drives2022 Thor Magnitude SV34 on a Ford F-550, 6.7 Power Stroke
the Seneca thread made me think somebody should write up the other way of doing it. we did not bid. we paid the Buy Now price.
us: Fort Myers, both semi retired, and we had a 2014 Four Winds on the E-450 gas chassis that we sold in the spring after it needed front end work and brakes in the same month. we wanted a diesel and we wanted to be in something before the season started in November.
the coach: 2022 Thor Magnitude SV34 on the Ford F-550, 6.7 Power Stroke, 18,900 miles, on a lender's yard near Macon, Georgia. it had both options, a sealed bid or a Buy Now of $131,500. Florida dealers had 2022 SV34s from $159,000 to $178,000 in August. i looked at that spread for about a day and decided i did not want to spend a week wondering if somebody would outbid me by a hundred dollars. clicked Buy Now. the Buy Now number is what you pay, conaway's adds nothing on top of it.
Macon to our house is about 480 miles, so the delivery line was zero. wire went out on a monday, it was here eleven days later.
if anybody wants to see how their listings are laid out, the site is conawaysautosales.com.
snowbird_since_2016Long haulerMesa, AZ
drives2016 Dynamax DX3 37BH on a Freightliner M2 106, towing a 2014 CR-V
good write up. two questions from an M2 guy. how does the F-550 ride compared to the bigger chassis, and did you think at all about bidding under the Buy Now to see what happened? you might have saved real money, or you might have lost it entirely.
freightliner_m2_techFull timerGaffney, SC
drivesother people's M2 106s all week, a 2015 Dynamax DX3 37RB on weekends
i am the M2 guy who also works on F-550s, so a couple of things for you.
the F-550 is a lighter chassis than the M2 and the coach builders use more of it. take it to a CAT scale with full fuel, full fresh water and everything you normally carry, and weigh each axle. you want to know how close you are to the door sticker before you load the grandkids and a golf cart.
and have a Ford service desk check the VIN for any recalls you might have open. free, ten minutes, and nobody else is going to do it for a repo.
magnitude_sv34OPDay tripperFort Myers, FL
drives2022 Thor Magnitude SV34 on a Ford F-550, 6.7 Power Stroke
ride: firmer than the Seneca i drove at a show, more like a big pickup, but it is shorter and i can park it at Publix, which matters more to my wife than ride quality.
bidding: i thought about it for exactly one evening. the conaway's listing showed the Buy Now and the bid option side by side, and the way i figured it, whatever i might save by going under it, i could also lose the coach to somebody else and be shopping again in October. we paid for certainty. i am fine with that.
mike, did the scale. CAT scale off I-75 north of here, full fuel and water, the two of us and our stuff: 1,100 lbs under the sticker GVWR, rear axle the closest. no golf cart, then. recalls came back with one software update which the Ford dealer on Colonial did in an afternoon.
one real fault so far. the power entry step would not come out the day it arrived. blown fuse in the panel by the door. $4 for a pack of them at the auto parts store. conaways photographed that step in the out position, so it worked at some point, probably before the battery sat dead for a summer.
seneca_37k_ownerWeekenderKnoxville, TN
drives2021 Jayco Seneca 37K on a Freightliner M2 106, Cummins 6.7 and Allison 3000
funny to see the other side of it. i did not even consider Buy Now because the Seneca i wanted did not have one, so i got to sweat it out bidding blind instead. your way, you know what you paid and that you got it. my way, i still do not know if i paid too much or barely beat somebody.
for people reading both threads: some lots on Conaway's Auto Sales have a Buy Now and some do not. i would not have known that if i had not looked at a few dozen before bidding.
bunk_over_cab_kidsDay tripperGreen Bay, WI
drives2018 Jayco Seneca 37TS on a Freightliner M2 106, three kids in the cab bunk
question about the SV34 specifically. how big is the cab over bunk? we have three kids and the oldest is outgrowing ours in the Seneca. we keep looking at shorter coaches for when they leave but they are 14, 11 and 8 so that is a ways off.
magnitude_sv34OPDay tripperFort Myers, FL
drives2022 Thor Magnitude SV34 on a Ford F-550, 6.7 Power Stroke
ha. the bunk is our honest limitation, actually. the dimensions were right there in the listing and in Thor's brochure and i never measured. our grandson is 15 and already six foot one, and he fits up there like a folded lawn chair. he slept on the dinette over New Year's instead.
and to be clear, that is on me. the 30 day money back at conaway's is for a lot that was materially misrepresented, and this was represented just fine. i did not read it.
otherwise we spent three nights at Koreshan State Park in Estero last week and it was the coach doing exactly what we bought it for. bunk aside, i would click Buy Now again.
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