I really regret buying a Newmar

[sinjineer]

Originally Posted by Air Baron

I have a solution. Buy an older Newmar with no warranty. They cost a whole lot less than $300k. Then you don't have to worry about waiting months for an appointment at the factory. You can take it wherever you want to get fixed...or fix it yourself. Use some of the several hundred thousand you saved to pay somebody who is not so busy with warranty work.

Thanks for your advice. Please send me a time machine.

[BeachDude]

Originally Posted by unw1red

...
The customer satisfaction and repeat customers are a badge of glory that Newmar wears year after year.
....

You do realize that every manufacturer wears a badge of glory for customer satisfaction and repeat customers year after year.

Before anyone drinks the Newmar Koolaid, I recommend that they examine other brands in their price range., and that they visit these motorhome message boards. Newmar makes a great motorhome, but, they do have their issues.

For example, Monaco, Country Coach, Holiday Rambler, Winnebago and yes, even Thor, (actually every single brand), have staunch supporters and repeat customers.

[Hit_the_Rhod]

Originally Posted by DMTTRANSPORT

X2...

x3!

[unw1red]

Having owned a Thor, and having several major QC issues which on one occasion stranded me for a week, I already know that Newmar's customer service surpasses what I experienced with Thor.

I had similar good experiences with Entegra while researching brands.

I understand that all brands have repeat customers, but once bitten twice shy.

[Air Baron]

Originally Posted by sinjineer

Thanks for your advice. Please send me a time machine.

Sell that new lemon and get most of your $300k back, then send me $72k and I'll send you my time machine. It is a drop-dead gorgeous 2001 Mountain Aire 4095 Spartan IFS with factory custom full body saddle paint, leather interior, loads of options, tacky mirrors replaced with marble, new Pergo coastal pine laminate floors instead of carpet, flat screens, satellite TV, surround sound home theater, only 46k miles, serviced and ready to go. I have put 24k miles on in the last 3 years full timing and had every bit as much enjoyment as any new $300k motorhome could provide.

[DMTTRANSPORT]

Originally Posted by BeachDude

You do realize that every manufacturer wears a badge of glory for customer satisfaction and repeat customers year after year.

Before anyone drinks the Newmar Koolaid, I recommend that they examine other brands in their price range., and that they visit these motorhome message boards. Newmar makes a great motorhome, but, they do have their issues.

For example, Monaco, Country Coach, Holiday Rambler, Winnebago and yes, even Thor, (actually every single brand), have staunch supporters and repeat customers.

Nobody has said Newmar is a pos, they are talking service, I own a 2005 and you couldn't give me a new one, well, I take that back, I can sell it, pocket the jack and let someone else camp out at the dealer.

[Air Baron]

Originally Posted by twojayhawks

I looked for quite a while to find what we wanted in a used version and they are like finding hens teeth.

I looked for 5 years getting educated, but was not really in the market. BTW, there are now 309 used Newmar DPs on rvt.com

[Dutch Star Don]

I think many here are spoiled by computer built cars made by the thousands. Some seem to forget that motor homes are wood, steel and fiberglass, pretty much hand made by human beings. It always makes me laugh when someone starts talking about lousy quality control by some employee. Guess what....YOU are that employee! Can anyone here say they went to work EVERYDAY and performed at 100% over their entire career. Has every repair you ever made or everything you ever built come out perfectly.

Many things that break, do so many miles down the road. A slide arm can be off by a 1/4" and rub another piece of steel until it fails. Again, millions of slide arms are being made and most are not made by computers.

There are things that break, that shouldn't, but many would be much better off to take the 20 minutes to repair it than 30 minutes to type a complaint.

I feel for the OP, but he needed to wait his turn. Even saying....I just wanted them to look at it.....then what.....then you would just want them to slip you in.

I've had three Lance campers, a Fleetwood Class C, a Fleetwood Class A, a Monaco DP and now the Dutch Star. I did my research and paid more for a better quality product. They have all been great RV's with very few issues, none of which ever left me stranded. But.....I take a couple of minutes to fix things, rather than run out screaming it's junk. If you really did your research before purchasing, you would know that Newmar and maybe two others are king of the hill.

[Smitty77]

OP - Best of luck, and hang in their - the fixing part may take sometime, especially if they have not engineered a proper long term repair yet. And as always, keep good documentation. Specifically communicate with Newmar on if this is just 'patching things up with a same possible bad design' - or - if it is a retro engineered 'fix'. If they can not tell you straight out that it is a 'retro engineered fix', then document your expectations of ongoing warranty coverage as they same part fails again.

And guys, I have no horse in this race. I did buy and older unit of what I considered a well engineered and built coach. Newmar were on my short list, and I liked the units I was looking at in the 2002-2004 era. So not knocking Newmar in anyways, they have a long good reputation the bulk of the time!

But agree with comments about this being a Top Down Management problem. No way should rep have told them to drive a coach for any distance with the slide out. And that rep, should have done whatever it takes to find a tech to get to them and help them. IMO, OP, this is where you should have first climbed the food chain for a person in customer support that could help you. And sure also not knocking you, as you were doing whatever you could do, to get your coach in a drivable condition. (I've been in your shoes, and it does not feel good when you can't even drive your coach to get help!).

I understand your rationale for driving to Newmar, probably would have done the same thing you shoes. I also agree that someone should have come out and taken the 30-60 minutes to look over you slide. Now, reality is they probably did not need to look, having had enough failure examples to know what the problem was. BUT, it was the right thing to do from a Customer Satisfaction perspective. Even if they did need to send you to someone else due to service repair backlog, you would have had the feeling that 'they cared'.

