2018 Tiffin Phaeton 40QBH, took the Buy Now on the m&a listing instead of bidding, Wildwood to Pensacola

Ray, Pensacola. retired Navy, then 16 years at the paper mill in Cantonment. my wife Gloria and I have had two Tiffins, an Allegro Red and now this. I bought it a different way than Ted did in the New Aire thread so I figured it deserved its own write up.

2018 Phaeton 40QBH, the bath and a half floorplan, Cummins 380 with the Allison six speed, 41,300 miles. the bank had it parked in Wildwood, down by the Villages. mid May I came across it on the m&a listing, and it had a Buy Now price on it of 179,500 next to the sealed bid.

I took the Buy Now. here's why. hurricane season starts June 1st. if I bid, I wait for the close, and if I lose I'm back to looking in July with storms in the Gulf. if I win, delivery runs about two weeks after that. with Buy Now it was mine that week, wired on a Thursday, and it was in our covered storage off Nine Mile Road on June 3rd. Wildwood to here is about 430 miles, inside the free delivery, so that line on the invoice was a zero too.

I priced it before I pushed the button. dealers had 2018 40QBH coaches from 189,000 to 215,000 with similar miles, and one private sale in Mobile at 175,000 that needed tires. so it wasn't the cheapest coach in the Southeast, but it was close and it was clean.

probably, Marv. if I'd bid 165,000 I might have gotten it, and I might not. I'll never know and that's the trade. I paid maybe ten or fifteen thousand for knowing in May instead of June. Gloria says that's what insurance is, paying to not worry. with the Gulf as warm as it was this year, I'd do it again.

the other numbers. Florida takes 6 percent sales tax on a coach plus the county surtax on the first 5,000, so 10,770 plus 75 at the Escambia tax collector. no surprise there, just a big check. the Florida title came over from the lender with the lien release and the tag office had it done in 25 minutes.

the one thing wrong with it: the patio awning ran out fine and wouldn't come back in the last foot. turned out the plug at the awning motor had worked half loose, probably on a trailer or a bumpy yard. pushed it in, zip tied it, zero dollars. I was ready to call m&a about it before I got up on the ladder. glad I looked first.

Labor Day weekend at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, 45 minutes from the house, which is how far Gloria wanted to go on the first trip. coach ran fine. dale, did the generator thing, and i'm drained and refilled on DEF. watching the tropics now like everybody else on this coast, the covered storage is the best money we spent this year after the coach itself.