Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post - Your Opinion Please on a Potential New Build

akf15e · 02-19-2015, 02:25 AM

Realize the dealer is either going to give you a price for your rig that you find fair and then not move much on the new rig price, or he'll low ball you on your trade and then negotiate down some on the list of the new one. Either way his goal is to extract the same amount of net profit. Your best bet is to go in armed with knowledge of what your rig is selling for retail and what his is going for, realizing he's not going to give you retail for yours (unless he stays firm on a high cost of new rig), but you want it as close as possible.
Other factors come into play such as location and local market. For instance, negotiating on my new SOB this month - 2 identical new rigs, except the one at the smaller volume beach dealer was a 2014 instead of 2015 and priced $2,000 higher than the one at a big city high volume dealer. Initial offer on my 2009 3400RL from the beach dealer was also $7000 less than big city dealer offered! $9000 net difference. Guy at the beach told me that he'd have a hard time reselling my rig because people vacationing at the beach want a trailer they store there all year and then have towed out onto a site for a week or 2 each summer. They don't care about MorRyde, 6 point leveling, good tires, a furnace/dual pane/insulation, etc. And they can pay $30,000 for a brand new budget 5er, so why pay 30,000+ for a 6 year old one? Anyway, we negotiated more, but he never got closer than $2500 from big volume guy (who has a good rep and is closer to me as well).
I would imagine a 10 year old rig will be harder to move for some dealers, so you may have to accept a bit less than your goal, but if so, try to get him to move on his selling price. A quick review of rigs similar to yours on rvtrader shows most retailing for high teens low 20s, though hard to tell if they are as nice as yours sounds. As a point of reference I ended up accepting $28000 for my rig, which some may say is too low. However, I haven't added any options to it to speak of (basically standard 3400 with a front AC and Mor Ryde), and have less than $700 in repairs in it during 6 full seasons(40+ nights per year), so I don't have a lot of $$ sunk into it. The interior is in outstanding shape, but the outside has terrible decal peeling and some gel coat scratches. It looks like a 6 year old rig up close. Given what I paid for it, I will have used it for 6 years for less than $20000 out of pocket (not including yearly property tax and insurance of course). I'm OK with that. Bottom line, it's tough to tell anyone else what to do - you just have to be comfortable with the end result and also don't fret over it. Someone, somewhere will get a better deal than you and someone else will pay way too much. I don't lose sleep over that. Good luck.

02-19-2015, 02:25 AM	#13
akf15e Montana Fan Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Goldsboro Posts: 288 M.O.C. #9143	Realize the dealer is either going to give you a price for your rig that you find fair and then not move much on the new rig price, or he'll low ball you on your trade and then negotiate down some on the list of the new one. Either way his goal is to extract the same amount of net profit. Your best bet is to go in armed with knowledge of what your rig is selling for retail and what his is going for, realizing he's not going to give you retail for yours (unless he stays firm on a high cost of new rig), but you want it as close as possible. Other factors come into play such as location and local market. For instance, negotiating on my new SOB this month - 2 identical new rigs, except the one at the smaller volume beach dealer was a 2014 instead of 2015 and priced $2,000 higher than the one at a big city high volume dealer. Initial offer on my 2009 3400RL from the beach dealer was also $7000 less than big city dealer offered! $9000 net difference. Guy at the beach told me that he'd have a hard time reselling my rig because people vacationing at the beach want a trailer they store there all year and then have towed out onto a site for a week or 2 each summer. They don't care about MorRyde, 6 point leveling, good tires, a furnace/dual pane/insulation, etc. And they can pay $30,000 for a brand new budget 5er, so why pay 30,000+ for a 6 year old one? Anyway, we negotiated more, but he never got closer than $2500 from big volume guy (who has a good rep and is closer to me as well). I would imagine a 10 year old rig will be harder to move for some dealers, so you may have to accept a bit less than your goal, but if so, try to get him to move on his selling price. A quick review of rigs similar to yours on rvtrader shows most retailing for high teens low 20s, though hard to tell if they are as nice as yours sounds. As a point of reference I ended up accepting $28000 for my rig, which some may say is too low. However, I haven't added any options to it to speak of (basically standard 3400 with a front AC and Mor Ryde), and have less than $700 in repairs in it during 6 full seasons(40+ nights per year), so I don't have a lot of $$ sunk into it. The interior is in outstanding shape, but the outside has terrible decal peeling and some gel coat scratches. It looks like a 6 year old rig up close. Given what I paid for it, I will have used it for 6 years for less than $20000 out of pocket (not including yearly property tax and insurance of course). I'm OK with that. Bottom line, it's tough to tell anyone else what to do - you just have to be comfortable with the end result and also don't fret over it. Someone, somewhere will get a better deal than you and someone else will pay way too much. I don't lose sleep over that. Good luck.