How Far did you go?

I'm very curious as to how far one goes to buy there Heartland product... I live in a small town "Findlay Ohio" we have a Fairly large Heartland Dealer (Jim May RV) in our small town that I purchased our Bighorn through... Before he became a Heartland dealer, we were dealing with Best Buy RV down in Richmand, In... Ours quest started in 2008 when we Were looking for our next 5th wheel, Our friends purchased theirs from Best Buy in Richmond In, so we started out there... We made the 2 1/2 hour drive to look them over and we really liked what we saw in the Heartland product... We wanted to wait until the next camping season to try and make a purchase...
In the spring we contacted them and tried to put the deal together but couldn't come to terms... So, in the meantime we found that Jim May was now a Heartland Dealer, so we waited through the summer and approched them in the fall of 2008 to see what deal we could make, and a long story short, we now own a 2009 BIGHORN 3385... So, I guess in the meantime Best Buy RV went out of business, so we got lucky, Jim May RV is about 3 miles from my house and Heartland is only about 2 1/2 hours from the house...
Now to the question I posted -- what made you go to your dealer, was it location? was it price? or a combo of both? The wild thing is I read about people traveling from Florida to Michigan to purchase their 5th wheel, or from Cincinatti to Kansas City... I was just woundering why one would travel so far and pass many Heartland dealers along the way that i'm sure some or most are good dealers to work with only to travel so far???

Thomas

We went 2300 miles each way, from Vancouver to Michigan to get our Cyclone. Price was the driver - even after travel expense, the difference was about $10K. BUT, as I have said before, DH is handy around the trailer, so most stuff that other people would take back for warranty, he can fix. So, if you are the type that wants the dealer to fix everything, then travelling isn't worth it. But we figure that $10K can buy a lot of repairs

Price and dealer. Dealer only 8 miles. Glad I did . Good bit of warranty work.

imchud said:

I'm very curious as to how far one goes to buy there Heartland product... I live in a small town "Findlay Ohio" we have a Fairly large Heartland Dealer (Jim May RV) in our small town that I purchased our Bighorn through... Before he became a Heartland dealer, we were dealing with Best Buy RV down in Richmand, In... Ours quest started in 2008 when we Were looking for our next 5th wheel, Our friends purchased theirs from Best Buy in Richmond In, so we started out there... We made the 2 1/2 hour drive to look them over and we really liked what we saw in the Heartland product... We wanted to wait until the next camping season to try and make a purchase...
In the spring we contacted them and tried to put the deal together but couldn't come to terms... So, in the meantime we found that Jim May was now a Heartland Dealer, so we waited through the summer and approched them in the fall of 2008 to see what deal we could make, and a long story short, we now own a 2009 BIGHORN 3385... So, I guess in the meantime Best Buy RV went out of business, so we got lucky, Jim May RV is about 3 miles from my house and Heartland is only about 2 1/2 hours from the house...
Now to the question I posted -- what made you go to your dealer, was it location? was it price? or a combo of both? The wild thing is I read about people traveling from Florida to Michigan to purchase their 5th wheel, or from Cincinatti to Kansas City... I was just woundering why one would travel so far and pass many Heartland dealers along the way that i'm sure some or most are good dealers to work with only to travel so far???

Thomas

Click to expand...

I drove about 550 miles from Alabama to RV Outlet USA in Virginia. Price was the big deal with me. I did a lot of searching on the internet and called several different dealers trying to get what I wanted at the best price possible. Jim May had sold the one they had when I called and they were a thousand or so higher than RV Outlet. The places that had what we wanted (Sundance 310QB) were several thousand higher. Camping World of Chattanooga said they couldn't come close to RV Outlets price because it was below what they gave for it. I ended up getting the upgraded wheels and the 15K BTU A/C also which Camping World wasn't offering. It was worth the long drive. As far as warranty work I talked to several fellow rv'ers who told me they have bought out of state and never had a problem taking it to a local dealer for warranty work. There are also repair shops I've found who aren't specific rv brand dealers but have agreements with several companies to do warranty and service work on various things like appliances, and other things that aren't made directly by Heartland.

