Hi Folks,
Im Manny, mid forties, German, hence Im no native speaker, so excuse any bad grammar or typos.
Just bought a 97 National Dolphin 535 on a Chevy P30 frame sight unseen of Craigslist for $4,500 two weeks ago.
Most of that input in the sentence above I got after I signed the bill of sale. What I knew was 97 Dolphin for 4500 and I had a bunch of pictures. Then I made my down payment by wire transfer, indeed I did not use c a r f a x or any other VIN services until I had that RV added to my p r o g r e s s i v e insurance policy just yesterday and then enrolled it with a b o v e mentioned service. With that amount, I could not do that bad, was my reasoning. After I enrolled, I then had a big surprise when looking at the history of that RV, it just hat nothing unusual at all, nothing, mileage confirmed to be as low as 53k and confirmed by regular service entries that also indicate a good maintenance history. Every word of the seller checked out to be true to the spot.
Right now I am in the process of titling. As a foreigner, the more or less only halfway hassle free way I found is to use a LLC, I went with a MT LLC for the obvious reasons too. But for me, as Im not taxable in the US, its not borderline between just tax avoidance
and outright illegal tax evasion
like for you US folks. For me its just I am free to chose where I incorporate and therefore I go for the cheapest place, its not like some other place has less taxes due to my choice. The very only thing to consider is, I should never go with any of my LLC registered cars to the county my company is residing, otherwise the local tax comes due. But then avoiding one county in Montana should not be a problem at all while travelling the lower 48 and Canada.
If you are a foreigner who wants to register and insure a car, motorhome, trailer, RV what ever this way, feel free to contact me, I will tell you my true story and how I found my service providers and what I like with em and also what I dont like. I do not receive any kickback from any of them. Just to be clear, it is my honest opinion with no payment what so ever to e.g. smooth out hick-ups or short comings. And I do had some hick-ups and such. Its not my first car in the US, so the LLC is established since years now.
Btw, in Europe its the very same way. No residency = not possible to register a car or anything. You will need to use a company shell to do it. And if you register a car say in Poland, with no annual registration tax and cheap insurance and no inspections, and have your tax location actually say Germany, very high annual registration tax based on emissions and very expensive insurance, and inspections that would fail your car for a passenger wind shield or even rear window wiper with no lip on and almost no alteration from factory standard, your committing tax fraud and the German internal revenue service will get you for that, even for years back, just a question of when. And like with Montana, in Germany e.g. you need to file for your company.
So back to my RV, its got the 454 big block form Chevy in a P30 frame. It did about 250 miles in the past 11 years, basically going to maintenance and inspections and back and has the usual thing for a 454 with such short distance driving on low annual mileage cars: stuck exhaust valves and then bend pushrods. Otherwise it looks a bit weathered outside, one awning foot is broken, and the awning above the slid is the third in its lifetime and was again ripped to shreds shortly before the mishap with the engine. Actually they where on the way to an RV shop to fix it when the engine hat its grand recoining. The shop quoted almost 10 grand for the fix, I reason its 50 Buck for pushrods, maybe another 50 for a valve or such, then 250 for head bolts and gaskets. Ill bring a valve guide reamer with me. No need to buy, I own the fitting tool.
Its been in Texas and Colorado all its life, so not much rust.
According to the seller the Onan is running and producing and has very low hours on it, the seller never emailed me the exact numbers. Indeed we only had email contact, until the seller had returned my bill of sale with his signature too on it and had received my down payment. That was a bit nerve wrecking but also neat
Almost as neat as the old lady who sold me my 88 Lincoln Town Car back in 2020. 38k miles, looked like right out of a car dealership. 980 miles in the past 12 years. 3k was what I paied for it. She did try to fax me some sales brochure pictures to Germany, as she had no cell phone or digital camera to take actual pictures of the car at the curb. I made it out of the country via Thousand Islands Bridge shortly before midnight the very day when #45 did close the borders. On the way in I went through NY and used a greyhound to get to the seller. Miraculously I made it through unharmed by Covid,but 6 weeks later I almost died from it and am still recovering almost 4 years later.
But back to the RV, sorry, I sometimes get a bit side tracked.
So the inside condition of this Dolphin is absolutely factory pristine. Unbelievable, it just looks like right from the dealership. I made sure to get current pictures, in the background I could see the shop who diagnosed the valve issue. And every time I got some more picz, the cars in the yard did change, and the snow too and the meta data of the pictures indicate current pictures. This and a lot more details made me trust this seller enough to make a down payment by unrecoverable wire transfer without ever talking to him.
One thing that has me worried though is, behind the fridge the side wall is cracked, that crack was sealed up by an RV shop some years ago. I will investigate this further, maybe some issues with the frame or water, well shall see.
Maybe some of the Dolphin owners here know the issue and could point me into the right direction?
So now I booked our flights, Ill go in 3 weeks, got my 3 year old with me.
And do a YouTube-Vice Grip Garage thing, bought sight unseen will it last my holiday trip? Unlike Derek from VGG I will have additionally hindrances like not being a native, not having any fall back and friends near by, having a 3 years old with me that wants to go see the Wrecker Games from Matts Offroad in Sand Hollow National Park, so if I make it, you could meet me there. Last but certainly not the least, quite the opposite, I need to get that Dolphin into shape for getting good WAF marks (aka wife acceptance factor).
Cause, my spouse comes a week later after I hopefully fixed the valve issue and have not discovered I got majorly screwed over.
She is as of right now unaware of the newly added RV to our fleet of personally owned 23 vehicles. When we made it past 12, she told me with the next car would come her divorce letter, shes still with me
Lets see how it works out, if Ill member (as my 3 years old pronounces it), Ill report back.
Have fun guys.
Manny
Linear Mode
