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April 2007 - A time for change | | Though I love my RV, it had two pretty major shortcomings. One, my husband felt that the cab space is horrible. He refused to sit in the front with me or drive. So our trips in it decreased as his distaste for it grew. He wanted to go to Utah for 2 weeks in the fall and so this problem had to be dealt with before then. Second. I had a 3500 lb tow rating which limited my hauling to one horse, and prevents us using our Jeep (3800lbs) as a toad. I need to haul two horses these days as I trade out hauling with my barn mates and using the truck in tandem with the RV is an issue if I really need to have the RV also. So far we end up bringing 2 rigs to a show, but it is just not going to be feasible when the show is farther away. Thus this summer was the time to swap out to something new, in fact my first 2 horse haul will be the end of May so ideally getting something different by then was ideal.
What were our options?
First, some history, in 2004 I had wanted to purchase the Chateau Sport which has a 5,000 lb rating but at the time I needed something less expensive. As a result of that research, the Chateau has always been on the top of my "wish"list. The Chateau comes on a Chevy Chassis which my husband has deemed "acceptable" for driving in his book. Last Fall in '06, we actually worked out pricing at my favorite RV dealer (RV Town in Everett, Washington) and though the numbers were very good, I didn't like the concept of "ordering" one (they only had the Ford chassis in stock).
An idea that we kicked around that was quickly squashed was a class A RV, bigger tow rating but poor layouts for having guests and our RV storage by the house is very limited.
Another option on the list was truck and camper. This month we started our search in earnest. My husband was not too keen on how large the truck was going to be. The intent was to trade in my little Ram 1500 for a 1-ton dually, sell the motorhome and use the proceeds toward a camper. Well we found that even the largest camper doesn't have the storage I would like for a 5 day horse show. Everything is tiny and the bathrooms are pretty inadequate. Even the dry bath models had really tight bath quarters.
So while researching campers at our favorite RV dealer (They carry Host campers) who is also the RV maintenance service center I use, I asked them if they had a Chateau 23a on the Chevy chassis and they did!
I was very pleased to step inside to maple cabinets and tan and taupe coloring, just my style with a great linoleum floor from the steps back to the bath which was shades of tan and brown, perfect horse show dirt colors! We looked it over very, very carefully and scheduled a test drive for the following day at 2pm. I did a bunch of homework and found one show stopper and that is the grey tank size on the Chateau is like half the size of every other RV of its size, very weird... We drove it the next day. I really liked the sales person's strategy, he sensed that I am a hands on type of customer so we went through the coach making everything work. He had lots of history with RVs and really, really knew how to operate one, I was impressed. We drove the rig every where including the freeway, stopping at the local rest stop to swap drivers. My husband and I liked it alot!
We talked with the RV Town service folks about upgrading the grey tank, they have had to do so on a couple of other occasions and agreed to add an extra 20 gallon tank. I went to work for a couple more hours and then returned to negotiate the deal. The negotiation was interesting. I am an anal numbers person and knew what I was shooting for. I also knew that this RV dealer was "my" maintenance shop so I couldn't really put them through the ringer for the best deal possible as I want them to stay in business for a good long time! There were lots of addons, a trade in and the rig price to work on. We settled on the trade in price immediately. They gave me a sweet deal, I don't think I could have made more than perhaps $1k more selling it on my own. Since it is now horse show season, when would I have time to sell it? Then we haggled over the addons, I had to get the tank done and needed the electric brake installed. I was hoping to pay last years price and when it all shook out , I was able to seal the deal for $1k less than the deal last fall. I paid $1750 more for the 2007 unit than the price for the 2006, but made up the difference in discounted add ons and a better trade in value. All in all it was a very equitable deal. BECU was more than happy to loan me the money, they have been pestering me for YEARS to take out a loan with them:)
And now after that long winded dissertation, here is the rig!
>2007 Chateau 23A< |
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