Newmar QC, Just Some Thoughts

[Calpop45]

Just an observation: our 2013 DSDP returned to the factory after one year with a couple dozen warranty issues, mostly cosmetic. All were addressed cheerfully and quickly, and we were happy to have purchased a Newmar product! Our 2018 DSDP, however, returned to the factory after one year with over ninety issues, not all of which were cosmetic: roof leaks around a/c units (installation bolts not tightened), shower door leaks (“they didn’t put sealant in the corners”), defective windshield, crown molding falling off, and on and on the list went....Almost all of the concerns were fixed, but several items were noted “within specs” (the FWS floor slopes down 3/8” from the main floor level to the outside wall). Ok, but we sensed a resistance to addressing our concerns that was troubling. The overall fit and finish of the newer coach is at a substantially lower level than the older model. It’s still a great coach, don’t get me wrong, but as a former qc guy, the overall quality has deteriorated. I’m glad other coaches are essentially trouble free, but I would caution purchasers of new coaches to keep the lines of communication open with Newmar. Just sayin’.

[cdarmko]

We have owned two Newmars and an older Winnebago motor home. In addtion, we owned a bumper pull trailer. Without writing an essay on each, we've been sadly disappointed with quality issues on all units - both those we bought new (travel trailer and Newmar Ventana LE) as well as the used ones. Problems ranged from the nuisance of several stripped screws (factory installed) to a slide jamming due to the factory never having installed two set screws which are required to hold the slide in position.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE the RV lifestyle and have enjoyed all 4 of our RV's - immensely. However, given the problems i have seen, over the last two or three years I've questioned numerous owners regarding their problems - especialy those with new units. From this informal survey I've become appalled at the number of negative responses I've received. In my opinion, we owners are accepting inferior products from manufacturers, and inferior service from our dealers. New units almost invaribly spend many hours - and in some cases weeks - at dealers being repaired after coming directly from the manufacturer. Some dealers won't even service rigs of the brand they sell if they did not sell the rig themselves. As consumers, we are NOT standing up for ourselves. I do agree that Newmar Customer Service personnel are superb. However ALL manufacturers need to step up the plate and improve their quality control - AND WE, the owners who are spending our money and our time need to INSIST on it. That's my opinion - I'd love to hear yours.

[JMH]

Anything made will have QC issues.

Automobiles have recalls numbering in the tens of thousands of units. They have very complex tracking systems to track back to where and who cause the quality problem.

For years Newmar did not have (IMHO) a very robust tracking system. They relied on catching problems in QA. Now they have a system that tracks assembly issues much faster. I think many of the human errors will be fetter out. That said, with the lack of available skilled workers there are going to be some persistent issues.

My big issue on quality is how well a company stands behind fixing a manufacturing defect. I have had the best experience with Newmar.

Not a perfect answer, but the best you are going to get.

[NWIP]

I have same viewpoint as FLJOE, just finished 20K in last 12 months with trip to Alaska. I feel the coach probably held up better than I did (broke elbow in AK). We were virtually trouble free.

I have had 2 trips to factory, my choosing, can’t say enough about support I have experienced. Previous coaches were purchased used and did most repairs myself.

[cdarmko]

Regarding original message: My problem is not with Newmar specifically. I, too, have had excellent experience with their Customer Service people via phone. They are very helpful and easy to talk with. Problem is with the general quality control of units of all types of RV's from travel trailer thru VERY expensive motorhomes. Yes, I've had some serious problems with my Newmars as well at a Winnebago that I've owned. However, my concern is not so much with a specific manufacturer. My problem is that the INDUSTRY as a whole needs huge quality improvements - both at the manufacturer level and at the dealer level. Would love to hear both bad AND GOOD stories about your rigs. Thank you.

[Golfer Guy]

I'm excited about my new to me 2017 DS but have some issues with the Newmar QC too. This coach went in to service early June 2017 so it is just 2 yrs old. I would love to take it in to have some things looked at and fixed. The door should not require being slammed so hard to get it tightly shut. That's just wrong. No wonder the screen door is falling apart. The screen is so cheaply made Newmar should be ashamed. Bad HDMI connections on the outside TV, Driver seat footrests that doesn't work, The poor FWS floor trim strip and recliner plastic feet issue so many have mentioned is bothersome. The dometic toilet/tank sensors are ridiculous. Stupid yellow light comes on even if you have just dumped the tanks a flush ago. Panel says it's 2/3 full after the tanks are emptied so that's a worthless system.

None of these are really terrible problems a person can live with them however! If you want to get them fixed you have to take them to a dealer and leave your home with them while they can take an exurbanite amount of time to fix and they will charge you for it.

