Holy crap we just bought an RV!

We were driving to Utah for business in June and planned to stop in Colorado at a large multi-manufacturer dealer that had a couple of Tiffin RVs we wanted to look at. By this time we had narrowed our search down to either a Winnebago or Tiffin. We liked everything we read about the Tiffins, but hadn’t been able to actually tour or test drive one yet.

We arrived early on a Saturday morning before the dealer was busy and got a salesman off the bench. Boyd toured the Allegro RED first and then I did. Not to be too melodramatic, but I really, really liked the RV when I first walked in. It was open and pretty. The colors were appealing and the leather was so soft. It was also smaller than the other models we were considering, but it didn’t feel smaller.

About 45 minutes into the RED tour, I turned to the salesman and asked him to find out how much it would be to add a washer and dryer because that was a deal killer for us. I think that was when he realized we were “for real” going to buy it. From his point of view, he picked us up on walk-in and we were actively discussing buying the first RV we walked through with him – a $260,000 Tiffin Allegro RED. I swear, he might have actually giggled out loud when he put it together. Kaylee, who missed all of the tours, meetings with factory reps and online research was completely blown away.

Did a Little Negotiatin’

We did the negotiating dance – nothing too strenuous, just a lot of waiting. Since we had done the research ahead of time, we knew roughly what they could do for price, so there were no big surprises there. We purchased an extended warranty since everything we read highly recommended it since the manufacturer’s warranty is only 1 year. We made plans to come back in a month (after prep work and financing was completed) to do a training walkthrough and pick it up.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

We drove our tow car (toad) to pick up the RV so we could have the tow bar installed while we were there. Our toad is a 2016 Chevy Spark. The four of us (Boyd, Kaylee, Bailey and me) plus our clothes/personal items and computers for a week.  2 Days – 12 hours and we all survived no worse for the wear. Well, that is our story and we are sticking to it.

We had a 10am appointment for our walkthrough tour with the service rep to show us how to actually use our RV. Our rep seemed very knowledgeable and helpful. All three of us paid attention, asked questions and we also videoed our walkthrough. We agreed ahead of time that there were no dumb questions and we needed to take advantage of being able to ask the expert.

While we were pleased with the walkthrough at the time, we have since discovered that some of the information he shared was either partially incorrect, incorrect altogether or he left out important details:

• The water filter was NOT already installed (gross ice cubes for months until we figured this out)
• The wood table under the bed was NOT an interchangeable table top for the dining nook
• Proper use of the water system
• How to wash the RV correctly (there are special requirements)
• How to work the windshield wipers
• The HDMI switches weren’t installed correctly so they were not working correctly as he assured us they were
• How to use the AGS for the generator

You get the idea. We didn’t know what we didn’t know and we didn’t ask nearly enough questions even though you could tell he wasn’t used to people asking so many. To be fair, much of the information he provided was invaluable and very helpful, it was just apparent he didn’t know the very specific things about Tiffin products.

Since the tow bar was being installed, we spent the night in the RV on the dealer’s site. This was great because we could settle in a little and make sure everything was working correctly before we left. We also developed a new list of questions (shocking, I know) that they were able to quickly answer for us and get us on our way the next day. It was very reassuring and we would highly recommend doing this whether its your first RV or your 10th.

Side note: I still really, really like the RV. There are things I want in the next one (heated floors, 1.5 bathrooms and all electric), but I could live very happily in our current model for the foreseeable future.