a salesperson but also their head service technician Bob with any of our newbie questions and concerns.
Anyway, the main reason we wanted to post this message was that our tow vehicle is a BMW X5 and we had a problem getting a local dealer to install the brake controller as the dealers in Vancouver said, "BMW owners don't tow". Among the reasons we had purchased this vehicle was because it had a towing capacity of 6500 lbs and was diesel and we knew towing would be in our future plans. We ended up at Rasmussen BMW in Portland to have to controller installed only to arrive for our appointment to find that they had misplaced our part after we had booked the appointment a month earlier and confirmed and reconfirmed that the part was in.
Our plan had been to have the controller installed and pick up our Airstream. With the part AWOL we had to wait until BMW could airfreight another one in.
Because we were from out of town, Airstream Adventures NW let us stay in our Airstream for two nights on their lot complete with power and water. This allowed us to try everything out and have our questions answered. I think the guys there thought we were abit crazy and even offered to tow our Airstream to a nearby RV park but we were fine.
So although we were disappointed with the customer service at BMW, we were overjoyed with the service we received from our Airstream dealer.
We wanted to give everyone at Airstream Adventures NW a big shout out and thank you for not only being so professional during our sales transaction but also for being so accommodating to help us out.
Thanks Wes, Nevin, Bob and Jerry for everything!
Lastly, this forum has been so helpful in answering our questions and also answering questions that we didn't even know we'd have! The thread written by Macfrodge was particularly helpful and we printed it out and used it as reference while importing our Airstream from the US to Canada.
Not only have we purchased a first rate trailer we've joined an incredible community!