Service Contracts--did you buy?

[creativepart]

Think long and hard about that Sales Tax game that New Mexico is playing with out of state buyers. We bought our new motorhome in New Mexico. Had we registered in NM we would have saved $4,000. But we found out that if for any reason we ran into trouble - a ticket or a wreck - that having New Mexico plates and no connection to that state would make things very bad.

New Mexico passed this provision to complete with Texas and other states. And, they made it so you can renew your registration from out of state, too. It applies only to RVs and Texas isn’t happy about it.

We read some horror stories about people being forced to pay sales tax in both states.

It was 5+ years ago so I no longer have the info but you should do some searching. We got temp plates to drive home and registered the motorhome in Texas and paid the full sales tax here.

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by JillABean

I am going to pay the $500 (high estimate) to go for a day or over night to inspect! Just want to make sure. I don’t feel comfortable buying sight unseen.

Originally Posted by JillABean

And tax is 4% vs 7.75% !!!

And NM let’s you license with an out of state address and long as I go and take possession in the state so licensing fees are only like $70-80 vs $600!

It’s crazy! I have really looked into it to make sure everything was legit! I am going to go for a day or over night trip for about a $500 flight to inspect it and do the “orientation”.

Not sure what state you live in, but if you checked it out; I have no reason to not believe, but I do say Caveat Emptor.

In our case, we live in Texas. Found the RV and deal we wanted in Florida. I spoke with Sales Manager BEFORE booking our flights. They agreed to....
1. Allow us as much time we wanted for PDI ( we took 6 hours)
2. Agreed to send Bill of Sale knowing that under no circumstances; I was NOT going to buy ANY options or any extended warranty. (they made us sit through the requests, but a very pissed Finance Manager walked through it very fast 10 min max)
3. By law we had to pay the sales taxes in Florida, but Texas and Florida have reciprocating sales tax plans, they processed for us our Texas title in Florida When I went to pay the Registration to get the actual plates they verified my Sales Taxes were previously paid at the time of sale in Florida. Two months later I got a refund from dealership as they said they have overcharge the taxes. I assume delta between what Texas actually charged versus what I had paid in Florida or something similar? I never ask question on refunds...


If you travel a lot I doubt you ever get caught, but me personally, I would go nuts if my RV had NM plates, because everyone that knows me; know I live in Texas. I guess you never have to do inspections, or go to NM once a year?

Back to the Inspection.
I had a very detailed PDI Inspection checklist. I sent copy to the dealership and they knew what I was going to look for in advance and they knew it was going to take a long time. I did everything by the book, except the roof stuff. At the time, you could not pay me to get up on a RV roof We flew into West Palm Beach FL ( one way tickets) they picked us up and we did not finish until 6:30 PM that night. The Sales lady put a 12 pack of Heinekens in fridge; she had picked up that was my favorite over the calls. We had a 3 day break in trip back to Dallas. By the time we got home, I kind of knew what I was doing