Community Forums

EngineerMike · 08-16-2005, 03:30 PM

Showed up for PDI of our new coach yesterday a.m.

The Good- Yakima has great Mexican food. Try El Porton on 1st/Main street. Also, the full tile floor (if they get the re-grout job right) is truly the way to go. And the solid surface backsplash behind stove/sink (substitute for mirrors) is gorgeous. And finally, met Dave & Donna Fernandez of ACA SoCal- great folks.

The Bad- We're staying @ the Clarion (nice room though) & not in "our" coach.

The Ugly- Need new freezer door, 2 new AC's, SurgeGuard & toilet Fantastic Fan were not installed, a whole buncha other stuff, and the roof has wrinkles @ all four corners where it turns down over the radiused aluminum extrusion that connects roof to walls. I don't even know how you'd go about wrinkling the Filon sheet, but there it is; and there are coaches on the assembly line that had same but have repairs. GKW they just painted over that on this rig. And after 2 days of chasing around trying to get a) intended fixes spec'd out (to see it won't just be a spooge & paint job), and b) put some semblence of a schedule on things, we still have not taken the rig for a road test

.

The Really Ugly- Working w/Guaranty (who has been great putting the squeeze on WRV to get things right) to see if we will take the coach. Checking flights home (we traded in our old coach @ Junction City, OR on the way here) if things don't happen here.

And the rental car has a front wheel bearing going out, just for fun.
I allotted a whole week for this, but we may not be into the coach by Friday.
I'll post more when something definitive breaks.

EngineerMike · 08-16-2005, 03:30 PM

Showed up for PDI of our new coach yesterday a.m.

The Good- Yakima has great Mexican food. Try El Porton on 1st/Main street. Also, the full tile floor (if they get the re-grout job right) is truly the way to go. And the solid surface backsplash behind stove/sink (substitute for mirrors) is gorgeous. And finally, met Dave & Donna Fernandez of ACA SoCal- great folks.

The Bad- We're staying @ the Clarion (nice room though) & not in "our" coach.

The Ugly- Need new freezer door, 2 new AC's, SurgeGuard & toilet Fantastic Fan were not installed, a whole buncha other stuff, and the roof has wrinkles @ all four corners where it turns down over the radiused aluminum extrusion that connects roof to walls. I don't even know how you'd go about wrinkling the Filon sheet, but there it is; and there are coaches on the assembly line that had same but have repairs. GKW they just painted over that on this rig. And after 2 days of chasing around trying to get a) intended fixes spec'd out (to see it won't just be a spooge & paint job), and b) put some semblence of a schedule on things, we still have not taken the rig for a road test

.

The Really Ugly- Working w/Guaranty (who has been great putting the squeeze on WRV to get things right) to see if we will take the coach. Checking flights home (we traded in our old coach @ Junction City, OR on the way here) if things don't happen here.

And the rental car has a front wheel bearing going out, just for fun.
I allotted a whole week for this, but we may not be into the coach by Friday.
I'll post more when something definitive breaks.

Ted III · 08-16-2005, 04:21 PM

Engineer Mike, I am truly sorry to hear that your coach is like it is. First, of course, for yourselves, but second, what is happening at WRV? I was hoping that things were improving but it certainly does not give that impression. I truly hope that things get squared away for you but we have all got to start wondering what coach will we buy next? My confidence level has certainly moved way down when it comes to the Alpine Motor Coach.

Ted

Audrey & John · 08-17-2005, 04:06 AM

Gosh - not fun! Here's hoping things go better and especially that you get to take a road test really soon!

We have wrinkles all the way up and down our curved part between the roof and the side walls. We thought maybe it had gotten worse in the sun. It took us a while to notice it. I guess that's something we need to ask about.

I think the restaurant we enjoyed the most was The Greystone Restaurant at 5 N. Front Street in the downtown historic district. Really great NW cuisine/seafood.

Audrey

Stretch · 08-17-2005, 02:34 PM

Mike: Sorry you are having all of teething problems. Wrinkled roof sounds bad.
We have an 03fdts. It took me over a year to get this rig working like we wanted it. Adding things like a soft water unit, Reverse osmosis system, full sign wave inverter, magazine racks and slides in the basement, etc, etc. I would like to buy new maybe next year. But the thought of having to deal with WRV for a week or two to fix the poor workmanship and then to again, add all my goodies, I just cant face it again..........

