Has anyone had any experience, good or bad, with purhcasing an RV from RVwholesalers.com out of Ohio? Their prices seem almost too good to be true, that's why I am hesitant to use them.

Yes, I have purchased two travel trailers from them in the past and everything went smoothly. There prices are real good. They will come down on the prices some. If you do have any trouble, talk to Mike or David. (owners)
Also check with RVDIRECT.COM. There prices are somewhat better than RVW. I have not purchased anything from them though.

I bought my 5th wheel from them. There is no reason not to in my opinion. They are taking advantage of the same efficiencies offered by the internet as many other businesses--look at Amazon for example. Same basic concept. You know what you want, you order it through them, they order it from the factory, you stop by and pick it up, done. It is much cheaper to do business that way, because they are really only serving as a conduit between you and the manufacturer. No big showroom, no sales staff, no time spent holding your hand while you decide what you want to buy, no time spent with "shoppers" who don't buy anything, no time spent "negotiating" the price, and so on. That's why their prices are good. But it's based on you knowing what you want to buy from the get-go.

Wouldn't it be nice if cars, or houses, could be sold the same way. Airlines got rid of travel agents. If we could get rid of new car dealers and real estate agents we'd all be better off, at least those of us who can do the research/work ourselves and don't need to be forced to pay for all those "services." Just MHO.

Purchased a TT from them in June of this year. All good on prices, value, sales services, PDI, etc. etc. Believe me you won't be regretting the decision up to buy.

HOWEVER.. Once you do purchase and have issues with repairs or warranty work, you will have to do more than you would with a typical dealer. Don't get me wrong- RVW warranty and service set up isn't at fault - It's the fact that local dealers aren't real keen on servicing 3rd party claims and getting them to give you an estimate is more work than one would imagine.

Basically- when a local dealer sells you the trailer they make some obvious profit up front and are eager to keep you happy (and can afford to with the profit) to keep their reputation. Why should they therefore spend time, energy and resources keeping you on the road and happy about your purchase with RVW? They won't tell you, but they won't bend over backwards... in fact- my experience (won't go through it all here) was just the opposite... That DEALERS other than RVW want you to regret your RVW purchase decision.

The only way around this is to go through RVW's independant service network....

And so... what you really should be doing is to talk to RVW to make sure you have at least 4-5 different independant service operations in your area (within 50 miles radius).

Keep in mind... some independants wont mess with cosmetic things or little stuff....that's for the DIY person to work out. They will fix major operational issues ie, AC goes out- items they can make a tiny bit of profit on you. It's all time and materials for these guys and if it's approved from Forest River (or other) it's probably approved with only a slight margin built in if at all...

Also- RVW will let you go to other operations outside their network as long as you get an estimate... beware though as there are a lot of folks who "work on trailers" and once the problem is "fixed", it "fixed" in both RVW and Forest Rivers mind, despite what you may encounter down the road.

Finally- the other trade off for the savings is that you do much of the upfront searching, estimations, qualifying yourself...

I would NOT recommend this company. We are happy with our Forest River trailer....but 2 months after getting it, one of the slide welds broke - not happy about it - but these things happen. We instantly filed a warranty claim online and waited.....and waited....and waited. After trying to contact them several times, they had a mobile service in our area give an estimate for $150 (told we would get it back when the work was done) How can a mobile service fix a slide weld? The mobile service told RVW that he could not do the work. WAITED FOR ANOTHER 3 MONTHS without so much as an email...despite regular communication attempts on our part. My wife took 2 days off work to try and get this resolved. They are available to sell trailers 24 hours a day...but have 1 warranty person who answers (voicemail) calls for 1 hour each weekday. Having now worked directly with Forest River and a dealer we found ourselves in our area, we are getting our trailer fixed ourselves. At the 4 month mark, we received an email from RVW asking if we were happy with their warranty service. When we told them our story and said that we were disappointed, the owner of the company replied,

Direct quote from email
"Subject: RE: RVW Warranty Team
...since you have been so damaged by our company – you now don’t have to worry about dealing with us any further. From this point on you can deal directly with the factory. do not call – email or have any further contact with our company. Have a great day."

No apology or ownership of the issue - just a slap in the face!
So what does this mean for the $1700 we paid for an extended 5 year warranty???

You say this was 2 months after you got your unit. Why was it not covered under your normal factory warranty for the unit? It's not clear to me why the extended warranty, which only kicks in when the factory warranty expires, would have come into play in the first place. Unless I misunderstand, the factory warranty would be the source of the coverage, and you could go to any factory-authorized dealer to have the repair made. Even many local RV repair places can be authorized to do the work, possibly on an ad hoc basis.

As I noted above nearly three years ago, we bought from RVWholesalers. We did have some warranty work, and arranged everything directly through the factory. RVW was never in the loop. The work was authorized and paid for by the factory, and some was actually performed at a local RV shop that does not deal in new units--they were paid directly by the factory. That was our experience.

If you received such an e-mail from RVW as you quote, it must have followed a series of previous communications/e-mails. If you would post those, I think others would be able to better understand what took place. It would appear on its face that there were some serious misunderstandings along the way. Very few businesses would send out such a communication unless there is a back story.

Bottom line for me is, unless you enjoy giving local RV dealers your hard-earned cash, RVwhosalers or others using their (far more efficient) business model is a good alternative because they sell the same thing for a lot less. Even if you ended up paying for some repairs yourself, you're still way ahead on the deal because you likely will save so much up front.

These guys are a joke when it comes to warranty issues...

Great prices, but expect no after sale service what so ever.




These guys are a freaking joke...Don't use them