Or you can take it to the factory and there it will probably be taken care of as a warranty items with a smile and thank you. That's great if you live close by rather than on the west coast that requires a 4000 mile trip to and from. I wanted to drop by because I was in the neighborhood (Nashville, TN) but couldn't get in until JANUARY 2020!!!! it was July 25th 2019.

To me that's the rub. Fix it yourself or accept it. That's why I like this forum though as I learn how to fix these problems that Newmar could have designed and fixed before the coach was delivered to the consumer.

[cdarmko]

Thank you, Golfer Guy. That is EXACTLY what my thoughts are. DO IT RIGHT AT THE FACTORY. Stop using cheap parts and/or improve the initial quality control inspectons. There is no reason to own a coach costing several hundred thousand dollars and have to fool with problems that you can "live with". Get the quality up so that we don't have to "live with" "little problems". Not just Newmar, but the entire RV industry.

[JMH]

Used the be part of a team that verified (QA’ed) US space launches. Rockets costing up to 2B still blew up some times.

Sorry but 100s of thousands won’t even come close to buying perfect. We can not like it all we want. I’ll bet no one who has ever manufactured something complex for profit even blinks at some of the QA issues at Newmar.

[BRYONJ]

I've come to realize that the RV industry is just not the same as automotive, aerospace, medical, etc. when it comes to first time through quality.

That said, there is no reason that companies cannot improve and strive for perfection. Having been in the auto industry since the 1980s I can assure you that it can be done. The American manufacturers were under assault from the Asian manufactures in both cost and quality. Today, we take for granted the quality of a car or truck. Very few warranty issues. The key - competition.

We currently own a 2018 New Aire and are in the process of trading it for a 2020 MA. The New Aire had so many issues (100+ some quite major), that this time we opted for the factory delivery of the MA.

I think our New Aire was one of the earlier ones built and it showed. 6 months at the dealer and 3 weeks at the factory and we finally have a coach fully debugged and ready to enjoy. We would keep the New Aire but have decided to go full time and get a larger coach.

Even though we had a horrible experience with the New Aire, we are clearly fans and supporters of Newmar. They stand behind their product. They have great customer service. Their factory service is second to none (Prevost, Newell, etc. excluded). Most important to me is that they are constantly striving to improve. As Horst Schulze once said about the Ritz Carlton chain in its early days after winning a prestigious award, "We are the best of a bad lot." Newmar is clearly better than the competition in many ways.

I've toured the Newmar factory twice and can see why they at time quality issues escape. It appears to be a trade-off between customization and productivity. Newmar prides itself in allowing quite a bit of customization. They also incentive their employees to build 11 coaches per day. All the metrics posted in the plant support this. The problem with all the customization is that there is little standardization in the assembly process. The quality is a function of employee training and the ability to adhere to the prints supplied by engineering. Most importantly, it is tied to the person's ability to properly complete the task in the time allotted. Yes, Newmar has roving quality inspectors, but one cannot inspect quality into a product. It must be built in. Lessons learned in the auto industry for sure.

In the end, Newmar appears to be doing more to inspect and correct issues before the coaches are shipped to the dealers. Once at the dealer, they do a PDI and it is all over the map as to the quality of the PDI and repairs dealer by dealer, even within the same franchise,

With the Newmar factory delivery, the coaches are sent from the factory to an internal PDI group. I've seen the coaches go back and forth 2-3 times before the PDI group accepts the coach. This group then does any final touch up work. As a result, once your coach comes off line, it could be a month later before they are ready to present it to you. Once they are ready for you, you get to spend a week at the service center learning and debugging your new coach. It is well worth the time to take it on the road and try every system as many times as you can.

I'm sure that just about every RV built will have some issues: minor and major, as well as a few and many. For us, having a manufacturer who stands behind their product with no fuss or muss is critical. We can't wait to get into our 2020 MA.

[BRYONJ]

Originally Posted by JMH

Used the be part of a team that verified (QA’ed) US space launches. Rockets costing up to 2B still blew up some times.

Sorry but 100s of thousands won’t even come close to buying perfect. We can not like it all we want. I’ll bet no one who has ever manufactured something complex for profit even blinks at some of the QA issues at Newmar.

JMH,

Yes, things do happen. Having built parts for rocket engines, deep sea wells, car engines, medical devices, and many others I feel that it is possible to have zero or very few quality issues.

Plants that I have managed have shipped zero defects for many years. Did we at times make a bad part - unfortunately yes. However, our quality systems never let a non-conforming part leave the factory.

I have overseen the manufacture of thousands of parts for profit and it is just that experience that gives me heartache with Newmar's first time through quality. I know they can do better. They can do better for the consumer, their employees, and their bottom line.

The warranty cost have to be crushing. Not just in the direct costs, but also in lost productivity. I imagine that all that labor could easily up their production from 11 per day to 12 or 13 per day if it were redeployed.