A few comments in this thread about this being sort of a new norm for the industry, where quality and sub standard Customer Support are now just 'the way things are'. This maybe true in some ways, but I also feel while Management (actually, ownership, private of 'for profit' corporations) have the ultimate responsibility to set the tone 'top down'. I do also believe that we as consumers over the last 4, 5 maybe 6 decades - have also contributed to the decline in quality of many items we buy today. An attitude that the 'lowest price' point is more important then 'the highest quality'. For sure, always truly a balance between costs and life long quality of products. A 'use it until it breaks, then toss it and buy another POS replacement', on many products. I truly recall my Master Machinist Grandfather, telling me that 'Insist and buy quality, pay up if needed, as quality lasts.' I frequently repeat part of this when people are asking for advice on what kind of coaches to purchase. I advise of course to buy the coach the meets your needs, but in general to 'Drop years to remain within budget, and buy the highest quality coach that you can. Quality lasts..

OK, done with my little stray down the shift our overall culture and values!!!

OP - Again, best to you, and do enjoy your coach!! If you do not feel that after multiple attempts to repair your slide, that Newmar has a longterm designed fix - check the state that you bought he coach in for the lemon law. Get out from under, and either get a different Newmar that does not have this problem, or SOB - but do keep having fun, you probably know by now - these RV's of ours, rolling homes down the road, always have an opportunity for maintenance and repair waiting for us!

Best to all (and, if my long winded poor writing rubbed anyone the wrong way, was sure never my intention...),
Smitty

[dennis45]

Originally Posted by Dutch Star Don

I think many here are spoiled by computer built cars made by the thousands. Some seem to forget that motor homes are wood, steel and fiberglass, pretty much hand made by human beings. It always makes me laugh when someone starts talking about lousy quality control by some employee. Guess what....YOU are that employee! Can anyone here say they went to work EVERYDAY and performed at 100% over their entire career. Has every repair you ever made or everything you ever built come out perfectly.

Many things that break, do so many miles down the road. A slide arm can be off by a 1/4" and rub another piece of steel until it fails. Again, millions of slide arms are being made and most are not made by computers.

There are things that break, that shouldn't, but many would be much better off to take the 20 minutes to repair it than 30 minutes to type a complaint.

I feel for the OP, but he needed to wait his turn. Even saying....I just wanted them to look at it.....then what.....then you would just want them to slip you in.

I've had three Lance campers, a Fleetwood Class C, a Fleetwood Class A, a Monaco DP and now the Dutch Star. I did my research and paid more for a better quality product. They have all been great RV's with very few issues, none of which ever left me stranded. But.....I take a couple of minutes to fix things, rather than run out screaming it's junk. If you really did your research before purchasing, you would know that Newmar and maybe two others are king of the hill.

Finally someone has made sense of the OP's dilemma. If you choose to buy a new, basically custom built, product, you need to be fully prepared to deal with the Start Up issues that will arise. The OP compared these problems to a former airstream. Well, did your Airstraem have full wall slides, a full electric energy management system etc etc. I could go on and on. Yes, it is disappointing but to expect your DSDP to be perfect off the line is just not going to happen. You WILL (as Don pointed out) need to take charge and help yourself to a certain extent. Sorry for your problems but if you were not prepared to deal with the Start Up Deficiencies, you should have bought a one or two year old coach that someone has already done the pain.

[sinjineer]

My husband and I are both engineers. We are both pilots and owned a plane for decades. He is an A&P mechanic and was a power plant field engineer/manager for 38 years. We have more micrometers than forks. We are not know nothing, do nothing owners. We figured out how to replace the window that fell out and PDR John helped us fix the level arm on the road.

Stop blaming us for a customer service anomaly. We did not go to Nappanee expecting to be "first in line". We signed up on their wait list as we were told. After two days waiting we were told to go to Pro Custom, which we did.

We arrived at Pro Custom yesterday afternoon for an 8 am appointment today. Don, at Pro Custom, is still awaiting Newmar approval to fix our slide

It is our belief that Newmar does not appreciate the damage that has been done to the slide rails coming in and out; it is essentially completely out of line. We sent them pictures with no response. That is why we wanted them to look at the problem. They refused and today we were told that it is their policy to not look at problems without an appointment.

Today the manager of service called us and said even though it was against policy we could bring it in and they would look at it but probably wouldn't be able to fix it til November. We decided to stay at Pro Custom and hopefully get it fixed sooner than November because we have a job commitment in CA November 1.

We are not crazy, swearing, demanding people. We are rational folks who have a problem with a complex system who want it fixed in a timely manner and want to be treated in a rational, respectful way.

Yes maybe we should have purchased used, yes maybe we should have anticipated that the apparent second fix would fail a couple of months later. Unfortunately, while we are engineers, we are unable to see into the future and are unable to travel into the past.

[palehorse89]

Originally Posted by VP Chianese

Show up at the Ford plant that built your truck and park in the lot until they come out and fix it. Take the Sears washer, oh I'm sorry you can't because Sears didn't make it. So let's take it back to the Whirlpool plant, wherever that is, and wait there. Not happening.


JMO.

Ford and Sears and Whirlpool did not "Set Up" a factory service/repair program...........Newmar DID! Vinny

[BLK-9]

Dennis45 - Agree with that comment.

[Mr_D]

Originally Posted by Air Baron

I have a solution. Buy an older Newmar with no warranty. They cost a whole lot less than $300k. Then you don't have to worry about waiting months for an appointment at the factory. You can take it wherever you want to get fixed...or fix it yourself. Use some of the several hundred thousand you saved to pay somebody who is not so busy with warranty work.

We traded our perfectly good '02 DSDP 4090 in on the Magna. Wish we had kept it or gotten the 4375 that my wife fell for!

Whoever buys our "old" DSDP is going to get a well proven, low mileage, cream puff.