Wednesday, July 6, 2016

How A Crazy Person Buys A Caravan

My wife loves to plan while I'm more of a seat of your pants kind of person. My wife likes to pour over all of the details and keep a binder when putting together a family Disney trip. This may seem like work for some people but for her it's fun. It gets her excited for the trip. I don't plan much but when it comes to buying anything I like to know what I'm getting.

Here's where I become a crazy person. You might think two years in advance is too far ahead to start planning a vehicle purchase. Yeah, well, how about four years for a camper? I'm doing both. Yes, a large notepad is involved.

Is two years too soon to start planning that vehicle purchase? It's not if you like getting those white whale deals everybody talks about but few get. The MSRP of a vehicle is one thing but what a dealership pays is another thing. I like to see how long it takes for models to sit on the lot versus order and build dates. That way I have extra leverage with the dealer that wants to move inventory.

There are four of those in the area and each one orders different options and sells with different mark ups. I know the dealer that tends to order the options I prefer so now I need to figure out how long trucks sit on their lot. I want to pick one out in March or April and have it still be there in June or July when extra incentives are available for year end model clearance. The name of the game is eating up as much dealer profit as I can. Don't worry they'll make a couple hundred bucks off me so their kids will still have shoes when the school year starts.

I'm doing the same thing for travel trailers. Along with watching dozens of how-to videos and taking notes I'm also working on tracking down dealers that keep the types of travel trailers we want to see how far we'll have to travel for one and if there will be enough of them available to purchase when the time comes.

By the end of it all I will have cork boards with photos, push pins, and red thread all over my office.

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