My wife and I are first time new boat owners, having recently deciding to upgrade from an older,…read moresmaller boat that we purchased via private seller to a new SeaFox 228 Commander. While newbies to the boat dealership world, I've been to many a car dealership in my lifetime, and I expected the new boat buying experience to come with similar stress and headache with price haggling, upsell, and pressure tactics, and last minute unpleasant surprises.
We were not sure what we wanted to buy and visited several boat dealerships in Eastern, NC with the plan of meeting with sales reps, looking at inventory and getting informed on options. But of the five different places we checked out, none impressed us, let alone building any trust with us. The experiences ranged from sales persons were who not really interested in wanting to spend time with us, to not having inventory in stock. Some of these places where an hour to two hour drive for us. We were getting a bit discouraged and I was starting to second guess myself as to if buying a new boat was worth it for us. Not wanting to throw in the towel just yet, we half heartedly drove an hour and fifteen minutes to Avalanche Motorsports and that's when our boat buying experience became fun.
Where to start? Well, first off, Avalanche Motorsports actually had boat inventory in stock, like lots of boats, not just pictures of boats on their website. When we got there, we were warmly greeted by a sales rep who took genuine interest in us, gave us a tour of the place and after asking some questions to understand our needs, showed us several different options that made sense. He then introduced us to Ross, the Sales Manager, who was super friendly and patient with us. No trying to push a boat down our throats, no pressure or upsell tactics and plenty of patience in answering our questions and giving honest, open feedback.
With regard to pricing and financing, my wife and I were very impressed with the transparency in the numbers and the process. There were no surprises, no hidden costs, no attempts to push us to buy any extras. We walked off the lot that day having all the information we needed to make an informed decision. Over the few days that followed, I had follow up questions for Ross and kept in touch by phone and e-mail. Ross was very quick to respond to my questions. When it was time to close, he called me the day prior to go over the process, insurance requirements, and answered last minute questions. We drove to Avalanche, getting ready to commit to the largest purchase we've made aside from our house, yet felt almost no anxiety due to the trust we developed from our experience with Ross and the Avalanche team. At time of close, zero unpleasant surprises, everything went as expected.
Finally, in terms of pricing, we did pretty thorough research on the SeaFox 228 Commander, checking out what some other dealers were selling it for in the South Eastern U.S. and on-line chatting with some other 228 Owners; Avalanche's price was highly competitive and the boat was on the lot, not months out on delivery.
Trust is everything to me, especially when making such an expensive purchase. My wife and I are very happy with our experience at Avalanche Motor Sports and highly recommend them.
