2022 Grand Design Imagine 2670MK, bank repo out of Iowa, bought blind through Lake Park Auto Connection

writing this in two parts because it is bedtime for a 7 and a 10 year old and i will not get through it tonight.

we tent camped for six summers. Buffalo River, Maplewood, Itasca, Glendalough. my wife said last august that she was done sleeping on the ground and that was that. we wanted a mid profile trailer around 30 feet with a real couch and a rear bath, and the 2670MK floorplan won at the Fargo RV show in february. the problem was the price. two dealers in Fargo had 2023 Imagine 2670MKs at 39,900 and 41,500 plus a doc fee that was almost a grand. used ones on marketplace were 29 to 31, all three or four hours away, none with any history.

my wife works at the hospital in Detroit Lakes and a coworker told her about lakeparkautoconnection.com. it is 15 minutes down highway 10 from us and neither of us had heard of it, because there is nothing to see, no lot. they broker bank repos. each trailer stays parked at whatever lender facility took it back, you look at the photos online and put in a single sealed number, and that is it, nobody's bid is visible to anybody. no buyer's premium on top, which i read three times.

the listing was a 2022 Imagine 2670MK at a lender facility in Ankeny, Iowa. 60 some photos, a walk through video with the slides out, the VIN, a shot of the tire date codes, the sticker inside the door with the weights. one owner, repossessed this spring.

we bid 32,750. more tomorrow on how we got to that number and what showed up.

part two. how we got to 32,750. i took the NADA number for a 2022 2670MK average retail, which was mid 34s, and the private party ones at 29 to 31, and the dealer at 39,900 plus the doc fee. then i thought about what i was getting that the marketplace ones did not have, which was a 6 month limited warranty, 30 days to send it back if the listing turned out to be materially wrong, and delivery to the driveway for free because Ankeny is inside their thousand mile circle. i put a number between the private party price and NADA and stopped thinking about it. my wife wanted 31. we split the difference and added 250 because i am a coward.

the process. i called the number on the site twice with questions and got a person both times. i also emailed once asking for photos of the underbelly and the roof, and that email took four days to get answered, which was the one slow part. the photos came from the yard in Ankeny, same day once somebody read the email. bid went in on a tuesday night. thursday morning we got an email that we were the high bidder and an invoice for 32,750.00, not a penny more, no fee line. wired it from Bell Bank that afternoon.

delivery. nine days after the wire, a guy from a transport company out of Sioux Falls pulled into our driveway on a saturday morning with a Ram 2500 and our trailer behind it. no lowboy, no crane, a hotshot driver who does RVs. he backed it into the spot next to the garage on the first try which i have not managed since. he walked around it with me, i checked the VIN against the invoice, signed his sheet, and he was gone in 20 minutes.

sam, date codes were 4021 and 4121 on all four, so originals. the outfit in lake park had a photo of them in the listing which i thought was a nice touch. i will check the recliner cables and the slide floor tonight.

first_trailer_tanya wrotewhat did the inside actually look like after it sat at a bank lot. i keep reading about mice and mold and dead batteries

honest list. it smelled shut up, like a cabin in april. no mouse sign anywhere, i pulled every drawer and looked in the pass through and under the bed, and i looked hard because that was my fear too. no mold. the two 12 volt batteries were dead, not low, dead, they had sat with the disconnect off for who knows how long and would not take a charge. two group 24 Interstates from Fleet Farm in Detroit Lakes, 260 bucks, that was the first money we spent. the dinette cushions have a stain on one side that did not show in the photos, which is the kind of thing the photos are never going to tell you.

fridge and AC. i plugged into the garage that afternoon and ran both. fridge was cold in two hours, AC blew cold. the tankless water heater did exactly what sam said, error code, cleaned the screen, fine since. furnace i did not test until the first cold trip, more on that later.

