Newmar Quality and support issues

[RobT94]

Stumbled upon this thread after spending a week in RV misery. We purchased a 2019 KA and we have yet to have a trouble free outing. Many times minor, several major, and all are frustrating.

Here is the point of my post. The industry does not have to be this way and we as owners do not have to tolerate the situation. There is a better way. More on that later. Some of the root causes of the issues are:

1. Manufacturers that do not take responsibility for their suppliers. When there is an issue they pass you off to HWH, Silverleaf, Spartan, etc. This would be like GM saying call Bosch when your engine does not start.

2. Abysmal service by many repair facilities. We drive 3+ hours to NIRVC in Atlanta because they do the work right, the first time. Yes you have to wait as they are busy. It is worth it.

3. Poorly engineered products as we have no records of what is failing, frequency and why.

4. Poor access to parts that are controlled by the manufactures, suppliers or both. Results in high cost and lack of availability. Here is an example. The same camera is $585 at Newmar and $285 at rvcams.com

5. Campsite registry and information that is simply not accurate. How many times have you pulled in late at night only to find the place you booked is a dump and the electricity is unusable as the ground is not wired correctly?

The RV lifestyle should not be this way and there is a possible solution. What if you had everything you needed in a single site? A site that connected suppliers, distributors, repair facilities and campgrounds with the sole purpose of serving the RV community. A site where reviews pressured people that service the community to be responsible and of high quality as the those that are poor would be weeded out.

Does this sound like something that would interest you? Cannot go into it deep at this time other than to say I am working with one of the major suppliers to the industry and we are interested in hearing from you. If you have ideas please contribute them.

Finally, perhaps this needs to go to a new thread. Someone please help me with where to post, as you can see this is my first post.

[kmetcalf1960]

Originally Posted by RobT94

Stumbled upon this thread after spending a week in RV misery. We purchased a 2019 KA and we have yet to have a trouble free outing. Many times minor, several major, and all are frustrating.

Here is the point of my post. The industry does not have to be this way and we as owners do not have to tolerate the situation. There is a better way. More on that later. Some of the root causes of the issues are:

1. Manufacturers that do not take responsibility for their suppliers. When there is an issue they pass you off to HWH, Silverleaf, Spartan, etc. This would be like GM saying call Bosch when your engine does not start.

2. Abysmal service by many repair facilities. We drive 3+ hours to NIRVC in Atlanta because they do the work right, the first time. Yes you have to wait as they are busy. It is worth it.

3. Poorly engineered products as we have no records of what is failing, frequency and why.

4. Poor access to parts that are controlled by the manufactures, suppliers or both. Results in high cost and lack of availability. Here is an example. The same camera is $585 at Newmar and $285 at rvcams.com

5. Campsite registry and information that is simply not accurate. How many times have you pulled in late at night only to find the place you booked is a dump and the electricity is unusable as the ground is not wired correctly?

The RV lifestyle should not be this way and there is a possible solution. What if you had everything you needed in a single site? A site that connected suppliers, distributors, repair facilities and campgrounds with the sole purpose of serving the RV community. A site where reviews pressured people that service the community to be responsible and of high quality as the those that are poor would be weeded out.

Does this sound like something that would interest you? Cannot go into it deep at this time other than to say I am working with one of the major suppliers to the industry and we are interested in hearing from you. If you have ideas please contribute them.

Finally, perhaps this needs to go to a new thread. Someone please help me with where to post, as you can see this is my first post.

A lot of what you stated is basically how a production business should be ran. I have zero idea where to post this either. But I do have decades experience in a production environment (both in Engineering and Quality) where what I'm currently seeing would never be acceptable. One definite issue is the consumer appears to have no leverage when an issue arises. You call corporate and it's not what it should be, call a dealer and the wait is ridiculous and then the work is not always up to standards. And what boggles my mind is the response of "this is just how the industry is". OK, well that's an answer pointing that nothing will ever change. And it won't, until somebody has a better idea, then it will change instantly or the non-responsive businesses won't last.

I've always known that most dealers work off the 30 foot, or 30 second, warranty rule which ever comes first - or they'd like to. My pinch has always been corporate. If corporate knows they can't service in a timely fashion, certify more shops. If corporate knows a dealer is not up to standards, decertify that dealer until they improve their performance (and track their performance). If you want improvements, start making improvements. If you want a better business model and reputation, start improving both. The ideas are simplistic, and not that hard to do. The catch is you have to want to "do"; and that seems to be an issue with what I'm seeing.

This is one of the few industries where a customer has very little leverage. Thus people buy RV's, in my opinion, on reputation of the manufacturer. If it were me, and I was the manufacturer, I'd be trying to improve my reputation at every corner; and advertise those changes and statistics.

[RobT94]

@kmetcalf: You run a production business, I run a consulting business. There are many other professionals reading this that have talents to lend to this problem.

Consumers will have the power when someone is there to better organize them. That is the problem we are currently exploring.

[tnedator]

Originally Posted by RobT94

@kmetcalf: You run a production business, I run a consulting business. There are many other professionals reading this that have talents to lend to this problem.

Consumers will have the power when someone is there to better organize them. That is the problem we are currently exploring.

When companies like Tiffin and Newmar go from producing 5 coaches a day to 15+ and still have more buyers than production capacity, they have little incentive to slow things down to make fewer, problem free coaches.

Like I said multiple times, it's not that I like the sate of the RV industry (including a small number parts suppliers who are also producing lower quality parts each year), but it is, what it is.

In the few short years I've been RV'ng and following these forums, I've read the same stuff about how the consumers need to drive the change. What's happened during that time? We've increased the number of RV's we've bought, so, I'm pretty sure the message we are sending is that we are happy with the state of the industry.

[kmetcalf1960]

Originally Posted by tnedator

When companies like Tiffin and Newmar go from producing 5 coaches a day to 15+ and still have more buyers than production capacity, they have little incentive to slow things down to make fewer, problem free coaches.

Like I said multiple times, it's not that I like the sate of the RV industry (including a small number parts suppliers who are also producing lower quality parts each year), but it is, what it is.

In the few short years I've been RV'ng and following these forums, I've read the same stuff about how the consumers need to drive the change. What's happened during that time? We've increased the number of RV's we've bought, so, I'm pretty sure the message we are sending is that we are happy with the state of the industry.

I completely agree - if the consumer base is fine with the subpar customer service, and doesn't mind paying this kind of money for a substandard product - there is zero incentive for a manufacturer to change.