2021 Momentum 395MS, bank repo out of a Texas lender yard, and my first 30 days checklist

day 8 of owning this thing, so i am going to do what i do at work and make a list, then tick it off where you can all see it. i'm curt, i do HVAC service in Washington County, my son is 17 and between us we have two RZRs. mine is a 2020 XP 4 1000, his is a 2019 XP 1000 he paid half of himself. for six years we hauled them on a flatbed and slept in a wall tent at Sand Hollow. my wife decided last spring that was over.

the trailer: 2021 Grand Design Momentum 395MS. it came from a bank repo that conaway's had listed, sitting at the lender's yard outside Fort Worth. for anyone who has not done this: they are a broker for the banks, they do not own the units, and you bid without ever seeing it. the photo set was 61 pictures and a walkaround video. i asked by email for two more, the Onan hour meter and the garage floor with the mats pulled, and got both in two days. the hour meter read 212.

the bid is sealed. nobody sees anybody else's number. i put in 58,000 the first week and sat on it, then raised mine to 62,400 the morning it closed. that won it. the bid was the price, there was no premium line added under it. comparable 2021 395MS units at dealers between here and Las Vegas were asking 79 to 84 thousand in september.

the part that took the longest was money. there is no financing through them because the title has the bank's lien on it until the trailer is paid in full, so i had to have my credit union loan approved before i bid. that took eight business days and a stack of pay stubs. then you pay the whole amount by wire.

wired on october 16. it was in my driveway october 29 behind a hotshot driver's Ram. 1,147 miles on their sheet, the first thousand free and 70 cents a mile after that, so delivery was 102.90. the title and the notarized paperwork came in an envelope with the keys, handed to me by the driver.

so here is the list. thirty days from delivery puts me at november 28. i will repost it with boxes ticked as things get done.

1. CAT scale empty, then loaded. pin weight and axle weight both ways
2. every garage D-ring: look underneath, check the nuts, pull on each one with a bar
3. fuel station: run the pump, find the filter, figure out how old the gas in the tank is
4. Onan 5500: oil, plug, air filter, then two hours with a real load on it
5. ramp door: cables, hinges, the spring assist, patio fittings
6. tire date codes on every tire and the spare
7. roof walk, sealant around every vent and the front cap seam
8. LP leak check, and the dates on the LP and CO detectors
9. batteries: what is in there and whether they hold a charge
10. water: sanitize the fresh tank, pull the water heater anode

full listing history is still up on conawaysautosales.com if anyone wants to see what they show you before you bid. tell me what i forgot.

frame_shop_dale said:

everything on your list is stuff you can see from standing up.

guilty. i do furnaces for a living, not frames. 11 through 13 are on the list now.

scale numbers from the CAT at the Love's in Washington, with the Ram's numbers subtracted out. empty, half a tank of gas, nothing in the garage: pin 3,060, trailer axles 11,940. loaded with both RZRs, the fuel tank full and the fresh tank empty: pin 2,610, trailer axles 15,480. so hauls_two_quads called it, the pin drops about 450 with the toys in. the Ram has room either way.

D-rings. all of them are through bolted to the cross members, which i did not know until i was on my back under there. one nut was finger loose. tightened it. no damage i could see.

hour meter read 212 when it got here, same as the photo. good.

1. CAT scale empty, then loaded. pin weight and axle weight both ways
2. every garage D-ring: look underneath, check the nuts, pull on each one with a bar
3. fuel station: run the pump, find the filter, figure out how old the gas in the tank is
4. Onan 5500: oil, plug, air filter, then two hours with a real load on it
5. ramp door: cables, hinges, the spring assist, patio fittings
6. tire date codes on every tire and the spare
7. roof walk, sealant around every vent and the front cap seam
8. LP leak check, and the dates on the LP and CO detectors
9. batteries: what is in there and whether they hold a charge
10. water: sanitize the fresh tank, pull the water heater anode
11. pin box bolts and the frame around it from dale
12. equalizers, shackles, grease the spring bolts from dale
13. pull a hub, check bearings and brake magnets from dale

rzr_and_a_ramp said:

what stops you from winning a trailer with a bent frame?

nothing stops you except the photos and the questions you ask before you bid. the conaways people inspect and photograph every lot themselves (the outfit in pataskala does the listings, the trailers sit wherever the bank parked them), and the set on mine had the pin box from both sides and the axles from underneath. if a lot was materially misrepresented there is a 30 day money back guarantee from the day it is delivered. that was part of why i bid. it is not the same as crawling under it yourself and i won't pretend it is.

progress. fuel station: the gas in the tank was old and dark. the filter was ok. ran the tank down, refilled with non ethanol, and the pump moves fuel fine. but the nozzle on the fuel station hose had a crack in the body and dripped down the garage wall every time i used it. new nozzle and a hose clamp from the RV store on Sunset was 38 dollars. that is the one actual fault so far.

