Here it is!
Our Rig – we nicknamed it the “USS Dutch Star”. It is literally a home on wheels!
The Story
Interesting story on how we purchased this exciting RV! I did some preliminary research on Newmar and found their videos on the actual production floor and was blown away. The videos detailed how they built the frame, to the cabinets, insulation, paint, etc. Everything that is built in the RV is done by hand! I saw the quality and attention to detail and was sold immediately. I searched high and low for bad reviews on the web (my way of researching) and couldn’t find any!!
We live in Naperville, IL (Chicago suburb) and Newmar didn’t have any dealers in Illinois. So I called Mount Comfort RV (Indianapolis) and scheduled a Saturday appointment. Patti couldn’t come with me and we weren’t ready to buy, this was purely research (or so I thought). Met with Chris Anderson and he spent 5 hours with me! Just a wealth of knowledge and it was awesome to see the different Dutch Stars and Ventanas (the Ventana is the Newmar RV line below the Dutch Star). I seemed to always gravitate back to the Dutch Star above. I believe the outside paint job and the cabinets on the inside were just the best I had seen. Chris had me test drive the rig and I was sooo intimidated. I actually thought at one point that this was a bad idea. Chris gave me a couple of tips and after 5 minutes, I felt much better about driving something as big as this.
The Negotiation
We got back to the dealership and after a long day, I was ready to get home (had a 5 hour drive ahead of me). Here is where it gets interesting. Chris takes me back to his office and leaves to look for a brochure. 20 minutes later the owner of the dealership comes in and he is ready to give me a deal. I told him I am not ready to buy and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I did love the RV and decided to play the game and see how far I can bring the number down. We went back and forth 5 times and we arrived at the number I believed was competitive. I gave him my credit card for a $3K deposit and BOOM, we now have an RV! I couldn’t take delivery because we had to get financing (which took 4 weeks because we could only afford 10% down). I called Patti and before I could say “Hi” she asked, “What did you buy me?”. I told her what I did and she couldn’t wait to see the video. She trusts me and knew I wouldn’t do something we couldn’t handle (which is why I love her so much). I drove home with my head spinning and thinking of the zillion things we had to do now that we had an RV! Below are some of the major features we love about “The Palace”!
The Features
- Heated floors
- Automatic MCD shades with remote control
- No propane! The rig uses hydronic heating for heat and continuous hot water
- Ultra steer on the Freightliner chassis
- Dishwasher!!
- Dinette
- No carpet anywhere. Even the slideouts have the floor tile.
- Huge master bath!
- We decided to pull the couch out on the driver side and have 2 recliners installed. The table in between the chairs came from my man cave and it matches the cabinets perfectly. The recliners are the most comfortable chairs we ever sat in.
There are many other features we like but the above are our favorite. We get so many great comments about the rig we chose and it definitely feels like home. We absolutely went over our initial budget but I felt if we were going to do this, lets do it right. In my research, I saw so many people wanting to upgrade after a year on the road because they were focused more on budget and not what was needed. I didn’t want to go thru that.