EngineerMike · 08-17-2005, 07:47 PM

End of Day 3. Stress level is dropping. Test drove this p.m.; one window rattles and that was all from the drive. Drives nice as expected.
3 of 4 corners of the roof are done & coach went back to assembly plant for the 4th today. The howling fans behind the HDTV are swapped out for a pair that are nearly inaudible (imagine that, quiet fans in a high fidelity setup, whooda thought?). SurgeGuard is in & working. Tile grout may be to wife's satisfaction on next inspection ~9:00 tomorrow. Met w/the Dometic rep this afternoon (he happened to be in town) on the AC ruckus; they have a plan to cut out 2-4 dB, plus rectify errors that may have occured in original installation; we tried to sleep in coach Monday eve & got no more than 2 hours shut eye. That, & grout, since the R&R if we need it takes 2 days, are the only big unresolved items. Except for the list of minor fixes, one low hanging hydraulic hose that will have to be reman'ed & probably installed by a shop near our home, and the new freezer door which is in stock & should be swapped tomorrow. Missing SilverLeaf docs; maybe I'll get that tomorrow too.

I have to say that when faced w/unhappy customers, WRV has bent over backwards to a) make it right, and b) to do it on our schedule if possible. They authorized overtime & had tech's crawling all over it to get stuff done. They have all the fixes; just seems some of these things should get caught in production. E.g. musta been at least 8 people, who should have noted the roof for a fix, take a pass on the roof wrinkles.

Audrey- thanks for the tip. We'll eat there tomorrow evening. If all goes well, we may be on the road Friday.

Ted III · 08-18-2005, 03:35 AM

EngineerMike, congratulations on the success so far on your new coach. It is great to see them take care of these items so promptly. My fear is I live in PA and don't have the advantage of going back to the factory very conveniently. I do feel that all of the problems you had should not have existed if there was any quality control and inspection. They cannot stay in business and continue to make these kinds of errors.
Ted

WRVACEMP · 08-19-2005, 06:28 PM

Sorry to hear about your problems.
I will say though that one of the most difficult things in my time at WRV to master was rolling the roof down the side at the corners. They always want to wrinkle or if you don't roll em over just right the thin fiberglass will crack (that always steams Jack he is the fiberglass guy in QA who has to repair damage to the fiberglass).

Sounds like someone was in a rush or just didn't want to take the time to pry it up and lay it again. If I was in the roof section still I wouldn't have let it go like that.

I'm going to e-mail this page to a good friend of mine (Armando) who happens to be the group lead for the roof/back cap section.

I hope they correct all your problems to your satisfaction and you have a trouble free coach down the road

WRVACEMP · 08-19-2005, 06:37 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Audrey & John:
Gosh - not fun! Here's hoping things go better and especially that you get to take a road test really soon!

We have wrinkles all the way up and down our curved part between the roof and the side walls. We thought maybe it had gotten worse in the sun. It took us a while to notice it. I guess that's something we need to ask about.

I think the restaurant we enjoyed the most was The Greystone Restaurant at 5 N. Front Street in the downtown historic district. Really great NW cuisine/seafood.

Audrey </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

On your coach Audrey&John I was not on the roof then but I know who was. How does that saying go, if you got nothing nice to say dont say anything

On your wrinkles where it curves down..... is it sort of a wave pattern?

I will second the recommedation on Greystone great food great service

Also try Jean's Cottage INN on main street in Union Gap just a couple blocks south of the last light great steaks and prime rib

Dave Fernandez · 08-19-2005, 06:39 PM

Hello Mike:

Donna and I enjoyed meeting you and your wife at WRV.

Glad to hear that WRV is repairing the problems,

I was hoping for a tour, but you had enough problems, and I did not want to intrude.

See you in Bullhead City.

