Community Forums

begete · 01-03-2006, 06:42 AM

We have decided that we would like to trade our 24 foot, 1993 Cobra Montery Class A for a fifth wheel or trailer, or sell it and buy a fifth wheel or trailer.

Would appreciate suggestions on best way to accomplish this, best time of year, etc. We tried to sell it outright in the fall using Craig's list, newspaper and this site's classifieds, but didn't have a single person even come to look at it.

It is/was in excellant condition, has new tires and is fully loaded and under 40,000 miles, so we cannot figure out what we are doing wrong.

Would appreciate any and all suggestions. We are in SE Penna. Thank you

begete · 01-03-2006, 06:42 AM

We have decided that we would like to trade our 24 foot, 1993 Cobra Montery Class A for a fifth wheel or trailer, or sell it and buy a fifth wheel or trailer.

Would appreciate suggestions on best way to accomplish this, best time of year, etc. We tried to sell it outright in the fall using Craig's list, newspaper and this site's classifieds, but didn't have a single person even come to look at it.

It is/was in excellant condition, has new tires and is fully loaded and under 40,000 miles, so we cannot figure out what we are doing wrong.

Would appreciate any and all suggestions. We are in SE Penna. Thank you

N8XV · 01-03-2006, 12:27 PM

We've always sold our RV's at private sale. I'm not sure there is a time of year that's best. There's always someone some place looking for a RV. And it only takes that one person to see your ad and make the purchase. I am a believer that once a RV passes that 5 to 6 year old point it becomes more of a task for a private sale. I've found folks hunting older RV's are usually low on cash and looking for a bargain. Many times looking for that older RV to leave on a site or use as at a hunting camp. Of course the more bargain priced it is the better the chance of selling it. Best I can tell you is clean it up, shine it up, air it out and get it out where people looking may see it. I think RV's sitting in a high traffic area will sell faster than all the ads you can place. One last thing don't be in a hurry used RV's can sell very slow, but keep trying.

CyberVet65 · 01-03-2006, 02:52 PM

There are a ton of online RV places to sell your unit. And the obvious concerns about payment come up. There are proven, tried and true methods of getting everyone happy. Just be careful. Get some pictures into a folder on your computer and be prepared to send to all who ask. People will buy RV's all year long. Take a look at the different places to sell then look around and get a good idea what your unit is worth. Then have a bottom line.
If you try to trade in the RV for another RV you will most definetly get ripped off. RV dealers hate to have to deal with used inventory. So sell before you get your heart set on that "special deal" with the "special floorplan". Then you can play hardball because you have cash.
Chet

begete · 01-05-2006, 09:34 AM

Thank you. We are very frustrated.

rvgrandma · 01-05-2006, 12:59 PM

We have sold TT outright and traded them in. A good time to use it as a trade-in is during or right after RV Shows. Dealers are out to make a deal at shows and afterwards are anxious to move trade-ins.

With a 1993 you have one major problem and that is a lot of parks do not like models coming in older than 10 years so depending on the buyers useage plans, that may be too old even if they were interested.

1) I would check online for an appraisal and go to a dealer for an appraisal. Then when the next RV Show comes around you will have an idea of what you want.

2)Go find an RV you like and work the price. Do not tell them you have a trade-in.

3) We had a 5th wheel that we hated. We found a MH we liked and negotiated a price (this took a month and numerous visits). We then told the dealer we had a 5th wheel we wanted to trade-in. Because the dealer wanted to sell so bad, they gave us the a trade-in amount which was what we had paid for it 1 year previously and sold the MH for the previously negotiated price. It doesn't always work but it did for us. Often the dealer will not stand behind the price but this one wanted the sale due to it being the slow time of year. Amazingly he reportedly sold the 5th wheel for a good profit.

If you want to sell it outright, I agree - find a place where it can be seen by the most number of people.

Good luck and may your RV Travels be fun and joyful.

Easyrider · 01-05-2006, 01:06 PM

I'm guessing because of the year and length of your RV that it doesn't have any slides on it. Many people will not even consider a RV without slides now and that is probably working against you. When we were in the market for a different RV during the fall of 2004 I searched the websites and noticed that the resale value of any RV no matter the age or condition fell off considerably without a slideout on it. We had originally thought that we could get along fine without slideouts and that water capacity was the most important feature for us. But after seeing the falloff in resale value we decided we had to get slides too or we would loose our #@* in the future when we wanted to trade or sell it. We know a couple who payed $28,000 for a new trailer without slides just 2 years ago and they now decided to trade it in for slides. The best they have been offered for their trailer is $7,000! They still owe more than twice that amount on it. We gave our old trailer to our kids to use because we couldn't get much for it in trade and it was worth more to us to have our kids be able to join us camping once in a while than the little bit of difference it would have made to trade it in. Mot much encouraging news coming from me I know and I don't have a solution to your situation but I'm just saying you may have to settle for less than you want to get some interest in your RV. The slideouts on the new rigs have changed the market for used rigs.