Backstory: This Grand Design Reflection 315 RLTS was purchased knowing it would be an interim trailer. The goal is an Airstream. There is an Airstream that meets almost all of our criteria at Bill Thomas in Wentzville, which is about an hour away from where we are camp hosts. Bill Thomas is both an Airstream and Grand Design dealer, so we thought that this would be an easy trade. Not so.
They offered us a very low trade-in price and a very high asking price for their Airstream. That's typical, and I don't have a real problem with that. I expected that we would negotiate and come up with a deal. They seemed to be very concerned about the fact that I have more than just a little bit of solar on the trailer. If I had everything factory standard perhaps they might have been more interested, but today they called and said they were not at all interested in trading for our trailer. If I wanted to sell it privately they would be glad to talk to us about the Airstream.
If I wanted to do that I'd be looking at buying privately, too.
Is this a typical dealer attitude now? I've talked to dealers who will only have one brand on their lot, and make no bones about telling customers that have other brands for trades that they will get wholesale bids for the SOB and the highest bid is the trade-in price. I have no problem with that. I'm just surprised that a GD dealer wouldn't take a GD trailer in as a trade.
They offered us a very low trade-in price and a very high asking price for their Airstream. That's typical, and I don't have a real problem with that. I expected that we would negotiate and come up with a deal. They seemed to be very concerned about the fact that I have more than just a little bit of solar on the trailer. If I had everything factory standard perhaps they might have been more interested, but today they called and said they were not at all interested in trading for our trailer. If I wanted to sell it privately they would be glad to talk to us about the Airstream.
If I wanted to do that I'd be looking at buying privately, too.
Is this a typical dealer attitude now? I've talked to dealers who will only have one brand on their lot, and make no bones about telling customers that have other brands for trades that they will get wholesale bids for the SOB and the highest bid is the trade-in price. I have no problem with that. I'm just surprised that a GD dealer wouldn't take a GD trailer in as a trade.