I travelled 1600 miles (800 each way) from Wichita, KS to Cincinnati, OH for a couple of reasons.

- No dealer in Kansas had the model I was looking for.
- My dealer 5 miles down the road was 'hunkering down' and had little inventory.
- I'd have to order it in and lose any chance of negotiating a good price (which translated into 5 figures in savings).
- I could not wait the 8 weeks for my custom order as I needed it by mid-May

If I was staying in Wichita I'd have probably worked a deal with the dealer here but we are moving to Ottumwa at the end of May and intend to camp out for the summer as we house hunt.

BTW, Holman RV in Batavia OH, were very good to deal with, are a big and reputable dealership and were very professional in their dealing.

We bought ours 15 miles from home from a dealer that did warranty work for us before. We had an Americamp that we bought elswhere and had some minor warranty issues. Instead of taking it the 150 miles to the original dealer we asked our local dealer if they would be interested in doing the repair. They gladly did it and never blinked. I told them at that time they would sell me my next RV. And they did. By the way I never price shopped the unit. Afterwards I found out that noone would match their price. Midway RV in Salisbury, Md.

We bought 40 mile away. We bought our 3670 for a couple of reasons , one was friends had good things to say about the dealer, and two they were the best bang for the buck we could find, and believe me we looked at everything, not just Heartlands. And I'm very happy to say that Modern Trailer of Anderson,IN, is IMO a very stand up dealership with a great service department. So I guess we lucked out in both regards, price and service within easy driving distance.

I drove 350 miles one way..... Price was my motivation.
The closet dealer to me, was ~ 100 miles away, and he thought his unit was made of gold. I saved over $6,000.

We're fulltimers so where we bought really doesn't make any difference. We actually bought from Best Buy in Springfield,OH, thru what was RV Pricebusters.com. They gave us a price of more than $10,000 less than we could find elsewhere.

We've not had a problem with service work, DH handles most things. Those things that have needed special attention...Heartland points us in the right direction, depending on where we are.

Price was the motivator... Canadian $17,000+ savings after travel expenses... traveled from Sundre Alberta to Springfield Ohio, 3200KM.

On the way home headed to Bracebridge Ontario for a family wedding... so we made a vacation out of the buying trip.

This was in 2007.

Went to the factory service center in Elkhart in April 2008 for some warranty & other work. Other repairs have been done by me.

Eh!

We drove 3400 miles round trip from Colorado. We also bought our Razor from Jim May RV. Our local dealer was $16000 more for the same rig & would not even negotiate at all. Now he is out of business & would have to deal with warranty problems myself anyway, its been about 1 year anyway. Heartland sent me some warranty items direct to me in a week, no hassles! Both dealer & factory have been Great!!! Bryan

1252 miles one way.... saved over $10,000 as the more local dealers would not deal at all! Also the local dealers said i could kiss my warrenty goodbye if i didn't buy from them so it was a easy choice.

We drove about 60 miles south to the show in Novi and bought it there from General RV of Birch Run, which is about 25 miles north of us. We got the show price on the unit, even though it was not the one they had on display (wife wanted a different fabric pattern). I just wanted to look around, I wasn't planning on moving as fast as we did. But Lisa made the deal too attractive to pass up. This is the second trailer we've purchased from them, Lisa in particular. Contrary to posts by others, we've had good service and a good relationship with them and her.

Prior to the show, we had looked at some other brands at dealerships in northern MI while camped up there and I looked at several others online. The wife fell in love with the 3670 as soon as she walked into it.

Price was the big thing for us. We traveled 2870 miles roundtrip, in May 08 from where we live in New Mexico to Michigan for our Landmark. Saved about $16000 and got a 2009 loaded with lots more options than a new 2008 at our closest dealer.

