A New WRV approach

[Ted III]

To all of the WRV/Alpine owners; I spent a few hours with Mr. Burk Morgan from WRV yesterday 09/15/05. As an Alpine owner as of April 2005 (new coach) and have yet to go on a completed shakedown cruise due to a lay-up of 11 weeks with a blown rear I am extremely impressed with the attitude and the thinking of WRV. With a Burk Morgan, Mike Glazier, Dave Kaampi and the ever efficient and reliable Leslie (and I am certain many others) I think many of our fears and concerns are going to disappear. Mr Morgan has an extremely positive attitude and a good bit of clout to back up his comments. I cannot tell you how impressed I was with him and the new approach that WRV is leading into. It was a very re-assuring feeling and there are a good many of us that need a good bit of re-assuring. I certainly am one of them.
There is no question that the proof is in the eating, but given a little time, I truly believe we are going to see a massive improvement. I think that break-in comment (do I really want to go through another year of this again) is going to be a thing of the past. Let's all hope so.

Ted Ulmer
2005 Alpine 34'

[Ted III]

To all of the WRV/Alpine owners; I spent a few hours with Mr. Burk Morgan from WRV yesterday 09/15/05. As an Alpine owner as of April 2005 (new coach) and have yet to go on a completed shakedown cruise due to a lay-up of 11 weeks with a blown rear I am extremely impressed with the attitude and the thinking of WRV. With a Burk Morgan, Mike Glazier, Dave Kaampi and the ever efficient and reliable Leslie (and I am certain many others) I think many of our fears and concerns are going to disappear. Mr Morgan has an extremely positive attitude and a good bit of clout to back up his comments. I cannot tell you how impressed I was with him and the new approach that WRV is leading into. It was a very re-assuring feeling and there are a good many of us that need a good bit of re-assuring. I certainly am one of them.
There is no question that the proof is in the eating, but given a little time, I truly believe we are going to see a massive improvement. I think that break-in comment (do I really want to go through another year of this again) is going to be a thing of the past. Let's all hope so.

Ted Ulmer
2005 Alpine 34'

[Jim & Mikki]

Hi Ted,

I sure hope you are correct but having a good day is like the story of the guy who fell from a ten story building. Every floor he passed he said "so far so good". Good luck!

[Ted III]

Yeh, but until he hit bottom everything seemed okay! I do not know if that is progress or not. All kidding aside I made the comment that my unit was laid up for 11 weeks with intention. I am not one of the happy campers, but with what I heard and saw in a couple of days I was impressed. I have had my own business for 46 years so I am not real easily swayed. As I pointed out the proof is in the eating. We are a lot better off seeing if they can live up to some of those new standards and it must include us folks that have been around long before 2006 Apex units.

Good luck to us all
Ted

[Stretch]

Ted III:

I feel really lukewarm about the ability of WRV to turn the QC problems around. We (my wife and I), have purchased two new Alpines, a 40ft 2000 and a 40ft 2003. While the 2000 had what I would call congential design problems that could never be fixed, like a kitchen slide that ran into the drivers seat while moving in and out, the 03 is a much better coach, but it still had many QC issues that WRV was slow to recognize. It tok me a good year to get the coach "comfortable", which to be fair included several items I added to make the coach livable. I would think long and hard before "starting over". We are not the only ones who feel this way. We probably are the proud owners of our last Alpine. Too bad!!

[pamelashere]

Well, our experience with WRV has been less than favorable. We saw Burke Morgan in Cheyenne, WY this summer, showed him the cracks under the rear bedroom slide, gave him photos and said we'd like the work done at Acacia RV when we returned home. We called the factory a few times to coordinate our arrival there in August, saw Josh in the parking lot, showed him the cracks and again discussed Acacia RV. We were told to have Acacia fax photos and an estimate and went on our merry way. After getting home, La Quinta, CA, Acacia was told that no repairs would be authorized, and sure enough, we too were now told that it would have to go back to the factory for repairs! A few discussions later with Rex,it has been made clear that we are expected to drive back to Yakima, leave it a month, pay all associated travel and accomodation expenses and we were actually told that this had to be done during the "off" season. I haven't calculated a dollar amount for how many miles at $3+ per gallon, driving or flying home and returning in a month...and what about the huge inconvenience to us as well as the expense? It seems bizarre that WRV has the right to take this position in light of their silence regarding this policy when we were at the factory last month! Any suggestions anyone? I am reluctant to solve their problem by quick agreement to their offer that only provides convenience to them.

[Lyle & Cath]

First of all I candidly admit that I have Poliana in my back pocket because my Apex is still being built. But what I can tell you is that for years I have followed and participated in many forums for many different coach lines and am the owner of now a 3rd line (our Apex) and I can tell you that the troubles I have seen on this forum are light weight compared to many others. This is not to intimate that the problems I have seen here are nothing to the owners. If I had them I would be upset too. What I am suggesting is that those who want to leave this coach line look into the options available and follow their forums for a while and research their quality off the line. I have researched in depth and guess where I am. I just purchased an Apex at GNA. If I am wrong I will be the first to admit it but somehow I just don't think that is so.

