2021 Thor Windsport 34J, 7.3 V8, bought blind through Lake Park Auto Connection, in parts

dave and carol, Alexandria, both retired, we go to Weslaco Texas from november to march. gary asked me to write this up when i mentioned it in the storage thread, so here it is in parts because i type slow and carol wants supper at some point.

part 1, the why and the finding. we ran a 2008 Winnebago Sightseer 29R with the V10 for eleven winters. 96,000 miles, good coach, but the grandkids started coming down over christmas break and a 29 foot coach with one bed and a jackknife sofa does not sleep five. we wanted a bunk floorplan and carol wanted a bath and a half. that is basically a Windsport 34J or a Hurricane 34J, same coach, different sticker.

our daughter in Moorhead sent me a listing in june. it was on Lake Park Auto Connection, which i had driven past on highway 10 a hundred times and never gone in, because there is nothing to go in to. it is an office. the coaches are not there. they broker bank repos and the units sit at the lender's yard wherever the lender put them.

this one was a 2021 Windsport 34J, the 7.3 V8, 18,204 miles on the listing photo of the dash, sitting at a lender yard in San Antonio. the listing had 60 some photos, a walkaround video with the slides going in and out, the generator running, and a shot of the Ford door sticker with the VIN. i called the number and got a person, not a menu. asked for pictures of the roof and the underside of the bunk slide and had them in my email that afternoon. asked how a class A gets from San Antonio to Alexandria and he told me straight, a driver drives it, more on that later because it matters.

one thing i did not do that i would do now: pay somebody in San Antonio to walk through it. i asked and the outfit in lake park said fine, on my dime, and i decided the video was enough. it mostly was. part 2 tomorrow morning with the numbers.

part 2, the bid and the paper. before i bid i priced the same coach. a 2021 34J at a dealer in Ramsey was 104,900 plus a 1,495 doc fee, 22,000 miles. one in Des Moines was 99,000 with 41,000 miles. rvtrader private sales were all over the place from 89 to 110. so i figured a fair number for an 18,000 mile coach was somewhere in the low 90s if it was as clean as the video.

the bid is blind. one number, sealed, nobody's figure is ever shown to you and there is no second round. the listing had a starting number well under that and the man on the phone said plainly that people bid over the start because they only get the one shot. we put in 91,500. carol wanted a number that ended in 500 for reasons she has not explained. we got the email on a thursday that we had it.

invoice was 91,500 flat, no buyer's premium, plus one line for delivery. the first thousand miles are free and then it is 70 cents a mile, and San Antonio to Alexandria came out to 1,402 road miles on their sheet, so 402 miles at 70 cents, 281.40. carol had it at 1,380 on the google and argued about it for a day and then let it go because it was fifteen dollars. wired the money on a friday. the coach was in our driveway 12 days later.

paper. the lake park listing said clear title, lender releases all liens before transfer, and that is what showed up: a Texas title assigned to us by the bank with the lien release stamped on it, plus the bank's one page sale document naming lake park auto connection as the broker. ron, chassis build date on the sticker is 03/20 so a 2020 F-53 like you said. more on the title office and the recall when i get to it, the driver story first because the young lady in the storage thread asked.

gasser_not_pusher wrotethere was a 2021 34J at a dealer in Ankeny in august for 89,900 and i walked through it.

fair. i saw that one. it had 41,000 miles, a doc fee, and an "or best offer" that means you drive 420 miles to find out what the real number is. i have a bad hip and one summer, and i was not going to spend three weekends walking dealer lots between here and Des Moines. so yes, i probably paid a couple thousand more than the best possible deal in the midwest, and about twelve less than the dealer 40 miles from my house. i can live with that math. carol did the math, actually, and she can live with it, which matters more.

on bidding against yourself: maybe. i bid what the coach was worth to me and not a dollar more, and i did not get to see anybody else's number, so i do not know if i left money on the table or won by 200 dollars. that part you have to be able to sleep with or you should not do it.

newcoach_nervous wrotesomebody you have never met got in your new coach in San Antonio and drove it 1,400 miles to your driveway?

yes, and it is the part nobody tells you about unless you ask, so i am glad you asked. the lake park people use a transport company for coaches and it sends a driveaway driver. ours was a retired fellow out of Oklahoma named Bill who does this for a living and has driven more class As than i ever will. he called me from the yard the morning he picked it up, again from Salina Kansas the second night, and the morning he was two hours out. the transport company's insurance covered it on the road, that was in the paperwork, and i had it on our own policy from the day the wire went out anyway because the agent said to.

odometer. listing photo said 18,204. when it landed in the driveway it said 19,631. so 1,427 miles i did not put on it. that is the honest catch with buying a coach far away. the price was good and the paper was right, but you get a coach with 1,400 more miles than the one you bid on, and the miles are on the ford, not the house. i knew going in. it still stung a little.

bill also washed the bugs off at a truck stop in Kansas because he said he does not deliver a dirty coach. i tipped him a hundred and carol fed him lunch.

title office was the DVS in Alexandria. i brought the Texas title with the assignment and lien release, the bank's bill of sale showing Lake Park Auto Connection as the broker, and our insurance card. the clerk did have to call St. Paul once about the out of state title in a bank's name, ten minutes on hold, and then it went through. Minnesota sales tax on 91,500 at 6.875 percent was 6,290 and change, which i knew was coming and still hurt. plate and title fees on top. 25 minutes total.

recall: the Ford dealer in Alexandria ran it, one open recall on the chassis, a software update, they did it in an hour for nothing.

now the one thing that was wrong with the coach. the house batteries were dead. two group 24 12 volt deep cycles, and after five months in a Texas yard with the disconnect off they would not hold 12 volts overnight. i think the CO detector or the radio memory drained them past the point of coming back. two 6 volt golf cart batteries from Fleet Farm here in town, 270 dollars, an hour with a socket set. i did not call anybody about it, that is a wear item on a five year old coach and it was not misrepresented, the listing never said the batteries were new.

checking in from Weslaco. drove down the first week of november, 1,610 miles over four days with a 2019 Equinox on a Blue Ox bar behind us. 7.9 mpg by the pump, which is a full mile better than the Sightseer ever did with the V10, and the 7.3 held 65 in fifth up the hills south of Kansas City without hunting. crosswind in Kansas was the usual. odometer is at 21,300. the bunks are made up and the grandkids fly into Harlingen on the 20th of december.

nothing else has gone wrong. the 6 month warranty runs until january and i have not needed it. ron, 5W-30 is what was in it, i checked the receipt in the glovebox from the last lender service.

UPDATE, december, one actual problem. tuesday night the inverter faulted and we had no 120 volt off the batteries. the fridge is residential on this coach so that is a real problem at 2 am. mobile tech in Weslaco came out wednesday, 150 for the visit. it was a ground cable on the battery bank that i had not torqued down when i put the golf cart batteries in back in october. my fault, not the coach's, not the seller's. he tightened it, checked the rest of my work, told me the batteries were fine and to buy a torque wrench.

numbers for the people who asked by email. 21,900 miles on it. spent since it landed: 270 batteries, 150 for the tech to fix my own mistake, 281 delivery overage, and the sales tax which you pay no matter where you buy. warranty from the broker expires in january, never used it. the thing i would tell my brother in law, who is asking: it is a used coach. it came with the miles it was supposed to have plus the drive, the paper was right, the batteries were dead, the inverter thing was me. price was a couple thousand above the best dealer deal in the midwest and well under the dealer down the road. carol says the math works, and she does the math.

i will leave this here unless something breaks. merry christmas from the valley. lakeparkautoconnection.com if anybody wants to look at what they have this month, it changes.