Dave

EngineerMike · 08-22-2005, 01:12 PM

Day 7- We are back in Sacramento area & taking today off from "WRV'ing".
Met Jim & MaryJo on the 18th, picking up their 34'. Nice folks.
My last post was at one of the euphoric highs for the week. It went downhill from there, though on a -3% grade, not -9% as on Monday. We left WRV service facility w/the coach ~6:45 p.m. Friday, w/me happy to get out & wife grossly unhappy. It was a fire drill to get out then or we would have flown home w/out coach.

Roof wrinkles got repaired w/two trips back to Production & the paint booth.
Floor tile grout never did get to wife's satisfaction; turns out the grout "sealer" they use recolors the grout, randomly darkening it. She gave up on that & took it as is.
Dometic rumor of "new-quieter" AC unit appears to be smoke; WRV replaced the two units w/those Doemtic was peddling, but they come w/the same docs (which haven't changed for 1.5+ years) as old units. So I'll do some noise engineering on them & post if I come up w/dB improvements.
The bedroom slide topper sag turned out (after 2-3 man days wasted on awning adjusting) to be mal-adjusted slide installation. Eventually had 7+ guys (Glazier & two support-line tech's plus the assigned crew) jacking up the slide & repositioning the HWH-scissors from coach to slide. The "+" was the security guy, wondering why so many folks were banging & clanging in an otherwise shut down facility on a Friday evening.
Ice maker still leaks water into the tray making one really-big cube.
Passenger's window still rattles.
There's a new rattle in the front LR slide mech.
Other than that...

The Ugliest became apparent when I ran out the LR slide Friday evening to find some grout chips, piece of busted off floor tile, and a #2 pencil stuck in the tile-floor/slide-floor mating space. That is the loud crunching sound the Customer Pick Up crew (CPU) insisted was normal for a "chain slide" that runs out to a flush floor. Don't believe it. The crunching is the slide floor colliding w/the coach floor & grinding between them. One or both need trimming back. My wife was so unhappy before that, I still haven't told her about this.

The CPU crew leader (Izzy) and Mike Glazier were great. In fact everybody @ WRV was great, if you discount the fact that the coach owner is the quality control inspector, & that happens at the time of purchase, & nobody in manufacturing is paying attention. I'll start a new post for WRV's benefit to detail stuff that should be QA/QC-proofed. Watch for it & add your input.

Just under 1000 miles on it. Drives sweet. Incessantly gets one DTC code from engine or tranny (J-1939 anybody know what that means?). Silverleaf shows 7.4 mpg average. 2-stage Jake brake is great; gives more finesse for slowing on hills than 1-stage. Hyd. brakes are sweet. Head room for storage bays is lousy w/the 3-slide floor plan (all storage doors open max of 90 degrees), but that's what we ordered, & I knew that would be annoying; wish WRV was more innovative & had side-swing doors as some others do; trays will solve some of that. Electric cord reel is way cool. And HydroHot is way cool also, or maybe way hot.

Jim&MaryJo · 08-22-2005, 01:50 PM

Wow, what an ordeal Mike!

Pleasure meeting you and Judy.

Our trip home was pretty good, considering we were in a hurry to get back and did our shake-down on the way.

I think we worked every system on the trip and all appears to be functional.

The Yakima to Yreka leg yielded 8.7 mpg, followed by 8.2 mpg on our Yreka to June Lake leg (lots of grades). Both legs were accompanied by my heavy foot (yeeHaaa, 1200 ftlbs never felt so good, I need a radar detector and a podiatrist!).

Handling is superb, actually had cars pulling over to let me pass through the Siskiyou Forest curvy roads.

No issue with the lower length-to-wheelbase ratio with a 34', no pitching, no wallowing. Not even as I ran fuel weight down to a 1/4 tank.

I love this coach...

Jim

EngineerMike · 08-22-2005, 03:31 PM

Jim- Not sure if I've ever seen a bigger smile on a guy than when you got back from your road test! MaryJo too! Sounds like you have one of the better mpg programs for the ISL. That's another reason to smile. Ann commented on that as soon as you both walked in.
BTW, don't tell Ann about 'Judy.'

Mike

Jim&MaryJo · 08-23-2005, 06:02 PM

Mike,

OOOPs, sorry bout dat, getting names confused.

The coach had 9k Miles when I left, which might affect my MPG too.

Hope it all works out for you.

Jim