I'm looking at buying a brand new van and I'm so used to buying other items online that normally distance isn't a problem...but if anything goes wrong with a new caravan I can't just post it back.
So I'd like to know, is it better to use your local dealer and put up with the price or bag a bargain a bit further away?
Our local dealer is renowned for not discounting or giving a good deal, but I know from looking online that other dealers further away are offering the same vans for £1200 or so less.
Friends have bought a new caravan from a very nice dealership further away and got a 'good deal' although I didn't ask the price! They tried the local dealer and although they were in the car trade could not get them to budge.
We have an approved service centre nearby so servicing will be fine, but what if there are warranty problems, would I need to return to the dealer for them to check?
If you have any experiences good and bad when buying from dealers that are not 'around the corner' I'd appreciate your help.
its ok til something goes wrong.if you have to trek 200 miles to get it sorted its not such a good deal.ours is 50 miles away which is bad enough .i certainly wouldnt buy from any further afield.
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Once I have the price confirmed by the 'distant' dealer, I will try out local one and see if they will shift on price, after all a sale is a sale. The next nearest dealers are 85 and 100 miles away. The £1200 dealer is 165 miles away according to the route planner!!
Takes us about an hour and 15 mins to get to our dealer - Chichester caravans at Bromsgrove BUT we have all servicing done by an approved workshop which is also approved to do Bailey warranty work and that is about 8 miles away.
Would you need to take the caravan back to the dealers to check before any warranty work can be done by your local workshop? Or could the workshop check it?
Surely the warranty work can be done at any dealer, the same as cars.We have just bought a secondhand caravan which is still under the Swift warranty. It will be going to a local dealer for any work.
I'll have to call the dealer and see if you can visit any dealership with problems....maybe you're right and I'll be buying from the cheapest dealer and then giving any problems on the expensive dealer....hardly seems fair
Dealers will often refuse warranty work if the van was not bought from them.. The caravan industry is not as regulated as the car industry, and dealers can decide whose van to service/work on. So be prepared to return the van to the supplying dealer for warranty work.
At the moment caravan dealers are having a profitable time owing to the increased popularity of caravanning.If they refuse work now then they will be losing customers for what might be lean times in the future.As I have said before our caravan will be going for servicing to a local dealer which is still 20 miles away. We bought it privately. A caravan firm at Huddersfield said if we took it to them then we would have to go to the back of the queue if we wanted any work done.(despite having bought new caravans from them in the past few years!!) Guess where we will NEVER go again?!!! Pity because we liked them.The firm we are going to is in a place called.....Glossop.Found their servicing department to be spot on.
I still think warranty work could be done anywhere that sells that make of caravan.I would ring around and ask.
my nearest dealer is an hour and a half away,as we live at the end of wales.you need to travel this far before you start your journey,if you know what i mean.
A franchised car car dealer has to carry out work, warranty or otherwise on the make of car they sell, whether they supplied the car or not because EU law forces them to do this. No such law exists for caravan dealers. If they don't want to service/repair your caravan, they don't have to.
Luckily when I was looking at new vans we had a Bailey dealer about 40 miles away and another one about 5 miles away, both same price, so no contest really!
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