Mothership 2

We were happy with our Vacationer and even though we were less than happy with the dealer we did give them a chance to sell us another motorhome. The dealer had a new 33PS on the lot but we were not excited about the color choice inside or out so we had them price a unit ordered with our choice of colors and options.

From the limited time we had spent in the 33PS Sandy wanted to look at other floor plans with more closet and storage space before we committed to another purchase. After some searching we took a drive to southern Wisconsin and visited Burlington RV to look at some units they had on their lot. Our choice was a 2000 Vacationer 35WGS that was in our choice of colors and had most of the options we had on our 33PS; the exceptions were a booth dinette rather than the table and chairs we preferred and an open bathroom rather than the private commode John preferred. We found that the additional 2 feet of length greatly improved the amount of storage space both inside the coach and in the basement; the unit was built on the same Ford 26,000 pound GCWR chassis as our 33PS.

We sat down with the sales people at Burlington and described the hail damage to our unit and the reasons why we wanted to trade the coach after one year of ownership. We came to an agreement on the price of the deal but needless to say they wanted to check our trade before letting us sign the dotted line. The following weekend one of their sales people who was visiting family in our area stopped at our storage unit and checked the unit; finding it to be as described a date was set for the trade.

We contacted the dealer in Appleton and informed them we would not be purchasing from them and requested our refund on the unused portion of the extended warranty on the 33PS. After running in a few circles that the dealer sent us on and dealing with the resulting frustration over the course of a month or so we completed a complaint form from the Wisconsin Consumer Protection Agency and mailed a copy to the dealer with a short letter indicating that if the refund was not in our hands within a week the complaint would be filed and we would contact an attorney to settle the issue for us; within days we received a call from the dealer followed closely by a refund check.

When trade day came we drove the 33PS to Burlington and shortly after we parked five employees were checking the condition of the unit. We got the walk-through of the new coach which went quickly as the systems controls were identical to the old unit. We signed the required forms and they parked our new motorhome next to the old one so we could transfer our property, as the two motorhomes sat there side by side I would swear the 35WGS was twice as long as the 33PS; after we moved into the new one it seemed twice as large inside. It was apparent very early that we would be happy with this motorhome and prayed that we would have better luck in this one.