Purchase with CAUTION ... one star rating is being way too generous for the awful experience I encountered with the Gander Outdoors location in Madison WI. My husband and I bought a 2018 5th wheel camper that they had on closeout pricing in February. Due to the snow and ice, they agreed to keep the camper at their location until the first week in April. However, they forced us to finish all paperwork and do a walk through of the camper the last week in February. During this walk through, we pointed out some issues we wanted corrected before actually taking possession in April and the tech told us he would fix these upon our leaving. As we promised, we contacted them one week prior to arrange for the pick up and were told to be there at 8 am. We arrived a bit prior to 8 and checked in, giving our name and the reason we were there was to take delivery of our new camper. Two hours later, we were still waiting. We had made attempts to talk to the people at the desk to see what was taking so long, but this fell on deaf ears and we were ignored. At one point, we were even belittled because in the opinion of the Finance Director, we didn't spend enough. In my opinion, businesses should be happy with any purchase. When we finally were able to take possession of the camper and start heading home with it, we noticed an issue with the backup camera system we had installed by Gander. The image was reversed. Looking at the monitor, we would see a car on the right, but looking at the side view mirror on the car, that same car was on the left. This could have been a major accident if we didn't catch it early. Once home, we noticed that the antenna on the camera itself was hanging (flopping in the wind) by wires. Guess this would explain the loss of connection frequently on the drive home. When inspecting it, we found it was broke and they didn't bother to fix it. We sent a note that night to the Finance Director asking for direction on how to have this issue corrected. We waited several days with no answer. In the mean time, we had the opportunity to go through the camper in decent light and 1) found they did not address any of the issues we pointed out in February and 2) found several other issues that we wanted addressed. Again, these concerns fell upon deaf ears. Finally, I got to the general manager at the store. I told him the story of how long we had to wait to take delivery and the nasty comments made to us - he genuinely seemed upset at what I was saying. He gave us an instore credit to offset some of the "pain". He also promised that when we took the camper back on May 25 for installation of some additional items we purchased for the camper, the rest of the issues would be taken care of. Imagine our surprise when we arrived for that appointment and that caring manager was no longer at that location and no one knew what we were talking about. So as of today, July 10, those extra items were installed, however, not all the other issues have been addressed. We were told early in June that the warranty items would be submitted by June 14 and they would keep us informed. We never rec'd any notification. We kept calling / emailing to see where things stood, but was only given the run around. On July 5, we asked for the name of a VP at the corporate level, but our note was only forwarded to the new general manager at the store. He listened to our complaints, however also made promises that did not happen. He did follow through in sending us a list of the issues (26 of them at this time) so we could compare to our notes. We sent an email in response on Sunday, July 7. Today, I followed up with a phone call. Of course, he never even opened the email. He gave us a call and admitted there is issues in their procedures and our case hasn't been handled properly. All this is at our expense as we had bought this camper to use on outings this summer. We have had to cancel some due to not getting the camper back and one for personal reasons.
I would strongly advise anyone interested in purchasing an RV of any kind to avoid Gander Outdoors / Camping World and go to a smaller dealer. In the long run going to a smaller dealer may cost a bit more, but the customer service received at the smaller dealer with go much further. read more