Quality of workmanship/product


darwinbene

New Member
I have just became a registered user and was looking at the different fourms. Under the "General" heading I was reading about the Forest River line of products and what was happening with customer service.

In my opinion, the entire industry is in lack of quality workmanship. This is my story:

The wife and I have been RVing since 2000 and we started out buying a used pakage. The TT was about 1 year + and still had the warranty in force. The slide on the trailer was out of alingment to the point it was pulling the dinning booth apart. Which, when we looked at the unit, was conveniently covered up. After some diagnoising on my own, determined it should be looked at and repaired by a factory certified repair shop and the shop did repair it to our satisfaction.

We traded that unit off in spring of 2002 for a McKenzie Medallion 36' 5th wheel. Had a lot of problems with this unit also. The Black tank was always smelling bad and could never get it flushed out completley. Had a devil of a time getting the carpet replace in one of the slide outs, because it was cut to short on the corners. After about 18 months the self seeking satellite quit working because the connections were not sealed properly and moisture corroded. The landing gear jacks motor burned up because it was not correctly installed.

We were tired of fighting with constant problems and traded it off. Traded for a Gulf Stream Praire Schooner, thinking it was a better company. Little did we know. The 5th whell arrived at the dealership the day we were looking and we were in Missiouri near Osage Beach. After two days decided to trade. Boy was that a mistake. It, too, has been a headache. The black water tank and fresh water tank have both fallen out of their supports, that took an act of congress to repair. Gulf Stream does not have a factory certified repair shop. They depend on private repair shops and then it takes about 3 weeks for the repairs and parts. There is all kinds of hoops to jump through to get them to pay for the repairs and parts. It is one year old and has four kitchen sinks replaced, along with all kinds of leaks in the plumbing system of hoses and pipes, the slides have an alignment problem, in my opinion, and the latest has just been repair where the glide came loose and ripped the underlayment of the living room slide.

I think the RV industry is in such demand for units that they are slapped together without any quality control at the factories. Maybe there approach is to fix after building a unit. Let the owners fight the battle. It is so frustrating and to think these units command $40,000 to $80,000 depending on the supposed line of RV. But then as comsumers we fork over the money and down the road we go having to fix and repair until traded off and start all over again.

Just some of my thoughts, Darwin :angry:
 

DL Rupper

Senior Member
Re: Quality of workmanship/product

In a nutshell besides being cheap, we have kept our 1995 HitchHiker II because it has been a pretty good unit and we are afraid of getting a bad one. :bleh:
 

C Nash

Senior Member
Re: Quality of workmanship/product

As long as there is mass production we will have quality problems in any brand. Doubt that we could afford a handcrafted one :eek: . How many times have we bought something and found that it was useless. Try using some of the tools sold now. Had an operation on my knee 6 weeks ago and now they tell me I will have to have a knee replacement or live with it. Not trying to take up for the rv industry but, it will not get better until we quit buying or somebody makes a trouble free unit. That being said we have had very little trouble with our 2002 HR Vacationer and it's a Monaco product. Now where can I knock on some wood :laugh: :laugh:
 
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