Negotiating Price in the Covid Era

[eagletoo]

Tarheel,
I’m thinking of doing the same for a 27 Serenity FBT.
What model did you order and when is the arrival at Colonial?
Thanks.

[duvaltarheel]

Originally Posted by eagletoo

Tarheel,
I’m thinking of doing the same for a 27 Serenity FBT.
What model did you order and when is the arrival at Colonial?
Thanks.

Hey Bruce - I placed the order for a 27 GT on Aug 28th and Nick said he expects it to arrive in March, exact date TBD. Another nice thing about Colonial - they offered to keep it onsite for me for a couple of months if need be - so if I decide to wait until April or May to pick it up, all good.

[Raceycleo]

Almost there on purchasing our first Airstream! Received the invoice from the dealer and noticed there was a $1650 charge for "National freight charge (to get the trailer to our dealership from Airstream)." Is this a common charge on an invoice?

Also, the dealership is giving us a discount of $5k - but only if we use financing. We were ready to pay cash. Has anyone else had a dealer offer the discount only with financing?

[Texarado]

I mean, if that’s the only way they’re doing it, see if there’s a prepayment penalty. If not, finance it, and pay it off on the first bill. I tried that route with my dealer but I had negotiated as low as I could get and they wouldn’t give me any more by financing.

[2012FB]

Try contacting Adam at Airstream DFW. Tell him Howard sent you. We just bought a 2022 25FBT fully loaded with a nice no haggle discount that included the $1,650 transportation charge. I have previously purchased 2 units from Northwest Adventures. I tried them again as a repeat customer and got no where at all. Colonial would not even discuss a discount. One local dealer was adding all the “protective” packages on top of list. The days of 20% off MSRP are long gone. Probably never come back.

[DCPAS]

Originally Posted by Raceycleo

Almost there on purchasing our first Airstream! Received the invoice from the dealer and noticed there was a $1650 charge for "National freight charge (to get the trailer to our dealership from Airstream)." Is this a common charge on an invoice?

Have you seen the "Window sticker"? Ours had a "destination charge" on it, which may have a different name these days.

[nryn]

Originally Posted by Raceycleo

Also, the dealership is giving us a discount of $5k - but only if we use financing. We were ready to pay cash. Has anyone else had a dealer offer the discount only with financing?

Dealerships may have incentives for opening lines of credit. The incentive may give them a little more wiggle room. As jmslade suggests, see if there is a prepayment penalty. If not, other than a new line on your credit report, there is no downside. Even if you have to pay interest for the first payment, with a $5k discount you’d come out ahead by quite a bit.

The other thing you may do is see how much you need to finance to get the $5k discount. If it’s possible to put, say, 50-75% down, finance the rest for a month and still get the discount, sounds like a good way to save some money. Do know that there may be other requirements too (e.g. certain amounts for insurance coverage).

I went through shenanigans when buying a tractor. Went in expecting to pay cash but ended up financing about 25% of it at 0% to get additional savings on the purchase price.

[IanPoulin]

The days of 20% off MSRP are still here - you just need to haggle a bit differently... well, with indifference...

Last November, I went into my local dealership, asked about a factory order and was told 'no less than MSRP+15%.' I gave them my business card and told them to call me when they were able to factory order -20% once again.

Four weeks later I got the call - 'come in and let's talk.' On arrival (two hour drive from the DC area,) they were talking MSRP -10%, so I started there.

My target trailer is what I now have - the 2021 International 25FBT +hatch, +solar, +50A service. I however, asked for the quote on a Flying Cloud 23FB. Then through a series of "what if I upgrade this...." questions, we slowly went from 10% to 14, 16, 20% and finally 20% + a equalizer 4 hitch thrown in.

I took ownership of an MSRP -20% trailer some three weeks ago.

It can still be done - you just need to be willing to walk away. The moment they see enthusiasm in your face, negotiations are over.

For my trade in, I had originally purchased my 2011 International Serenity 28' in 2013 from it's original owner for 45. Trade-in was 50 on that unit; and I know they recently sold it to its now third-owner for about 70k. Even knowing it's resale, I was fine with the trade-in; and fine with the overall deal.

Ian

[switz]

Note all dealers pay the same shipping charge whether they are in Seattle,WA or somewhere in Ohio. That levels the dealer cost playing field.