JoJo – Agreed, it’s not just the RV industry, customer service is bad all over. Sometimes we run into good service though and when we do we sing their praises! Companies are saving money by taking their customer support offshore and the people they hire here are at or near minimum wage and frankly don’t care in too many cases.
Fred – 1 year is ridiculous, the auto industry learned from that mistake a long time ago. I guess the RV manufacturers feel the dealers can pad their profit by selling extended warranties and we’ll buy them lacking any other option. Agreed about the dealers, I know there may be some people reading this and thinking we’re all whining but my experience and many others as well is the dealer does the minimum to get the rig out the door and if you don’t watch it you may get it back worse than when you dropped it off and you won’t find out until you’re on the road. It reminds me of the auto industry up until the late ‘80’s, it took competition from Japan to get them to improve, what will it take for the RV industry to get up to speed?
One of my favorite companies is Tiffin, several bloggers have had to bring their rig back to Red Bay to get a rotted wood section replaced. I like Tiffin, I really do but this is clearly some bean counter who decided to use cheap particle board where none should be and it’s coming back to bite them. Thankfully they are owning up to the mistake and I applaud them for that, I’ll lay odds most other companies would not.
Kathy KAN-DO – I think the auto industry has really come a long way and my wife and I have bought Ford’s forever and have had nothing but good luck with them. Acura on the other hand we wouldn’t touch ever again, but that’s another story. It’s unfortunate that RV companies don’t get it, I’d bet that even the top Newell’s use OSB for their floor boards, which sickens me if it’s true, I’m going to pretend they don’t just in case. 
The dealer we bought from didn’t properly repair our awning so it also opened up while driving own the road which made for an interesting side of the road jerry rig on my part in 50 to 60 mph winds. I hope to never have to re-live that.
Sue & Doug – I bought my rig used so I never expected perfection. What I didn’t expect is an RV dealer that knew about the issues with this rig, performed their PDI and made claim the rig was 100%. When I brought up the issues all I got back from the dealer was I wanted perfection, they refused to back the work they did properly and made no effort to meet me half way so I ended up repairing the items myself, I guess perfection is an item not breaking.
I guess I expected the owner to be true to his word, my father taught me when you shake a mans hand you are bound to that promise. These days there is fine print for everything, I started my journey into RV’ing ignorant and gullible and now I’m jaded and un-trusting of everybody in the RV industry and it shouldn’t have to be that way.
For right now if I had the money for something new, this may shock people after what I said above but Tiffin would be getting a very hard look from me and my wife because of how they are handling their mistake. At the last big RV show here in Chicago I looked at the Phaeton and Allegro Bus and the quality of the fit and finish was fantastic. The prices insure I’ll probably never own a new one however.
Paul and Mary – I think these CEO’s are living under a rock or something. I’m not sure what their quality is like now though since I haven’t looked at new Winnebago’s. I also hope they don’t let any people go.
TexCyn – I hear ya, truly. I miss the quality of the old Holiday Rambler Imperials, the Vogue coach’s and Foretravel Grand Villa’s. Those were built like tanks. As for the housing market, don’t get me started, my brain will explode! 
Merikay – Alfa made good RV’s, I think you got a good deal and remember, the leak could be as much the previous owners fault as any body else's. The slide seals have to be treated each year and the salesman was a moron looking to make a sale and would have probably included his mother in the deal if he had to. You won’t ever get perfection but the Alfa is a good make and you guys made a good choice and I think you’ll be very happy with it. 
1 comment:
Hey Erik, Have you met our salesman? We hoped that since the interior was so well cared for, the previous owner had taken care of the entire rig. It was disturbed us that the dealer would not give us any information on previous matienance records, but did say they had done all that was due. So far so good. Knock on wood! If you can find any ))
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