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Gilead

I'm looking to import a Four Winds Hurricane from a private seller in the U.S. Seems like an honest guy - Director of the local chamber of commerce. Is it possible to get a third part/shipper to handle payment for the vehicle, title documents etc?

pueblopedro

I would be very careful. What year is the Hurricane? Is it the later Thor model? - see here http://www.rvlemon.com/

There is also an on-going Class action against a couple of manufacturers in the USA who failed to deliver product which had been paid for.

The upshot of this is their products are still on the used market and fetch very little money in the US, due to this knowledge being freely available.

Hurricanes were a model subject to this problem, but were taken over by Thor.

We have recently returned from the USA and there were twin slide 1998 Hurricanes selling for quite a bit less than we paid for a single slide Itasca, 1 year older!

If you have not already done so, check this NADA link and at least see what values they are currently showing for the year model concerned, and knock off at least 10%.

http://www.nadaguides.com/

If the manufacturer is Thor then provided you get the vehicle thoroughly checked out, (there are several companies offering this service, look on ebay and google), you might be OK.

Also check the Nada site for links to Government listed recalls - and ensure if there are any on that model - they have been DONE!

As far as payment, paperwork etc. You should use an Escrow company, and again they will not part with your hard earned until you have received your goods, and are happy with them.

Apart from knowing who you are dealing with and organising cash /title exchange. You will require shipment sorting out, see my post below and other posts for help/guidance on this! - for what it's worth I would always use someone who comes recommended, AND - I would never buy anything over the Internet unseen, unchecked, untried.

I have bought two RV's this way - One more or less worked out but was traumatic, and several hundreds of dollars of equipment needed replacing or repairing.

The other was a dog and cost £5000 to sort out - so BEWARE!

The next time we will fly to Florida (cheapest place bar none to buy, if you make sure that what you buy has not been flooded! - spend a few dollars & check on CARFAX or NADA for anthing you buy, private or dealer, you just need the VIN number).

Once there, we will hire a car and drive down to Tampa to Lazydays and hopefully find what we want and let them handle everything - I think it will be worth it not to have the hassle.

Don't let me put you off, but generally most Americans are nature's salesmen, and what they are selling is always the best and perfect.

Because spares / repairs over there are really easy to obtain, whilst in the UK they can be difficult and expensive, they tend to ignore things in their descriptions which might put someone off, - particularly someone from the UK.

Good Luck and remember check, check, check - private OR dealer!