Our story is much like yours. We live in Redding, Ca. and the nearest dealers were about 160 miles from here, one in Medford, Or. and one in Sacramento, Ca. We had been looking at the Bighorn for a couple years and the only real hold up was I didn't want to deal with the distance to the dealer. Like you, we got lucky, just as we had decided to go ahead and buy the BH, a local RV dealer became a Heartland dealer. We ordered our BH just the way we wanted and the dealer has been great to work with on any warranty issues. Long story short in Nov. 2007 we ordered our BH and took delivery on Dec. 22, 2007 and to our surprise it is an 09 model. We have taken it to Arizona for the past 2 winters and to Mt. Shasta for the summer of 2008.
With patience it all worked out.

Dealer

We bought our BH from Kerry Willis in Dexter, Mo. which is about 60 miles from home. They were the closest dealer and I felt comfortable with them. Since then there is a dealer about 3 miles from the house and the dealer in Dexter has gone out of business. Have not had much experience with them yet but do plan to take rig in for wheel bearing check.

Well we were fortunate enough at the time to purchase our rig from a local dealer, Best Buy, who has since closed. They were a great dealer to purchase from and get service from. Knowing what I know now, since they are no longer in business I would be more than comfortable purchasing from a couple of dealers in Elkhart. It is only a four hour drive and they are very competant.

My 2-cents for you

We checked dealers for a 2009 Sundance 2900RK in WY, ID, UT and CO. The closest dealer was in Idaho 125 miles one way. There is an independent RV service shop 5 miles away. So having a dealer near to do the warrany work was not an issue. I got prices from the so called local dealers from $4,000-$7000 more than RV Price Busters in Richmond, IN.
So we drove the 1600 miles each way to and from IN and got to visit our newlywed son and daughter-in-law and have a nice trip.
I would do it again next time too.

Its pretty wild how far we go to get our Heartlands... Jim May gave us a great price and the service so far - knock on wood, has been good... It's funny when you talk to people about their Heartland products what they went through to get to the current model they have now... We for the 1st time this year are trying a seasonal site, we met a few others at the C/G that have Heartland products, one has a Bighorn and the other has a Landmark... The ones with the Landmark are now on there 3rd 5th wheel, all Heartland, they started out with a Sundance then one year later they went into a Bighorn and then two years later they are into their Landmark... I laughed because we did the same thing, We went through 3 travel trailers before we got our 1st 5th wheel (Jayco) 1 year later we were looking for it's replacement (our current 3385 Bighorn)... The couple we met also told us that every time they traded up the added Neg Equity. Again I grined to myself because even though Jim May gave us a good deal, We still had to eat Neg Equity - It seems to be the nature of owning a RV or even a Boat, i think a boat would be worst... I got my eye on the Landmark, but my DW has got her eye on me, I think she may win this time....

Thomas

imchud said:

Its pretty wild how far we go to get our Heartlands... Jim May gave us a great price and the service so far - knock on wood, has been good... It's funny when you talk to people about their Heartland products what they went through to get to the current model they have now... We for the 1st time this year are trying a seasonal site, we met a few others at the C/G that have Heartland products, one has a Bighorn and the other has a Landmark... The ones with the Landmark are now on there 3rd 5th wheel, all Heartland, they started out with a Sundance then one year later they went into a Bighorn and then two years later they are into their Landmark... I laughed because we did the same thing, We went through 3 travel trailers before we got our 1st 5th wheel (Jayco) 1 year later we were looking for it's replacement (our current 3385 Bighorn)... The couple we met also told us that every time they traded up the added Neg Equity. Again I grined to myself because even though Jim May gave us a good deal, We still had to eat Neg Equity - It seems to be the nature of owning a RV or even a Boat, i think a boat would be worst... I got my eye on the Landmark, but my DW has got her eye on me, I think she may win this time....

Thomas

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That negative equity is a killer...we almost did it though...then we stopped and thought! We were specing out the exact same floor plan in the Landmark and a Mobile Suite. How stupid, we thought...then we decided we've already got pretty much what we want, even has two A/C's and dual-pane windows. We just needed to added some things we didn't, so that's what we're doing...see sig below...we'll be all decked out at the rally in Goshen...CAN'T WAIT!!!