Why We Refuse to Inspect RVs at This Dealership

There is an RV dealership that we have decided we simply won’t inspect at anymore, and it’s probably not the dealership most people would guess. No, it’s not Camping World. I’ve done inspections at Camping World locations all over Texas, as well as in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, and while I’m certainly not saying that nobody has ever had a bad experience there, I can say that I personally haven’t had problems doing inspections at their stores.

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The dealership I’m talking about is a smaller chain with locations in multiple states. I’ve inspected RVs at several of their locations over the years, and some of those experiences were perfectly fine. This isn’t a case where one salesperson rubbed me the wrong way and we decided to write off an entire company. The problem is that over the last few months we started seeing the same issues over and over again, and eventually the pattern became hard to ignore.

The biggest problem is that they make it unnecessarily difficult to perform a complete inspection. When someone hires us to inspect an RV, there are some pretty basic things we need in order to do the job properly. We need electricity, water, room to open the slides and awnings, access around the coach and, depending on the RV, sewer access and other utilities. These aren’t last-minute requests. Our clients receive the requirements, the dealership receives the requirements, and our office confirms everything ahead of time.

Then I arrive and suddenly there is no water available, or the RV is parked so close to another unit that a slide can’t be opened, or the dealership has power available but won’t let us use it. At that point I’m left calling the client to explain that there are parts of the RV I’m not going to be able to test, even though everyone knew well in advance what was required. That’s frustrating for us, but more importantly, it puts the buyer in a bad position. They paid for a thorough inspection and now, through no fault of their own, they aren’t going to get as complete an inspection as they should.

If this happened once, I wouldn’t think much of it. Dealerships are busy places and things go wrong. The problem is when it keeps happening.

The dealership also has some policies around inspections that I think create more problems than they solve. They want to complete their own inspection first, which by itself is completely reasonable. A dealership should inspect an RV before delivering it to a customer. The problem comes when that process starts becoming a barrier to the buyer getting their own independent inspection.

Recently, I inspected a Tiffin motorhome at one of these locations after the dealership had already completed its inspection. We were told what they had found, we were told the repairs had been completed, and we were told the coach was otherwise in excellent condition. Then I inspected it and found a significant number of additional issues.

That doesn’t mean their inspector is incompetent, and it doesn’t mean I’m somehow incapable of missing something myself. I’m human too. In fact, I have no problem with multiple people looking at an RV because one person may notice something another person doesn’t. What matters is that the dealership’s inspection and an independent inspection serve two different purposes. Their employees work for the dealership. I work for the person buying the RV. That distinction is exactly why buyers hire independent inspectors in the first place.

The policy that causes the most problems, though, is their tendency to schedule the independent inspection on the same day the customer is supposed to take delivery.

On paper, I guess that sounds efficient. The buyer comes into town, we inspect the RV, the dealership finishes whatever needs to be done, and everyone drives away happy. The problem is that inspections do not always cooperate with that schedule.

If I start inspecting an RV in the morning and find a list of problems, some of those items might take an hour to correct, while others might take days or require parts that aren’t sitting on a shelf. If the customer is supposed to sign the paperwork and leave with the RV that afternoon, everyone is suddenly working against the clock.

We have had clients travel to Texas from across the country and end up in exactly this situation. They have already paid for flights, hotels, rental cars and everything else involved in making the trip, only to find out that the RV they were expecting to take home still needs substantial work. Now the customer is angry, the dealership is trying to figure out what can be repaired quickly, and everyone feels pressure to somehow make the original delivery schedule work.

There is a much easier solution: inspect the RV first, fix what needs to be fixed, and then schedule delivery. It removes a tremendous amount of pressure from the process and gives the buyer time to actually consider the results of the inspection instead of making a major decision while watching the clock.

The policies themselves would probably have been enough for us to reconsider taking inspections there, but we have also had some pretty strange interactions at a few of their locations.

On one job, we had an inspection scheduled and called the day before to confirm everything. I arrived the next morning and was suddenly told that I could not inspect the RV because the customer had not completed something the dealership wanted them to do first. We explained that I was already there and suggested that I complete the inspection while the dealership and the customer sorted out the other issue. They refused and told me to leave. We called the client, the client was furious, and ultimately the deal fell apart.

Another time, I drove several hours to one of their locations and walked up to the RV with a cup of coffee in my hand. I had barely introduced myself when a salesman I had never met before started unloading on me about how upset the customers were and asking why I had them so worked up.

