RV Parts Near Me

You own an older RV and you find yourself wanting (and in some cases, needing) to upgrade your rig inside and out. There’s a lot to consider when choosing to move forward with improvements to your recreational vehicle. You have to make a prioritized list of what repairs and improvements that you need to make first. With that list you need to ask yourself, ‘What are am I looking for?’ Do you need a new amber colored tail light? Are you looking to replace a lighting scheme with more attractive decorative illuminations? Where can you place your largest fingerprint on your RV to make adjustments that will satisfy you, and wow your friends, family, and other travelers?
One of the first problems you face is that out there in the world there is a vast array of aftermarket RV part purveyors. Every one of them is clamoring for your attention. It creates a lot of white noise when so many businesses are pawing at you in an attempt to capture your hard-earned dollars. How do you wind your way through the sea of confusion that is the RV aftermarket? How do you find the real legitimate sellers versus the suppliers who grossly mark up their products so your purchases can fulfill their unfair margins? A lot of research is needed to make sure you and your family get a fair deal when you spend your money.
In this article, we will cover how you can decide which dealer is a good fit for you, how to find the best bargains, and where you can find parts near you (or, dealers that have excellent shipping guarantees so that location and delivery times make proximity a non-issue.)

1.Going the Distance for Your Recreational Vehicle

The RV market, while wide and varied, is still a specialized market within the automotive industry. When you need a special part for your recreational vehicle you would be hard pressed to run on down to your local automotive parts store and find it on the shelf. That’s why cultivating a good relationship with an aftermarket parts specialist is important when you decide to purchase an RV. One of the realities that you will face as a recreational vehicle owner is that with the RV lifestyle you will find yourself and your rig in the mechanic’s shop semi-frequently. With so many components in one compartmentalized space, there is a lot that can go wrong. One way to cope with that reality (and to save a rapid succession of hits to your pocketbook) is to become a seasoned Do-it-Yourself RV expert.
Once you decide to apprise yourself of the in’s and outs of RV repair, you need to find an aftermarket parts dealer that you can trust. Even in doing that, it may not be enough to keep your RV on the road. If you’re busy like the rest of the world, you may need an extra hand in facilitating repairs. It may not be enough that you can repair what ails your RV, it may simply be a time constraint issue.
Now, your first option is to find a repair and supply center that is not only close but can work as a one-stop-shop for all of your RV needs. This may prove to be difficult because most shops aren’t equipped to handle the sheer size of an RV, nor will they have the expertise, in-house, to be able to repair your rig. Unless you live in the RV Capital of the World, Elkhart, Indiana, proximity to a proper repair and supply shop could be a real issue. A reasonable amount of travel time for a repair house (considering the specialized nature of an RV) is roughly two hours from your home. While this seems a long way to get your RV repaired, access to specialized repair hubs could require you to travel that far, or even further, to get your RV serviced. Honestly, when it comes to repairs, you need to try to be your RV’s mechanic and best friend.
If you can’t find someone locally (or find someone locally that you can trust to work on your motor-home) then an aftermarket sales shop is the way to go. One name you can trust in the aftermarket industry is RecPro. RecPro is a premier supplier of aftermarket RV, automotive, marine, concession, and food truck parts. We have some of the best shipping times, customer care, and warranty/return policies in the RV and RV aftermarket industry. If you need a “customer first” company with top-notch Google, eBay, Amazon and Wal-Mart and other eCommerce storefront service ratings, then look no further than RecPro.com. We absolutely specialize in cultivating relationships with our customers before, during, and after the point of purchase. We also are very forward-proactive in making sure you succeed in your efforts to upgrade or repair your RV.

