3 - The Trade Fiasco

We were ready to deal on an Orion. In late August, we packed some essentials in the Lexor and drove from Parker to Scottsdale to arrive on a 104 deg. Wednesday afternoon. At the dealer, we discovered right away that the Orion we expected to get was in a fairly severe state of disassembly. In the few days we took to get there, the dealer had stripped all the panel covering and trim off the drop-down bed to expedite the repair of another Orion he had just sold. The salesman said not to worry, the replacement parts were on the way and the unit would be back together and ready by 10 AM Friday. That was the first strike.

Given the heat and lack of supplies, we checked into a motel for two nights instead of being on the road back to CO in a new RV. Besides the extra expense for food and board, it cost me another $350 because my wife thought it would be better to shop than lay around. While having a late breakfast on Friday morning, the salesman called to ask if we could delay coming in until after noon as they "weren't quite done" with the restoration. Strike two.

I should interject here that the Scottsdale dealer also had a new 24TB (twin couch/bed) model in stock. These had recently been added by Coachmen and we were interested. Having the couches serve as beds means no drop-down bed. That gives more head room as well as makes the coach seem a bit larger, and the forward skylight and a/c vents are always exposed. But we really didn't like it as well as the RB model. The couches were kind of hard and not all that comfortable. Because of their width to make a decent bed, they had huge back bolsters so the couch was sit-able. But then, where to store the bolsters every night? There was no real dining table. And dual use of the couches meant having to make up beds every night. That is something we accepted in a class B but didn't want for our next RV.

We got back to the lot after noon on Friday. A service person met us and said they were still working on the Orion. He proceeded to evaluate our Lexor and it seemed we might be ready to effect the trade. But then an hour of waiting became two. I asked to take another look at what was going on and it was not pretty. The bed was only half recovered and it looked like they were making pieces to fit from blank sheets of material. It was apparent that the finished bed was not going to look anything like stock. The whole unit was dirty from the work. It was going to be days if not weeks and a whole new approach to get that coach back to a saleable product. Strike three, and we were upset.

The manager was genuinely sorry that they had cannibalized the RV we were expecting to buy and that we had made the trip with no happy outcome. To his credit, he promised to order a new 2017 Orion for us and have it direct delivered to our home in CO, and, at the same trade deal, we would get a '17 instead of the '16 that didn't work out.

Given that bit of hope, we returned home in the Lexor to see if it really would happen.