Here are some insider tips from RVtravel.com founder and publisher Chuck Woodbury, based on a few decades of RVing:
• Avoid camping on an outside corner of a campground’s loop road. At night, the lights of other campers coming and going will shine onto your RV. Choose, instead, the inside campsite where headlights of passing vehicles will shine away from you, not at you.
• Always inquire when checking into a campground about discounts for various organizations you might belong to — Good Sam, AARP, FMCA, Escapees or AAA. It can’t hurt to ask if there’s a military discount. Heck, maybe they’ll honor your Safeway card (you never know unless you ask).
• Before reserving a campsite that you have not seen in person, check that the site does not back up to railroad tracks or a busy highway. And be sure final approach at the local airport does not pass low, directly above you (however, if you’re an aviation buff, maybe you’ll like that).
• Be sure you know the exact address of where you are staying especially in public campgrounds. In an emergency, when calling 911, you don’t want to summon help to “a campground in the National Forest near Denver.” A specific address will bring help much faster.
• Don’t assume when you buy an RV from a dealer that sells a particular brand of RV that you are entitled to obtaining service at a dealer elsewhere that sells the same brand. RVs are not like cars, where any Ford dealer, for example, is required to take you in for repairs even if you bought your vehicle from a Ford dealer elsewhere. RV dealers play by different rules.
Your tip about RV dealers and service is on point! I will add though that the same has been true for car dealers as well (at least my experience). We purchased our son’s car from a dealer in MO before he left for college in FL. There was a dealer close to him in FL which became the place for service when needed but he always went to the end of the line. They never came out and said that but you could tell.
They have to honor warranty coverage, they don’t have to honor when they can work on your vehicle. Their customers come first, which if you think about it is fair. If I were in business and one of my customers came in for service I’m going to take care of my customer before I take care of a stranger, that’s common sense, you don’t bite the hand of the person that feeds you. Warranty work pays much less than customer pay jobs, ask any mechanic they’d rather work on customer pay any day.
The best solution to the no service for non buyers dealers is to avoid ALL dealerships. Find an appropriate service center that does just that, call the manufacturer’s service number for a name, ask the campground manager. For non automotive problems seek a mobile service tech. I had a refrigerator failure on a Saturday and used the Dometic web site to find a local tech who had it fixed by 8 PM that night, ON A SATURDAY!