THE INTRO

So i figured this would be the best place to document my experience so far with our travel trailer. We purchased our TT back in October of 2015. It was a forced situation since my wife had lost her job and we could no longer afford our home in San Diego. Thankfully my family and I own a storage yard in Otay Mesa so i knew that if i bought a TT, i would have a place to park it, live in it, and still manage my property. My wife and I decided to buy a TT new since we have relatives who bought used and ran into issues. I knew that buying new would also carry its problems but thats what warranties are for right?

THE PURCHASE

We went to Holland Motor homes in San Marcos since they had a forest river model i had set my mind on to buy. I was in used car sales before, so i sorta knew the process of buying new, the financing, and working the deal. I also knew my credit was crap, i had no down payment, and was already expecting a super high interest. When we got there we found out the forest river model was not there even though it was on their website. (you idiot! why didnt you call to check before driving 45 miles!) the salesman i spoke to was an older gentleman who i liked since he didnt beat around the bush and told me what i needed to know. we walked the lot alittle and he told me to keep looking and let him know if we found one we liked. Unfortunately, i did not find what i was looking for, a 30ft+ TT bumper pull with kitchen island and spacious bathroom. When we were about to leave putting on our seatbelts, i saw in my rear view mirror a new trailer getting pulled in. I told my wife to hang on, (we've been there for over an hour), i got off and asked if that trailer was for sale. Turned out that it was! I told my wife come with me, you're gonna love this!

Now before i continue, let me just say, we spent an hour looking through various TTs, all of them had flaws that were deal breakers for me. keystone had trailers that had terrible color schemes, jayco felt like they didnt care and the worst was most of them had the living rooms setup where you had to twist your neck to view the TV.

I walked my wife over to the reflection that still had all its plastic coverings, its protective wraps and such. When we walked inside the salesman was just opening the windows to let in light. Our mouths dropped! We couldn't believe how spacious it felt compared to the other TTs. it had the island in the middle, it had the comfortable seating arrangements, and most of all it had the porcelain toilet and spacious bathroom! Now dont get me wrong, the bathroom wasnt big enough to flail your arms in without hitting anything, but i had room to dry your self off, the toilet was in a position where as a man, i could stretch out my legs, and the shower was as big as the shower we had in our house bathroom!

After the walk through i told the salesman, i want this. We closed up the trailer and walked over to his cubicle to start the credit apps. I had all of my documents ready and the process was fairly quick. They wanted a trade-in for the down, but i didnt have anything i could bring up that day, When they told me i couldn't pick up the trailer till a week later, i was confused. I asked why so long to prep a trailer for pick up? they said they needed to check over everything and make sure it all worked. ok.......that sucks.....but wait, i remembered that i had a car just sitting at my lot with a title but the tags were expired. i told them, i could give them that car for the trade, they didnt care, as long as it had a vin number and title, they could make the numbers work. so we signed papers and we came to an agreement.

THE FIRE

I was supposed to get a call from them on a monday, my phone never rang, what gives? I called and no answer, but why? I called their sister store, which told me they closed unexpectedly that monday. I was given no information about it. So that night I sat down with my wife worried something bad happened and right then and there i hear on the news, " As a follow up to last nights fire at Holland RV...." my heart sank. I was devastated thinking something bad happened. The next day i drove up to find out if my trailer was damaged. It wasn't there, they were still closed, yellow tape everywhere, i didnt know what to do! next thing that happened was i got a call from their sister store in Santee. " Hi this is So-and-So from Holland, is this Benjamin?" Where the hell is my trailer! I asked as i was standing out side their dealer in San Marcos. They told me they had a fire in their service department and they brought over my trailer from San Marcos to their sister store to finish the PDI. I was instantly relieved and asked if anything was damaged in the fire. they said the only thing that got damaged was the door grab bar and some paint on the door from the forklift moving my trailer. I said ok when can i pick it up. they said tomorrow....

We show up the next day to their sister store and talk to another salesman, who gives up a quick walk through on the trailer. He showed me how to dump tanks, use the slideouts, and other basic features that i could have gotten from the manual. I ask them if i can take it now and they tell me they still have to install my brake controller. Cool! free brake controller! well 4 hours go by and i ask whats taking so long. Well their tech cant find the leads to connect my truck to the controller. luckily i brought my own tools. I asked if it would void anything if i installed it myself, which they didnt care, so i did it.......in 10 minutes. my truck already had the leads tucked under the dash and all i had to do was connect 6 wires together and bolt down the controller. they helped me setup the equalizer hitch and we were off!

THE DAMAGE

So remember how they said my trailer wasnt damaged from the fire? well i dont think they checked the roof. About 3 weeks after we brought the trailer home, i started to notice puddles showing up on the kitchen floor after light drizzles. i though we were leaving the vent open or maybe condensation but after a major storm rolled through i discovered i bigger puddle. I ended up going on the roof. Now im a fat man, easily over 300lbs. i was hesitant to go on the roof since i didnt want to break it. good thing the roof hardly flexed under my weight. What i saw next i couldnt believe. i had scorch marks scattered all over the roof. it looked like the embers from the fire landed on my roof in different places and melted through the roof liner and into the wood underneath. GREAT!!! now i had water in the roof! i called Holland which directed me to their insurance. Everyone wanted me to take the trailer in for a repair estimate. What they couldnt comprehend was that this trailer was the only home my wife and I had. yeah the insurance offered to put us in a hotel room but only for 2 weeks! screw that! i did the damage assessment myself after calling GD and getting a quote for parts needed. After getting the insurance check and fixing it myself, i no longer have any leaks. I guess when they did the PDI they never checked the roof huh? suffice to say i will never take in my trailer for any service. Ill do it myself.


THE EXPERIENCE SO FAR


So far we love this trailer. I guess one of the good things is that if we want to go camping, all i need to do is remove the supports, slide in the slides and lets go! We are really putting this trailer through its paces. We have been living in it non stop for the past 8 months and not once have i regretted buying this trailer. We have had small things break like the maxxfan stopped opening using the wall control, so i narrowed down the problem to the circuit board and GD sent me a replacement quick. I did have a small issue where i wasnt getting any hot water pressure even though i had cold pressure and i narrowed it down to a check valve that went bad. $5 later and its fixed. My newest annoyance is my bathroom extractor fan died yesterday. I took it apart and found that the brushes wore out. bummer, was expecting that little 12v fan to last more than 8 months. hopefully GD sends me out my replacement quickly as well. Overall we really love our trailer. I dont think we will be selling it or trading it in since it has all the modern features i could ask for.

I will eventually post more to this as time progresses. if you have any questions about my full timing experience feel free to ask below.