Onan: oil, plug and air filter, 41 dollars in parts. ran it two hours with both ACs on. no surging.

ramp: used the rag trick from the patio cable thread. both cables clean, hinges fine, dry lube on the hinges like rzr said.

tires: date codes all 2021, which matches the trailer, so they are originals. plenty of tread. i will replace them next fall anyway because of age, not wear. LP check passed and the CO detector is dated 2021, fine for now.

jolene asked for the total so here it is. bid 62,400. delivery 102.90. Utah sales tax at the DMV, 4,212. title, registration and the uniform fee, 186. credit union loan fee 75. CAT scale twice, about 20. the nozzle 38 and the Onan parts 41. all in 67,074.90.

1. CAT scale empty, then loaded. pin weight and axle weight both ways
2. every garage D-ring: look underneath, check the nuts, pull on each one with a bar
3. fuel station: run the pump, find the filter, figure out how old the gas in the tank is
4. Onan 5500: oil, plug, air filter, then two hours with a real load on it
5. ramp door: cables, hinges, the spring assist, patio fittings
6. tire date codes on every tire and the spare
7. roof walk, sealant around every vent and the front cap seam
8. LP leak check, and the dates on the LP and CO detectors
9. batteries: what is in there and whether they hold a charge
10. water: sanitize the fresh tank, pull the water heater anode
11. pin box bolts and the frame around it from dale
12. equalizers, shackles, grease the spring bolts from dale
13. pull a hub, check bearings and brake magnets from dale

november 28 is thursday. not going to make all 13. dale's three are the hard ones and i want to do them right.

christmas week at Sand Hollow, first real trip. four nights, cold nights in the twenties, both RZRs out every day. the boy took his up the sand hill on the west side so many times i stopped counting.

before we left: repacked all the bearings like dale said, about 60 dollars in grease and seals and a saturday. batteries are two group 24s that hold a charge fine but are tired. we ran the generator a couple of hours each morning and never had a problem. i will swap to bigger batteries in the spring.

roof walk found one cracked spot in the lap sealant at the front cap seam, about four inches long. one tube of self leveling sealant, 12 dollars, done.

1. CAT scale empty, then loaded. pin weight and axle weight both ways
2. every garage D-ring: look underneath, check the nuts, pull on each one with a bar
3. fuel station: run the pump, find the filter, figure out how old the gas in the tank is
4. Onan 5500: oil, plug, air filter, then two hours with a real load on it
5. ramp door: cables, hinges, the spring assist, patio fittings
6. tire date codes on every tire and the spare
7. roof walk, sealant around every vent and the front cap seam
8. LP leak check, and the dates on the LP and CO detectors
9. batteries: what is in there and whether they hold a charge
10. water: sanitize the fresh tank, pull the water heater anode
11. pin box bolts and the frame around it from dale
12. equalizers, shackles, grease the spring bolts from dale
13. pull a hub, check bearings and brake magnets from dale

number 10 waits. we dry camped and blew out the lines before we left, and i am not sanitizing a tank in january for nothing. boise, i saw your thread, will answer there.

UPDATE, about three months in.

patio: yes, it has the patio cables and rails. like you, i couldn't find a patio mode number in the manual. we keep it to three adults and a cooler out there.

we did MLK weekend at Little Sahara, 230 miles north. full load, pin 2,630 at the scale in Cedar City on the way up, which is within 20 pounds of what i measured in november. that made me happier than it should have.

things that would have been different if i had bought from a dealer: i would have seen it before i paid, and i could have financed through them. i had to line the credit union up first, and that is where the calendar went. a dealer would also have charged me something like 15 grand more for the same trailer.

the paperwork from conaway's says the 6 month limited warranty runs to the end of april. i have not used it. the nozzle and the sealant were not worth a phone call. if you are reading this and bidding on one, the hard part for me was not the bidding. it was having the loan ready and the patience to sit on a sealed number for a week. the lots are on Conaway's Auto Sales if you want to look without bidding first, which is what i did for a month.

1. CAT scale empty, then loaded. pin weight and axle weight both ways
2. every garage D-ring: look underneath, check the nuts, pull on each one with a bar
3. fuel station: run the pump, find the filter, figure out how old the gas in the tank is
4. Onan 5500: oil, plug, air filter, then two hours with a real load on it
5. ramp door: cables, hinges, the spring assist, patio fittings
6. tire date codes on every tire and the spare
7. roof walk, sealant around every vent and the front cap seam
8. LP leak check, and the dates on the LP and CO detectors
9. batteries: what is in there and whether they hold a charge
10. water: sanitize the fresh tank, pull the water heater anode (march)
11. pin box bolts and the frame around it from dale
12. equalizers, shackles, grease the spring bolts from dale
13. pull a hub, check bearings and brake magnets from dale