Another Repair Completed & An RV Quality Rant

I didn’t take pictures but I finally repaired the jack knife sofa drawer that broke early last year. I put some of our stuff in there when we first bought the RV and the back of the drawer broke off leaving all of the contents of the drawer to spill out behind the couch. The board looked jagged on the bottom making me think it was unfixable. I put the board aside so I could figure out a way to repair it someday.

This morning I took it all apart and found that this jagged board was jagged on the bottom because some meat head in the furniture department used the wrong saw to cut it and couldn’t follow a straight line.

When I placed the board against the drawer side boards it lined up on the sides and the bottom was hidden so this is likely why they left it that way or more likely they didn’t care. I know this sounds negative but frankly, judging by the sheer amount of RV shows I have gone to over the years backs this up, they don’t care about what isn’t typically seen by the customer and I have worked for a few companies with this attitude as well and it sickens me.

I build custom custom PC’s and Servers for my customers, when you open one up it’s neat and tidy and looks like somebody who cares built them. It doesn’t take much extra to do it right but it does take time to do it over again or take it back in to repair something you missed.

The true mark of how somebody builds something is what you see when you see the hidden spots. A good manufacturer cares about the details, the men and women building the coach care about each part they do and you’ll see it when you look closely. You shouldn’t find cigarette butts, soda and or beer cans or shoddy workmanship. This was supposed to be Holiday Ramblers top of the gas line Class A, this along with the poorly done ceramic tile floor, the untreated OSB particle board used in the floors tells me they care about cost first and foremost and quality comes somewhere much further down the line.

I understand you have to watch costs, but if you charge a premium for a product, that product should contain premium parts, period. Holiday Rambler used to be on the top of my list and maybe Monaco has done a good job with them since they bought them a decade ago but our next RV is going to get much more attention looking at behind and under things and there are brands I know I won’t even look at.

Call me jaded and I know this has turned into a very long post just to say I fixed a jack knife couch drawer but this along with all the other things I have had to work on has made me this way. Poor workmanship combined with a very lazy first owner has increased the amount of work I have had to put into this thing. I have learned a huge lesson from owning this RV, that lesson isn’t to stop RV’ing, the lesson learned is the average dealer and manufacturer could care less about US, the consumer.

Take a look at the average new RV warranty, 1 year…. I mean really, 1 friggin year. For example, here is a picture inside a brand new Four Winds Class C taken at Camping World on 4/17/11, does this look like the person doing the trim work gives a crap about his job? How does this make it past anybody in QC and not blind?

Take a look at the counter trim in this picture, that is solid, the gap can’t be fixed unless the entire counter is removed and repaired. I tried to push it back in, it didn’t budge. You know what the CW rep told me? That’s what the warranty is for!! What is this, 1978 GM?? Do the Japanese need to start building Motorhomes for these companies to get it? Instead, the Chinese are getting on board and all that will do is cause more cost cutting measures to keep up with the crap they’ll try and send here.

I digress, I know I got off on a tangent but seeing what’s behind cabinets and under floors of a supposed top of the line HR, I’m pissed. Back to the topic, after removing the very tiny stables that clearly were meant to barely hold this board on instead of keeping contents inside the drawer I used good furniture nails where the staples were and used finishing screws to make it so the only way this board ever comes off is if the cheap particle board breaks because it isn’t going to come apart again the way I put it back together.

That’s my rant for the day… it feels good to have another little project done. I hope everybody is having a great weekend! I know Merikay and Craig are!