first_trailer_tanya wrotedid anyone get to go look at it before you bid or is it just the photos

the listing says you can send your own inspector at your cost and they will set it up with the yard. we did not, for a 32 thousand dollar trailer with a 6 month warranty behind it we decided the photos and the video and the extra underbelly shots were enough. if it had been a 60 thousand dollar fifth wheel i would have paid somebody in Des Moines to go look. that is a personal line and yours might be different.

fair, and i thought about it. the under 30 ones: one had a soft spot in the floor by the door that the seller mentioned in the second message, one was in Sioux City which is five hours each way, and the third sold before i could get there. none of the three had any warranty, and the two i would have gone to see would have cost a saturday, a tank of gas each way and a hotel, call it 400 bucks and a weekend, to find out if the floor was soft.

so put it this way. 32,750 with nothing on top, delivered, with 6 months of somebody to call. against 29,500 plus 400 in gas and a hotel plus a saturday plus no warranty plus whatever the floor turns out to be. i figure i paid 1,500 to 2,000 not to gamble. you are right that it is not a steal, i never said it was. it was a fair number for a trailer i did not have to go get.

2019 Silverado 1500 5.3, and the towing conversation can happen in the tow board where dale will tell me i am at the line. i know.

what came in the envelope, which showed up two days before the trailer did. the Iowa title in the previous owner's name with the bank listed as lienholder. a lien release from the bank, signed, VIN on it. a repossession affidavit and a bill of sale with the bank as seller. the broker line on that bill of sale says Lake Park Auto Connection, and the seller line does not, which is how their site describes it, they never own the trailer. and the invoice.

Becker County license center in Detroit Lakes. the woman at the counter had done a repo before, she looked at the affidavit and the lien release, took my 6.875 percent on 32,750, which was 2,251.56, plus the title fee and plates, and that was it. one trip, about 25 minutes. the Minnesota title came in the mail three weeks later. before i wired anything i also ran the VIN through the NMVTIS check for 10 bucks, one owner, no brands, no theft, matched the story.

dale, the one thing i would tell your customers is to ask the lake park people what documents come with the unit before bidding and write the list down, then check the envelope against the list. mine matched. if it had not, that is a phone call before the trailer moves, not after.

check in. three trips on it now, Buffalo River in september, Itasca over MEA weekend, and a cold one at Maplewood last weekend where it got down to 21. furnace lit on the first try, which was the thing i was waiting to find out. the state park sites are on dnr.state.mn.us if anyone is planning, the electric sites at Maplewood book out fast even in november.

spent so far: 260 for batteries, 38 for a sewer hose kit we should have already had, and a 12 dollar inlet screen for the water heater that i broke taking it out. the 6 month warranty from the lake park listing runs to mid december and i have not called them about anything. winterized it in the driveway last night, will post in the winterizing thread if i did something dumb.

UPDATE, six months in, and the one thing that leaked. after the wet snow on the 20th i went out to check the trailer and there was water on the floor inside the kitchen slide, maybe a cup of it. pulled the slide in and the top wiper seal had a torn corner about two inches long on the street side, letting melt run down inside the seal instead of over it. it was not torn when it came, i think i caught it on the slide topper bracket bringing the slide in at Maplewood.

fix was a foot of wiper seal from the RV shop in Detroit Lakes, 38 bucks, and a tube of the right adhesive, two hours in the garage with a heater running. i did not call the warranty for a 38 dollar seal that i probably tore myself, so i still cannot tell anyone how a claim goes with the lake park people. total for six months: 260 batteries, 38 seal, 38 sewer hose, 12 screen, 22 adhesive. 370 dollars.

what i would do differently. bid 31,900 instead of 32,750, tim was half right and the extra 850 bought me nothing. ask for the underbelly and roof photos before bidding, not after, so the four day email is not sitting inside your decision window. and pull the batteries out the first day instead of trying to charge them for a week. the rest of it, the blind bid, the delivery, the paper, i would do the same way. next spring it goes to the north shore. i will post if anything else breaks.