In our case, 6 months at the dealer and 3 weeks at the factory. Almost every major component was replaced or upgraded.

We do believe that Newmar is far better than their competition and are in the process of trading our 2018 New Aire for a 2020 MA. This time we will do the factory delivery and trust that it will go a lot smoother.

[JMH]

Sorry about your new aire. Looks like you got the “Friday” build [emoji6]. As you know building components where you have 100% control of the build and integrating components where you don’t have different QA challenges.

Newmar has the latter problem. Computerizing car building has made sure you get consistent output, but they can put out thousands of defects without notice before corrected. And worst, some dangerous defects can be covered up for years.

Glad to see you are an FPU convert. We have done 2 FPUs and believe it is the only way to go. It is not a panacea but you find a lot. For example; the slide out gap spec for Newmar is +- 1/8 inch side to side and top to bottom. (Can’t remember where I found that, maybe asked the tech). Anyway, none of my three slides met the spec at FPU. If I was at a dealer no telling what I would have to go through to get fixed. But, at FPU they quickly corrected.

At the factory right now doing my 1 year warranty visit. Great service, and the tech has already pointed out and fixed things not on the list. You won’t find that many places.

Best of luck with you MA. And be safe out there.

[Steve Kieffer]

My manufacturing business was in a highly competitive, fragmented industry. Shipped fabricated products throughout the country. Lots of customization. Reliant on local companies for installation and service. Dependent on numerous component suppliers. Many parallels to the RV industry. If I failed my customers, national companies, didn't complain, they just dropped me as a supplier. With a high cost unionized factory I successfully competed on price with recognized high quality and a superb safety record. Our product quality feedback loop from customers was almost non-existent. We substituted continual internal analysis. 20% EBITDA when I sold.


I wouldn't have failed if, as an analogy, my sales people had to convince customers that it was proper to buy a London Aire at a higher cost with lower dealer markup, than the comparable Cornerstone.





Keys to success:

1. A consistent company wide vision that we would be the best quality, lowest cost company. Internal consistent message: "Quality is Perfection".

2. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints. A perpetual circle of identifying problems / barriers to success, and fixing them.
3. Hold vendors accountable. For example one $50 - $100 component was causing massive field warranty cost; $500 - $1,000 each time a failure occurred. Manufacturers of that product claimed they were producing good product. Refused to change. I setup a test station in receiving and tested every incoming part, returning all that didn't meet exact specs. Told competitors in the industry I was doing this. Within one year all manufacturers of that product fixed their production quality and began shipping acceptable parts.
4. Employee education: brought technical college inside for employee training on diverse subjects from high school math, reading comprehension, blueprint reading, etc. to self-directed team work. Employees want to do a good job. They need knowledge, skills, empowerment, etc.

5. No QC department; hold employees doing the work accountable for their performance. Empower the next person in the process to reject and send the work back. Peer pressure is a great tool. Real time feedback is critical. All QC and repair after product completion, whether in house or in the field, is waste resources.

6. Solve problems at the sales / marketing / design / engineering level, not in the factory.

7. Much much more.


I contrast this with the RV industry where, even in the "best" companies such as Newmar and Entegra, nice people appear to repetitively accept mediocrity. So I am not surprised by what I must purchased and fix, but still upset because none of this we put up with needs to have happened.


I keep comparing my current Newmar with my 2009 Signature, and wonder why 10 - 11 years later today's best company isn't any better, and in some respects not as good as one of the best company at that time.

[rodz]

It shouldn't be a hard issue to fix.
Better management to better train supervisors to better train workers. A thorough QC inspection before leaving the plant.
Problems always start at the top.

[Smitty77]

Originally Posted by Steve Kieffer

My manufacturing business was in a highly competitive, fragmented industry. Shipped fabricated products throughout the country. Lots of customization. Reliant on local companies for installation and service. Dependent on numerous component suppliers. Many parallels to the RV industry. If I failed my customers, national companies, didn't complain, they just dropped me as a supplier. With a high cost unionized factory I successfully competed on price with recognized high quality and a superb safety record. Our product quality feedback loop from customers was almost non-existent. We substituted continual internal analysis. 20% EBITDA when I sold.


I wouldn't have failed if, as an analogy, my sales people had to convince customers that it was proper to buy a London Aire at a higher cost with lower dealer markup, than the comparable Cornerstone.





Keys to success:

1. A consistent company wide vision that we would be the best quality, lowest cost company. Internal consistent message: "Quality is Perfection".

2. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints. A perpetual circle of identifying problems / barriers to success, and fixing them.
3. Hold vendors accountable. For example one $50 - $100 component was causing massive field warranty cost; $500 - $1,000 each time a failure occurred. Manufacturers of that product claimed they were producing good product. Refused to change. I setup a test station in receiving and tested every incoming part, returning all that didn't meet exact specs. Told competitors in the industry I was doing this. Within one year all manufacturers of that product fixed their production quality and began shipping acceptable parts.
4. Employee education: brought technical college inside for employee training on diverse subjects from high school math, reading comprehension, blueprint reading, etc. to self-directed team work. Employees want to do a good job. They need knowledge, skills, empowerment, etc.

5. No QC department; hold employees doing the work accountable for their performance. Empower the next person in the process to reject and send the work back. Peer pressure is a great tool. Real time feedback is critical. All QC and repair after product completion, whether in house or in the field, is waste resources.

6. Solve problems at the sales / marketing / design / engineering level, not in the factory.

7. Much much more.


I contrast this with the RV industry where, even in the "best" companies such as Newmar and Entegra, nice people appear to repetitively accept mediocrity. So I am not surprised by what I must purchased and fix, but still upset because none of this we put up with needs to have happened.


I keep comparing my current Newmar with my 2009 Signature, and wonder why 10 - 11 years later today's best company isn't any better, and in some respects not as good as one of the best company at that time.

I enjoyed your write up. Lean Manufacturing which is basically a US Version of Toyota Production Systems (Industrial Engineers Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda are credited for TPS - but sure seems to have good dash of Deming from post WWII days!).

Steve - I salute you working backwards and connecting your supply chain into the requirements of quality products. Hard to build a good end product, with sub quality components!

We're a fickle country full of buyers. We've conditioned companies that Lower Price is better then Superior Quality. While their were a few RV companies that did, or still do, deliver superior quality coaches. IMO, we the buying public did not understand the total savings and quality of life usage with a coach - and not enough of us were willing to pay more for the costs of higher quality. (And I say that tongue and cheek, as also IMO - building quality products can actually end up costing the manufacture(s) less $$...

I also look at a change in personal accountability values of too many American's. Where lack of personally wanting to do a job right, was not as important as the paycheck. That includes supervision and management of say factory employees - as they're job 'should' be to help enable the employees to build the best quality product they can.

Many of the top 100 companies have launched well documented paths thru Lean Manufacturing, Toyota Production Systems, gee - even some have some Green and Black Belts amongst them too!

I've personally seen, once the skepticism and 'Oh boy, another corporate initiative.', have run their course. That an empowered employee, the people building the product - can, and do, come up with some of the best ways to reduce costs, improve quality, lower lead-times - and, end the day feeling good about their company, their teams, and themselves. Many companies have also tied Gain Share financial incentives into this mix - which was important to get some the group 'engaged'.

No reason why any company, including Newmar, could not say 'Enough is enough!'. It might hurt them for a few years, as they would, and probably should, lower production numbers until they get their Lean Manufacturing processes in place. Then they could ramp back up to even more volume then they had before. They could also do what Steve did with his company, bring their Suppliers of Components into the process. Backing it up into their businesses too. Made in America used to have a reputation in the world of being a solid value at a fair costs. We've lost that in many ways. Those companies that have started to insist that quality is as important as costs, are now much better off then they were - and in the last few decades, many times we have products being again seen as good quality and fair priced.

Soap box off for now...

I will share that I walked thru probably 10+ 2019 Newmar's New Aire, Dutch Stars, London Aires, Bay Stars, Mountain Aire - at a Dealer sponsored multi week mini RV show at Pacific Shores in Newport, OR. I'm a fan of Newmar's, had the 02-06 Dutch Stars and Mountain Aires on our short list when shopping. I like how they are backing their coaches, say for example bringing in and helping repair coaches with Paint Checking. I was overall disappointed in what I saw. Many of them were purely cosmetic, like wood trim in even the London Aire, not evenly installed. They all, even the Bay Stars, 'looked nice'. But if the interior items that I could see were poorly built and or installed with only a 5-10 minute walk thru were an indication of the 'pride' used by the factory workers for the rest of the coach build, the items you can't see - well, I was again, disappointed. (And note, Tiffen had a show at the park too, and I felt the same way - so for sure not a Newmar only problem on 'as built' quality issues.

I was not alone, as many owners, several who had older units Newmar's - made the same comments.

I believe that this is one of the reasons that some of the older coaches, including Newmar's, Travel Supreme, Wanderlodge, Country Coach, Alpine, others - are seeing their prices not dropping off as fast. Their is a population of coach owner's, that when they shop for replacement coaches (Upsizing or Downsizing.) - shop for older models of better built quality, and then spend the money needed to customize and remodel them to what they specially want in a coach today.

Best to all, and to again be clear - I'm a fan of Newmar's, so not dinging them - as much as I'm hopeful they're hearing the call from some of their customers, or potential customers, do make improvements. It will pay dividends in the future!!

Smitty