The wife and I got into the RV lifestyle to lower stress and because we love RV's, what I have found is if issues arise and are not handled properly it can raise stress levels to heights unknown before buying an RV! Of course part of the problem early on was my expectation level, I fully expected the dealer to do their job, how silly is that? After all, we all are expected to do our jobs where we work and we hear about it when we make a mistake, at least we should if we expect to grow from it and do better next time.
I learned that the dealer we bought from has low expectations from their staff, the owner said he was proud of them in their work and when shown a bad mistake he would say he was proud of the job done anyway which makes you feel like an idiot he doesn’t deem worthy of listening to. As a business owner, when a customer brings an issue to my attention it’s my job to assure him/her that the issue will be resolved and the person who screwed up dealt with. You always assume the customer is right and if you find out the customer lied or what have you then you deal with it professionally but you do not praise the employee who screwed up right after being told they screwed up! This dealer really opened my eyes to how most RV dealers operate.
One other thing I have learned is the average consumer in the RV space anyway HAS lowered their expectations because I saw people at this dealership picking up their filthy rigs and saying thank you.
I even talked to one gentleman and asked him why he told the owner he was satisfied when it was obvious his coach wasn’t detailed and items from his repair list ignored. His response “I don’t want them mad at me, they might not fix my problems”. I kept in contact with him and he no longer deals with the dealer anymore either but he said what many people think, they are afraid to piss off the dealer because they’re not like car dealers, you have to actually travel a bit to find another one so bend over and take it. I know not all people are like this but enough are to make the RV dealers believe they can do as they please.
I always treat people with respect but when they screw up I let them know I’m not happy and expect something to be done about it. Well, this doesn’t work, todays mentality is the customer is not always right, they are mistaken fools that the dealer must put up with until they have left the building. Knowing this I now praise them in some way prior to letting them know a mistake has been made. I then walk them through what I “think” is a mistake and let them tell me I’m right or not. If they tell me I’m not right then I expect a good reason why.
Not being a very patient person and not one very good at dealing with bullshit I expect service techs to listen, take down the information and then tell me they will make it right. Most get defensive and you can see them clam up and go into how long is this going to take not really listening to you, I have coffee waiting mode so I am very careful with my words and that is not easy for me. When I screw up, tell me I screwed up and I’ll make it right, every time without fail.
Now when an issue arises I take a step back, take a breath and take it as a learning experience. I may gripe a bit but my attitude is much better about it now than when we started. Anyway enough on this, point made and I digress.
Here are a list of some sites that I’ll also put on the side that I have found helpful in diagnosing the various maladies I have had to re-fix after the dealer failed to do so. For the forums, if you’re new to RV’ing visit the beginner section of the forums, they are a great way to discuss this lifestyle!
- http://www.rvdoctor.com a great resource site and he has videos that explain many fixes for free.
RV Advice Links - http://www.rvadvice.com/rvlinks.html, there are a lot of links on this site for many things that concern RV’ers.
The best part of this lifestyle is even on the worst day, which was probably our first one in the RV where we started the pizza on fire, the AC roof unit was leaking into the coach and our rig was leaking from the rain. We had more FUN than you can imagine. We hiked, visited places you typically don’t think of unless you’re out there in an RV and even with the stress of having to fix things some times, it’s not the same kind of stress you feel during a bad day at work.
Plus, should something break you have now learned something and most times you’re capable of fixing the problem. You might even impress your spouse, when was the last time that happened?
Have a great weekend everybody! We are staying home to catch up on some chores but next weekend we will be out for 5 days, Friday through Tuesday! We can’t wait!
4 comments:
Hi Erik, Did you buy an extended warranty when you bought your coach?
We are about to buy a used coach from a shitty dealer. I am fighting with them to get certain things done before we drive it off the lot, an hope to only deal with them if something goes wrong in the first 15/30 days of ownership. After that I will take it somewhere else even if I have to drive some distance.
Why am I buying from them? We think it is a good coach, at a good price. We fought for and had an independent inspection and it was classified as "good" actually the inspector said it was in better shape than he expected and he would recommend it.
But the sales staff is arrogant and I wonder about the service writer.
Life sucks. Maybe we should all just walk and sleep in a tent :-)
Merikay - A 4 year 24,000 mile extended warranty was included in the price after we got them to knock $6,000 off the price so in all we got about $9,500.00 which says how much headroom they have in these things.
Still, at almost $10,000.00 under NADA value we came out on top so far. Which dealer are you working with? Is this rig online so I can see it?
Having to fight for an independent inspection isn't cool. An arrogant sales staff sounds just like where I bought my rig!
I emailed you, if you'd like call me at my cell phone or email me ok?
Erik
As the old saying goes, "How do you tell when a Salesman is lying? When his mouth is moving."
Matt,
You got that right!! Hey, your truck has turned out awesome!
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