Buyer Beware!
We bought a used Sprinter/Freightliner camper van from Campers' Corner in the summer to take it back up North. When we went to pick it up it the generator didn't work...They tried to fix it, couldn't get it to work right, and told us to come back in the morning, and it would be ready...We live 100 miles away so we had to stay overnight in a local motel. We waited all the next day for them to tell us it was ready, and by 4:00pm we went over and still not fixed. They said they would send it out for repair.
We had to go North in our SUV, and couldn't wait for it... and when they said it was ready (weeks later), my wife flew back down to Florida to pick it up and drive it North.
When she got there the generator still didn't work...(They never told her when she called to say she was coming to pick it up)... but she needed to get back up North.
She asked the mechanic if the brakes were sound - if they checked the brakes? They said they had, and the brakes were fine.
She proceeded to drive up to New England, through the Carolinas right in the middle of what became a hurricane.
As the generator didn't work, she couldn't use the A/C for camping over night, so she had to stay in hotels all the way.
She finally got home several days later.
The next day we took it out so I could practice driving it, and I noticed the brakes were grinding, that the rear calipers felt like were locking and there was considerable difficulty breaking.
We took our Camper van to Freightliner truck repair center, and they determined there were no brake pads left on the rear brakes, "metal on metal", that the calipers were "freezing up," and the rotors were ground down and warped. IT cost us over $1000 to make it safe to drive.
The next day I called the mechanic and asked him tell me exactly how he "checked the brakes," as he had told my wife that day she picked it up.
He said "we drive it a little and see if it stops. If we don't notice anything wrong we assume they're safe."
Dont' you even look at the wheels to see what's what?" I asked
... "Nope"
I told the owner what his mechanic said and he said that we bought it "as is" and they have "no responsibility for repairing anything".
He refused to reimburse me for the brake job.
He did offer to install a new generator (at wholesale cost to him), if I was willing to pay half the $3000. retail price for the generator.
This is nuts! No one should have to go through this and unknowingly risk their lives driving a 10,000+ pound vehicle. especially after being told it was "safe".
Lesson here: Don't buy a motorized RV, (or any trailer for that matter), until you have an independent mechanic go over it very carefully.
And I strongly suggest you shop elsewhere. read more