[EngineerMike]

Pam, Welcome aboard.
I too calculated (just so I'd know; currently don't have any distressing need along these lines) the cost for a round trip to Yakima. Came to about $800 in gas & space rentals for nothing more than drop-off/pick-up. More if I had to fly home & back of course.
Don't know what kind of cracks you have experienced, & therfore what the fix would be. But the situation you describe as to failure to authorize repairs locally (absent some repair that only WRV can do at their facility) seems like a slap in the face. After all, I assume you didn't cause the cracks. It could be that Acacia's quote is stratospheric & WRV is simply making an economic decision, but that doesn't change the slap. I would expect more effort on their part to locate suitable repairs for & with you. IIWM, I would want to know a) why the WRV facility only (to get a handle on potential options), and b) what could I do to help find a mutually acceptable solution locally.
Good luck, and keep us posted. You may want to post this as a new thread to discuss the technical side.

[Danny Gayhart]

Ted, I hate to highjack your thread but I wanted to address my comments to pamelashere and EngineerMike.

Pam, I read from your profile that you own a 2002 Alpine. Unless you have an extended warranty, that would put you at least one year out of coverage. At the risk of sounding like a cheerleader for WRV, how many manufactures would even talk to an out of warranty owner? WRV cannot authorize Acacia to do "out-of-warranty"� work. They can and have offered to do your work out of warranty at their facility.

I have had many occasions to talk to owners who have had problems fixed by WRV beyond the warranty coverage. Unfortunately, WRV can only justify doing these at their facility. WRV management can monitor the repair process and possibly make changes to eliminate future problems of this kind.

It is fortunate for you that you live in California and not the east coast which would cost even more in fuel expense.

Mike, you have the right idea. Spend the initial warranty period to "debug"� your coach. As I have said before on this forum, document problems as soon as you find them. If something comes up out of warranty, be prepared to work with WRV and I think you will agree they do go out of their way to help those of us who own "Legacy Coaches"�.

Danny

[Ted III]

Danny, for the short period of time that I have been associated with WRV I could not agree with you more. I think Lyle & Cath hit the nail on the head. Until you follow some of the other manufacturers forums you will not realize that others appear to be having as many if not more problems and definitely do not get anywhere near the backing that we get from WRV. I have not been associated with a manufacturer of a motor home or a boat manufacturer (excluding Carver) who takes care of its customers as well as WRV does. I wish I had the perfect motorhome but since I don't I am going to stick with the manufacturer that will see me through my problems and WRV seems to do just that.

Lyle & Cath, congratulations on your new Apex. It really is a beauty. Please keep us posted as to how things go with it.

Ted

[pamelashere]

It is always helpful to walk around the elephant and see other perspectives, isn't it? Danny, I didn't think warranty coverage was ever an issue as we know other owners who had similar cracks repaired, at the factory, but that is a good point. I'm also heartened by comnents that WRV is described in such favorable terms. It seems the crew up there is certainly trying to be helpful.

My huge complaint is that they waited to tell us until we got home that the work had to be done in Yakima. Why no disclaimer, ever, that subbing out work might not be considered? If it were due to an unacceptably high estimate, then someone should have set those parameters in one of the conversations. We could have discussed whether or not to have left it in Yakima this summer. It is more than inconvenient as well as expensive to get it back up there. I'm expecting efficiency, it didn't happen here and we're left holding the bag.

On a positive note, we picked the coach up yeserday from Acacia where it had been for nearly a month. It was like seeing an old friend and we are so happy to have it near home again. It drives like a dream, it's beautiful and we love it.

I know my standards and expectations are high; I owned an insurance agency and made my living handling complaints, so perhaps I expect too much. I'd say my expectations are right on, however, for customers who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an item. It seems the RV industry is still working on how to provide excellent customer service, but I also think some of my expectations come from my Southern CA mentality. We're pretty high maintenance sometimes! At any rate, thanks for the input. I'm much more motivated to be more cooperative w/WRV.

[AccessoriesCtrMike]

Pamela, fly me down there on a Friday and I'll drive that coach of yours back up to Yakima...cheap...hehehe.

[SteveS]

Ted,

I certainly do not want to deflate your perceptions of WRV customer service because I have seen much evidence that Mike and his team are doing everything they can to take care of customers by compensating for manufacturing issues. However, many coach manufacturers work diligently at this also. I will site a prior experience I had with my previous coach, a Safari. After it was about 2 years old some of the wallpaper started crinkling around some of the fittings. Without significant effort on my part, they agreed to come to my house and pick it up, and drive it back to the factory (Oregon) to fix the problem, and asked me to put together a list of items that needed to be taken care of at the same time. This was about a 1300 mile trip, one way, at their expense. Three weeks later they returned it. I too have been a part of other forums and owned other coaches. Customer service is important and the manufacturers that recognize this will thrive (assuming the product isn't too bad). It is great customer service that will make happy customers of even a mediocre product. WRV is beginning to recognize this more but other manufacturers do also. Lets all hope WRV puts greater emphasis on QA on their great designs, so customer service isn't so painful.

[pamelashere]

Mike,

Bud's going to call you about that offer!!!!