CrankyApe! - RV-Dreams Community Forum

TRAILERKING · RV-Dreams Family Member

CrankyApe!

DRV · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have bought two 5th wheels thru Crankyape.com. The site sells bank repos mostly though not all RV's are repossessions. Currently I watch the site to buy a motorcycle.

The RV's are only listed for a week so not set up with alot of time to do research. And the business is an auction site that you pay a registration fee to bid. Their RV's have detailed photos and there descriptions are accurate as far as condition for the two that I bought.

I had decided on research that I wanted a Mobile Suites. Googled for used DRV and crankyape site popped in google search. I have not seen a DRV on the site since 2012. When I bid on a 2005 DRV Suites, my bank told me that they would loaned me $32,000 for the DRV and I won the auction at 22,000. Then another $700 transaction fee. They have raised the transaction fee after 2012. I live in the DRV full time and and have had only minor repairs to deal with. I think that I got a great deal and they were quick to transfer titles too.

TRAILERKING · RV-Dreams Family Member

Yes that's where I bought mine from too. Mine was a consignment unit. They usually have good detailed description and photos. However they failed to show or mention all the "Kitty Kat Infestation" it had, from loads of cat hair to other unwanted stuff behind the couches, chewed blinds, claw piercings on certain areas of the leather upholstery(Oh such darling little Kitties). Also a bit of a rust issue (which I asked them about over the phone but they said was NONE......Oh yeah, Right) that I have to repair by replacing some of the tubing structure in the basement bay areas.
Mine has the original invoice in with the paperwork/manuals. It was $240,000+ US........So with getting it for almost 1/5 of the price I can fix it up a bit I guess.
So there are some good deals to be had just have to check it over real good.

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Looks like a couple of those motorhomes might have been sitting next to each other when one caught fire. Sure hope the folks in the first one weren't in it at the time!

Sherry

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have bought a couple from there for investment purposes...have to be careful because of viewing reasons....each one I bought I had someone near the unit do the viewing.

never lost my butt on the buys but it is a higher gamble on the purchase.....not for the weak hearted !!!

TRAILERKING · RV-Dreams Family Member

I didn't buy mine to "Flip". I bought it for the long haul....So I was a bit unhappy once found out the issues first hand. Took their "Honest" word, paid them in full, then flew down for the surprise. The one nice thing with mine is the paint finish is perfect and not burnt from the sun like some of them are, like in the Arizona area. The good thing is I can do all the major repairs and reconstruction, so I don't have to pay some shop to do it. For those that would need to have someone do it would then not be a worthwhile purchase.
The year I got it in May, I drove it around up here for the rest of the summer. Then in the fall, around Oct/Nov the 6-speed Allison lost 4th gear. Again it wasn't a big deal. That winter I pulled the tranny and rebuilt it. Exchange trans. would have been $7,000.00-$10,000.00 plus labor for R&R. My total parts were around $1,500.00 plus my labor. The main culprit was one teflon lip piston seal had failed. Likely from long periods of sitting still which is another thing that is very bad. Should be exercised once and a while. This thing only had 60,000 miles on it but the sitting did it more harm than higher miles would of. That is something else to be careful about. Just because it's "Low Miles" doesn't mean that's a good thing when it's an older unit.
So yes for the average person that can't do that kind of stuff would have pulled a huge chunk out of their wallet. So have to really check, check, and check again.