The funny part was that I hadn’t even spoken to the customers. Elizabeth handles most of the scheduling and pre-inspection communication from the office, so I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. It eventually became clear that the customers had arrived before me, realized the RV still wasn’t ready, and were already upset with the dealership. The salesman was frustrated that they were upset, and I apparently happened to be the first convenient person standing there.

That interaction by itself isn’t why we stopped going. People have bad days and I’m not particularly interested in turning one unpleasant conversation into something bigger than it was. But when you combine those interactions with the recurring problems around access, utilities, scheduling and preparation, it starts painting a pretty consistent picture.

The real reason we finally decided to stop accepting inspections there is much simpler: our clients were not having good experiences.

Our job is not to talk people out of buying RVs. We want our clients to find an RV they like, understand what they are buying and make a decision they feel comfortable with. Sometimes that means they buy the RV. Sometimes the inspection gives them a list of things to negotiate or have repaired. Sometimes they decide the RV isn’t worth it and walk away.

All of those can be successful outcomes.

What isn’t a good outcome is repeatedly going to the same dealership and watching the process turn into a mess before the inspection is even finished. Between RVs not being ready, utilities not being available, restrictive inspection policies and pressure to complete everything on delivery day, the last several clients we’ve had at these locations have ended up frustrated. I believe the last four or five ultimately decided not to buy the RV at all.

At some point you have to recognize the pattern, and we reached that point.

There is also a lesson here for anyone shopping for an RV, because I’m sure this dealership isn’t the only one with policies like these. Before you get too far into a deal, ask the dealership whether they allow an independent RV inspection. It should be a pretty simple question. If the answer comes with a long list of conditions, fees or restrictions, I would want to understand exactly what those are before putting down money or making travel arrangements.

I would also find out when the inspection can take place. Personally, I would not want an independent inspection happening a couple of hours before I’m expected to sign the final paperwork and drive away. Give the inspector time to do the job, give yourself time to read the report, and give the dealership time to address whatever comes up.

Reviews can also tell you quite a bit, but I wouldn’t focus only on the star rating. Read what people are actually saying. If you see repeated complaints about RVs not being ready, promised repairs not being completed, problems appearing immediately after delivery or customers struggling to get help after the sale, that is more useful than simply knowing whether the dealership has 3.9 or 4.3 stars.

One angry review doesn’t tell you much. Dozens of people describing the same experience is a different story.

The other thing buyers sometimes need to hear is that there will be another RV. I know that sounds obvious, but once someone finds the floorplan they want, with the options they want, at the price they want, it becomes very easy to feel like they have to make that particular deal work.

You don’t.

We have had clients walk away from RVs after inspections at this dealership and then call us again later because they found another one. Sometimes it was at another dealership and sometimes it was from a private seller. We inspected the next one, they were comfortable with it, and they bought it.

That doesn’t mean the first inspection was a failure. In many cases, that was exactly what the inspection was supposed to accomplish. The buyer learned enough about the RV and the situation to decide they didn’t want to move forward.

I also want to be fair about something else: we have made policies in our own business that sounded reasonable at the time and later realized they weren’t working well for our customers.

We used to have a policy that charged a client $450 if I arrived for an inspection and the RV could not be inspected. There was a legitimate business reason behind it. I had reserved the day, driven to the location, and usually had no way to replace that appointment with another inspection.

The problem became obvious once we watched that policy play out in the real world. A client could do absolutely everything we asked, only for me to arrive and discover that the dealership had not prepared the RV. Then the person who had done everything right was the one getting charged $450.

We eventually looked at that and decided it wasn’t fair, so we changed the policy.

I bring that up because I don’t think every bad policy comes from someone sitting in an office trying to make life difficult for customers. Sometimes a policy makes sense when you create it and then has consequences you didn’t anticipate. The important part is being willing to recognize that and change it when it isn’t working.

That is really what I would like to see happen here.

Buying an RV is already complicated enough. A buyer should be able to bring in an independent inspector, give that inspector reasonable access to the RV and have enough time between the inspection and delivery to deal with whatever is found. None of that should require a fight.

And if a dealership makes those things unusually difficult, I think that is something a buyer should pay attention to.

If you’re buying a new or used RV in Texas and would like an independent inspection before taking delivery, you can learn more or schedule an inspection at cozycamperatx.com.