In today's market there are a few dealers that represent themselves as "wholesalers" or "factory outlets". These dealers are just ordinary dealers like the dealers in our association. They quote prices without freight and will generally price a few hundred dollars under what you may have been quoted by an association member or any local servicing dealer. They will quote slightly less because they know most people will never bring their trailer or motorhome back to them for service if they live 400 or 1400 miles away. Could you imagine having to drop your trailer off a thousand miles away and drive back a week later to pick it up when it was done?

This is a reality when people travel from where they live and purchase from an out of town dealer. Their local dealer is not required to service their new trailer. The reason for this is simple. We as dealers lose money on warranty service...lots of money, and we hate to lose money, so if we work on a trailer that we did not sell, it can only represents a loss.

Most dealers will happily service the traveling customer that has a problem while camping in their area, they will generally service this trailer only once, and most of us enjoy helping them out of a jam, but this is very different from the time lost in answering dozens of questions, performing warranty service, and offering assistance regularly to someone that did not buy the product from us in the first place!
Recently, I had a conversation with one of these "wholesale" dealers and he felt that all dealers should service what he sells, he simply could not understand why a dealer would be upset at losing money servicing his customer on a regular basis, actually I'm sure he understands...he just doesn't care...and that's unfortunate for him and all concerned.

To sum this all up, it's very important for Florida RV Trade Association dealers to keep their customers happy, and to do this we need to keep the trailers and motorhomes properly serviced, and have their products represented by dealers that can service what they sell.

Owning an RV is a wonderful "hobby", and local support is critical to keep everyone enjoying this great RV lifestyle. Buy your next RV from a local dealer.