2.Not All Aftermarket Shops are Created Equally

One of the benefits of the aftermarket industry is that you have a lot of variety to choose from. You have the ability to select from a myriad of providers with multiple lines that will fit your wants and needs. But, how do you wade through all of the sellers to find one who will be your ‘right fit’? There are pitfalls all along the journey to finding this right aftermarket vendor:
A.The Re-seller’s, re-seller’s, re-seller…
One thing you will find when shopping suppliers are that the market is flooded with multiple resellers who are not only third and fourth-tier suppliers but who are just drop shippers. What does that mean? In the B2C relationship (B2C = business to consumer) you typically will have a business who has a stocking warehouse on site or a DC(s) (distribution center(s)) that can physically put their hands on a product once it is ordered, put it in a box, and ship it out relatively quickly (depending on the level of expediency of their shipping and receiving departments.)
Those types of suppliers (like RecPro who is a stocking supplier), if they are within a short distance, are few and far between. The industry standard has become one where most adopt a hands-off approach to aftermarket sales. They exist in name only and have offices where they direct consumer traffic. The orders come in, and the products go out. That is, of course, if their suppliers (which could be halfway across the world) have the parts you want in stock. Normally, because these types of third (and sometimes fourth and even fifth) tier suppliers don’t have connective recognition of their suppliers’ inventory so they don’t have real-time data regarding stocking levels. This means you could be waiting for weeks, and even months, for a crucial part for your recreational vehicle. These aftermarket sales organizations are called “drop-shippers” and while most companies participate in some form of drop-shipping (because housing hundreds-of-thousands of items can be cost-prohibitive) the ones that operate solely with drop shipping increase problems ten-fold with the items they offer.
The other problem you run into with re-sellers who are many tiers down the line and drop-ship only are they sometimes purchase from suppliers who buy from suppliers who buy from suppliers who buy from the OEM (original equipment manufacturer.) What happens when this is the issue? If you think about the exponentially growing costs from one business to another, until it reaches your hands, you will understand why you paid what seemed to be an overly-bloated price for what should have been a low-cost item. You end up paying for handling, shipping, fuel, profit margin, packaging, and soft costs for each supplier that had its hands on your product.
RecPro stands apart from its competitors in the aftermarket industry because we chiefly work with direct manufacturers and are a stocking supplier for the vast majority of the items that we supply to our customers. Not only that, but we also manufacture products in-house so that we eliminate the middle-man completely and offer great pricing to our customers.
B.Quality Comes Second
Manufacturers are in business to make money. There’s not much in the way of altruism when it comes to vehicle manufacturing. Sure, somewhere in the recesses of the CEO’s mind they think about the fun their product provides. You can be sure that underneath that they’re looking at their bottom line. Understanding that, you can rest assured that they are cutting costs at every point in the manufacturing process. From uncomfortable furniture to substandard fixtures, they are cutting corners to make sure their business stays solvent, and profitable.
This type of mindset translates to the aftermarket industry, too. Many AMS (aftermarket suppliers) try to get their products as cheaply as possible, sacrificing quality, so that they can maximize their profit margins with little investment in product and labor. While this is a great business for a pure re-seller to maximize profit, the consumer loses out in the end.
With this type of business model, where the retailer is a pure drop-shipper, the quality of the parts you’ll get can be akin to something you could pull off the shelf at a dollar store. They only want to cultivate wealth, not good customer relations. When trying to find an AMS to partner with for all of your RV concerns and upgrades, you need to find one that combines quality with the level of service. You want to pick one that treats each with an equal measure of concern so that your experience on all fronts is a positive one. You want to throw your hat in with a company like RecPro. RecPro is a very customer forward company that not only makes sure that our customers receive great service, but they also receive a great product.
The corporate management at RecPro has spent hundreds of hours researching, and traveling extensively, trying to find the highest-quality products for their customers. While many of their lines are made right here in the United States, there are proprietary items that are made by manufacturers across the globe that provide the exacting specifications set down by the head office.
What happens, though, if something goes wrong? Don’t worry. RecPro will be there to help.

3.Shipping and Returns: Where the Rubber Hits the Road

So, there you are. You’ve gone to great lengths to source your product. You’ve looked for a local dealer and, after much difficulty, come up short. You researched and studied and now you have an online source for the recreational vehicle products you’re looking for. You take your first steps. You get your list together, place your order and then…
Nothing.
You wait. Like so many other consumers out there you’ve done your due diligence and yet, because of a common issue is known as “faux duality”, you find that your service is still lacking. With faux duality, you experience great customer service up front when working with your chosen company. The website looks amazing, the customer service people are welcoming and helpful, and the purchasing process has been relatively seamless. Then the downside of faux duality begins. The negative possibilities are numerous. Anything from receiving a damaged item, to the quality not being what was represented online, to not even receiving your order at all…these are all things that can happen when the back end does not match the front end.
Then you have a whole separate set of issues you have to contend with if something goes awry with your order. While you can be fairly sure that the customer service portion of trying to get your corrected will be satisfactory with a faux-duality company, because it was positive from the outset, you can’t be sure how well the return will work. Even with their assurances, the shipping process could fail again. By then you will have wasted time, money, and effort and most likely will end up with just accepting a refund if the company’s policy even allows for that possibility.
At RecPro, from the time the company began, they have instituted a customer forward return policy. As long as the consumer hasn’t stepped outside of the warranty guidelines, there’s not much they won’t do to help their customers feel like they had excellent service from front end to back end. From forklifts that stabbed all the way through couches, to bear attacks in California that destroyed a brand-new Charles sofa set, they’ve seen it all and they’ve covered it all. If you find that something is amiss with your order, you only need call the Customer Care Department at RecPro corporate headquarters right away and they will work diligently to repair the situation. It’s why they’ve maintained top ratings across the board with eCommerce websites.
If you’re concerned about shipping times with your orders you don’t need to be with RecPro. RecPro has cultivated very good relationships with primary suppliers all over the country, especially FedEx. FedEx has transportation units on-site at the RecPro warehouses waiting to take deliveries out every single day. RecPro’s policy is that if you get your order in before 2 p.m. Eastern during business hours (Monday-Friday) your order will go out unless there are extenuating circumstances that prevent immediate shipment. It must be noted that some of RecPro’s items within the lines are customized items. Items that fall under this category include (but are not limited to) baggage doors, roller shades, awnings, and concession stand/food truck doors.

4.Flexin’ that Selection

One of the biggest issues that you will contend with when selecting your aftermarket sales partner is what type of selection they have. While some may present up front with a wide variety of SKUs (stock keeping units) in the realm of 40,000 plus, they usually are just drop-shippers. You will want a business that not only has a large number of SKUs but also is a stocking warehouse.
RecPro is not only a stocking warehouse, but they also manufacture items in-house. Their policy is to be hands-on with the material they offer, as much as possible. Even with thousands of product line options they still want to have physical involvement in the ordering process so they can ensure your order is right, every time. If not, they will go the extra mile to make sure their customers are satisfied.
There are a number of AMS specialty shops out there. Whether you choose RecPro or another seller, make sure the choice you make is the right one for you.