Quote:
Originally Posted by ChadBounder
Why not take it to a Tiffin dealer and have them fix it under warranty. I don't (spelling corrected, you're welcome) understand why you would pay $3K to fix a warranty issue.
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As a short introduction, ours is a brand new 2022 Allegro Open Road 32SA that was 6 weeks old when the roof issue was noted. I have flushed the toilet twice - only twice, once when we were winterizing it and again when we were getting it ready to head out into adventure land. I've never had a cold beer from the refrigerator (that could, in part, explain the earlier point). In short, we have yet been afforded the opportunity to use the motorhome for its intended purpose. We had been to the dealer for service work within the first couple of days of the purchase, and that did not work out well; in fact, the whole experience was, to date, an unmitigated disaster (figuratively, of course)
With that background, I'll digress a bit..
I'm reluctant to take the bait on any retort that starts with "
I don't understand why you ....", mainly because understanding another's understandings is the science of snake-oil pedaling psychologists, but also it often takes the conversation down a one-way rabbit hole. Understanding comes from those little pseudo-wirings called synaptic channels that connect the axonal terminals of an excited, sensory processing control neuron network to the input dendrites of an output configurable neuron. As an example, a simple concept, such as why I would do this or that, is captured in the enlightened brain as a network of axons, dendrites, and synaptic channels, that are wired together through the process of learning. If someone does not understand something (e.g., doesn't understand me, doesn't understand integrating transcendental function, doesn't know how to drive a forklift, doesn't understand how to derive the polynomial formula to account for accumulated interest over a series of pre-period payments to understand the time value of money, and so on), then simply put, there is a lacking in the wiring of a specific neural network in that person's brain. Now I don't have a clue what any of that means, but it does strike me as odd, bordering on absurd, that I would somehow be responsible for anyone's understandings other than my own. That you don't understand something is not on me.
That said, for this time, I'll take the bait (and will likely be sorry for same).
It goes something like this:
I had the motorhome at the local Tiffin dealer earlier for warranty work because the living room slide was installed incorrectly. The dealer made it worse and concluded it was not reproducible. I took it to Blue Moon RV service in Carrolton TX where they repaired the slide in 3 days and the cost to was ZERO - I paid Blue Moon $2,234.65, submitted pictures and the invoice to Tiffin, and 4 days later I received a check for $2,234.65, signed my the legend himself - The Right Honorable Bob Tiffin. I paid the initial repair cost out of pocket because I was tired of dealing with dealers.
Now the roof issue is at hand. I started this post to give folks a heads-up regarding quality and the need to be Über diligent in the pre-acceptance inspection. It appears dealers will not be diligent about inspection and repairing motorhome when they take it from the manufacturer and before it is sold. That's because dealers have separated the sales component of the company from the service component of the company, effectively creating two companies. The sales company is a profit center - and the rewards there are volume based. The service company is a cost center, where the technicians are compensated based on flag hours and flag rate. Flag values come from a book published by the manufacturer. When you take your motorhome in for warranty work, the service department sees the manufacturer as the customer. As the owner of the motor home, you are just nuisance, a screaming Karen if you please. When you take your motorhome in for warranty work, you give up control of the repair process.
Bottom line, in summary, and so on. I took our motor home to a top notch repair facility, we looked at the problem, discussed the fix and cost, I made suggestions about quality and guarantee and timing and so, the shop gave me a price, I looked in my pocket and had just that much, so I said to that shop - "Go for it, make it right", and so they did. It was fixed, fixed right I might add because I was involved and watched what they were doing, and then the great folks at Tiffin sent me a check to cover the repairs.
Now for the summary of the summary -
I paid $3k for warranty work because I wanted it done right, and wanted the warranty providing technicians at the dealer service center as far away from our motor home as I could get them. We paid $200K for our motorhome, so an additional $3k to get it right does hurt a bit, but dealing with warranty service hurts OH SO MUCH MORE. We took the least pain approach.
Specifically to ChadBounder - I am not opposed to warranty work, I am opposed to dealer warranty work. Paying $3k initially and then getting reimbursed from Tiffin was simply the approach I took to warranty work. I do hope this clears up the understandings a bit...
With that, I have now opened myself up for a plethora of unsolicited commentary from old angry white men with 10 year old $700K rigs about what I should have done. For the record, I never asked, so thank you all the same.
If you have problems after you buy your new coach, and you feel it might be covered under warranty, either figure it out on your own, or ask one of the many old angry white men with the 10 year old $700K rig on this forum for advise. Don't take my approach - it only works for me.
For those that are
contemplating purchasing a new motorhome, you may want to consider a two or three day inspection process prior to taking delivery of that $200K to $750K coach. Often times your bargaining power with the dealer evaporates the instance you hand over the sack of cash. That's my advise. It's free advice offered as is with no warrant, and as always, you get what you pay for...
Havanese, Electric Catrike
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