RV Quality Comments Response

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.

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!

RV Park & RV Floor Update

I’ve been reading the blog for the KAN-DO KAMPGROUND and can’t wait to visit them some time. Check out their blog here, trust me you’ll enjoy reading from the perspective of an RV Park owner.

Click the picture to visit their website.

RV Floor Update - The floor has solidified to a point that I put the Hardibacker down and reinstalled the loose tile next to the toilet. I’m going to use liquid nails to keep the Hardibacker in place.

Man that tile is ugly, the fake brass has to go as well. Unfortunately the temperature is only 58f today and not looking to go up the rest of the month so the Allure will have to wait.

I also took a very close look at how (un)level the floor really is. Installing the Allure is going to be interesting for sure.

Ugly toilet tissue holder and towel racks will be tossed in favor of something nicer. The floor feels pretty solid but really, only time is going to tell. I think being patient for once helped. It doesn’t look too bad.

I parked the RV in the abandoned house driveway until our trip Oct 27th.  Ronda’s car isn’t attached anymore of course and the trailer is in our driveway.

That’s it for now, heading to Home Depot to get new towel racks and toilet roll dispenser. Then I’m going to do some maintenance work on the slide and power stairs.

Upcoming RV Trip & Windows Live Writer Tip

I have been working on that toilet room spot now every night, building up the layers to make it as solid as possible knowing that I can’t use plywood for the final repair. I’ll have to use Hardibacker instead which is the thickness of the ceramic tile which is great but because it’s very hard it can be brittle so I have to insure there isn’t a lot of give when it’s stepped on.

The Allure will likely have to wait until Spring because the temps are heading down and it will be too cold to put it down, unless I run the genny all day, maybe I’ll give that a shot this weekend but once I get started I’ll have to finish it.

We are heading up to Geneseo hopefully 10/27 through 10/31. Once we get up there we will decorate the site for Halloween and I’ll take a boat load of pictures of all the decorated sites and costumes. I am also going to wash/detail the rig this weekend which will be a big job on top of the flooring but it has to get done, I hate a dirty RV!

Live Writer tip, you can drag pictures directly into Live Writer instead of browsing to each one. Makes for much faster blogging! Once you have dragged a picture into Live Writer, click the picture so it’s highlighted, a new tab will appear and turn green. It’s called “Picture Tools”, click that tab and then click “Link Options” and you can set the behavior for your picture like the size and frame etc… once that is done if you’d like to use these settings every time you post a picture click on “Set to default” and every time you drag a picture it will default to your chosen settings. Makes doing this so much faster!

                     Fall colors kicking in, our tree in the front yard…

New Favorite TV Show – Last Man Standing

The wife and I watched the new Tim Allen show “Last Man Standing” last night and I LOVED IT. How this got past the Hollywood Elite I have no idea but it’s me minus the daughters, the cool store and huge house.  

Watch as he says everything I think and as my wife would attest to, say out loud pretty often, too funny! He opens the show with “I’m baaaack!” and slams a huge fish onto the table. Man I missed this guy! I recorded this with my cell phone so I’m sorry about it not being perfect.

Tim Allen telling it like it is – minus the grunting!

Bathroom Repairs Have Begun

I was unable to have the RV tech come over because of an out of town visitor so I decided to lay down the auto leveling wood filler myself because the weather was perfect for it. I spent about 30 minutes removing chunks of rotted flooring and vacuumed until I felt it was clean enough to begin.

Working with this stuff is nothing like spackle, it’s a pain in the rear but I finally got it down. I actually removed a small layer in front of the toilet because when I went back in there and laid down and saw a high spot. The stuff had started to set so after some decent amount of swearing I finished it. We’ll see how it looks tomorrow night, hopefully it’s fully cured and then I’ll let it go one more night for good measure.

Then, if I can stand on it without cracking anything I’ll use the hardibacker first and see if that works because I can layer this stuff up more than I can adjust for the thickness of the Birch plywood I bought.

Stay tuned!!! 

Bye Bye 12S267…. You Will Be Missed!

I finally sold one of my 12S267’s, for a $600.00 loss but in this market I was lucky to find a buyer. The good news he saved enough money to have the cabinet completely restored so this radio will end up looking like the one on the left. I know in this picture they both look great, the one on the right is great but needs veneer repair. The one on the right is worth about $2,000, the one on the left is worth between $3,000.00 and $4,500.00, even in this market. Finding a buyer now is difficult for sure but I didn’t buy either of them to ever sell them.

So, in the end they are worth what people will spend….  When he gets the cabinet back he’s going to send me pictures, I can’t wait!

Roy just finished going over every nook and cranny, my last offer didn’t budge. I told him if it doesn’t sell at that point I’m sorry he wasted his trip. We ended up agreeing on my final price so I disassembled it and we loaded it into his van.

Working From The RV – WiFi Blues

I have yet to have a problem getting onto the Internet using my Verizon MiFi until we went to the Blackhawk campground in Rockford. They are in a little valley that seems to be a cellular black hole and their WiFi is mounted low on their building so if you’re next to a large rig, forget getting a signal. First time in 7 years I couldn’t log on and it will be the last.

I spoke to the owner and he mentioned moving the antenna so I gave him some ideas of what could work but will he do them, I can’t assume he will so I’ll make sure I can get on no matter what. He has it line of site pointing straight at the line of lots which normally would be fine however, there is a big tree also in this line as well as a park model in the first lot and a big Class A in the 2nd making it near impossible to get signal without either standing in the road or on top of the RV.

I found a product from C. Crane called the “Super USB WiFi Antenna 3” and also a 30ft extension cable which will plug directly into my MacBook Pro giving me full signal from most any point in their park or any park where a signal is difficult to attain. I should have it soon and will do plenty of testing, I’ll post about it after I’m done testing it, but if reviews are any indication, this thing will rock.