Let the buyer beware.
There were four issues with the motorhome at the time we purchased. We brought these up to them and all four were glossed over through their internal "inspection." They said they "fixed" them.
Within six months, we ended up having to replace the aqua hot $12,000, the bed lift motor $2500, the step cover repair $400 and front air conditioner $400 (so far.). The $8,000 we paid for the three year warranty has already paid for itself ($200 deductible each time.). I'm sure the warranty company is none too happy with the dealer for saddling them with these expenses. The warranty company KNEW we hadn't had it long enough to break the systems, or to not maintain them properly!
Now. For the purchase experience. We had decided in September 2021 we were going in the motorhome direction. So we took a weekend trip to Dallas to look.
They had just gotten in our coach. It wasn't really what we thought we wanted, but we looked at it anyway. The salesman, Jim, was great about teaching us the ins and outs of motorhomes. We were able to really narrow down what we wanted after that visit. Jim is the reason this review has two stars instead.
We made an offer on the coach. Jim said he could work with it since we were trading our fifth wheel. Conversation went on for a few days, and then they ghosted us. For almost two weeks, texts, vm's and emails went unanswered. We saw a sale pending on the ad, so we figured they got a better offer, and dumped us. We weren't terribly happy at this point, and realized what a shady business this was. If you had another buyer, you should have said so, and we would have moved on. We went back to the drawing board, but a few lessons learned. We found a few, but nothing really hit home. We kept an eye on I35 and noticed a sale was no longer pending, so we made them an offer again. This time we did not sit back and let them ignore us. We blew up their phones and vm. Even involved the owner. We made sure to make a deposit and made them commit to not trying to sell it out from under us again.
Next, the financing piece. we have excellent credit and are very well qualified buyers. I understand that dealers make money on financing and I'm ok with that. However, I did not expect that the finance person would try to gouge us. Holy crap! I work for a bank. I know what our rate should be... ball park. First offer was at least a three point spread from what their favored credit union was charging to what the finance person offered us. I turned it down. Next she went through the bank I work for. That time we got a one point spread. I was ok with that.
Again in finance, the warranty didn't get paid for by I35 right away, so when we started having issues (see above) the warranty company didn't know who we were. After a bit of back and forth, we figured out what was the problem and got the finance person to pay for the warranty. Also, they didn't send in our registration right away, so we were driving with expired paper tags for a few weeks.
I cannot really blame our salesman, Jim, for what we went through. I don't think he has a whole lot of control over what goes on with the owner, finance manager and shop. He's just a good ole sales guy. Again, he's the reason this review did not get zero stars. He took his time to explain things to us, and admitted when he didn't know certain things about the coach. He got us the answers we needed to make our decisions.
Our takeaway in dealing with this place:
1. Work with Jim if you have that opportunity.
2. Make sure when you make the offer to make a deposit and confirm they are not going to continue to try to sell the RV you want.
3. Hire an inspector well versed in the RV you want to purchase. Do not take I35's word for anything!
4. BUY THE WARRANTY. Even your inspector is going to miss things. It may seem costly to begin with, but it saved us almost $15,000 in the first few months. And, make sure to confirm that they are going to pay for it right away.
5. Know where you stand from a financing standpoint, so you don't get gouged in finance.
6. Confirm when the titling will be sent to your county.
I took awhile to write this review, because we were initially so shocked at the way it was handled... especially when things started breaking down. But, It all worked out and we do love our motorhome. We came away from this experience feeling a little slimed... I35 gives used car dealers a bad name. read more