Community Forums

Mr_D · 03-21-2017, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deeojoe

You should contact the BBB about them.

Used to have a business the BBB called me and offered me a high rating for a "donation" of $500 or so. Seems like anyone can buy a good rating.
Then there's the dispute we had with a dealer years ago. Filed a complaint with both the AG's off and the BBB. Got a letter from the BBB saying they were closing the dispute because the dealer sent them a letter saying we had agreed to settle. Nothing of the kind happened so I wrote a letter to the BBB disputing the dealers letter. Never heard another thing from the BBB. But the AG's office sided with me and I did get the promised free TV.

RobbieH · 03-21-2017, 02:15 PM

My brand new 2014 Thor spent 172 days in the shop during the first 11 months. The main issue is the slide kept failing. It was unusable. I'd take a dented door over our horror story with our Thor's full wall slide any day.

marjoa · 03-21-2017, 05:30 PM

I feel so bad for the OP in their situation BUT this is exactly why I have sooooooo many times voiced that I wouldn't buy a Thor product for any reason. In addition to their systemic Schwintec slide system problems, this OP's story can be read 1000's of times all over here and the web. Those of you who—boo who—people like me and say, "I have a Thor MH, no problems so far, and we love our MH", I say "you're lucky. I know, I know all manufacturers have problems blah, blah, blah....but this story I have read so many times that I almost don't even click these posts anymore because I know what's coming. Thor MH's do have nice coaches @ 1st look. Lot's of bling and apparent amenities and innovative layout. BUT.....after the sale THIS kind of post is what we hear all to often. Sorry arse service from dealers and after a couple of years components falling apart. Customer has to jump through 100's of hoops to get stuff done. I'm sorry, but when you spent this kinda of money and get this kinda of service I say BS. The only way the market place (aka consumer) get's true change is to hit them in the pocket book. When sales go down, and Thor begin's to pay attention to posts like this one then MAYBE change will happen. It's just amazing to me how customer service in so many areas of our life are lacking today. Anyone can sell something BUT a company that rises to fame and stays there is based on one thing and one thing only, and that is how they take care of their of their customers.

Some how, some way RV Dealerships are going to have to come up to par in customer service like any other business. They've gotten away with murder WAY to long and since they refuse to self govern, I predict the "chickens will come home to roost" at some point. Hopefully sooner than later". I know what I'm talking about being self-employed for 28years. This kinda of post just PMO.

Crankshaft · 03-22-2017, 04:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by biggcrisp

7 months for a refrigerator installation!

Don't they build more than a few rigs per day from scratch?

7 months! Wow, you have more patience than I do for sure.

Well, it was a bit more than the refrigerator. Actually it took them 2 tries to find one that would work. The first one was a regular depth fridge, it stuck out in the hallway too far. They finally realized that they needed a counter depth fridge instead. My coach came with a freezer on top/fridge on bottom 18 cu ft unit. Coachmen replaced it with a french door fridge, freezer on bottom, water inside, 27 cu ft unit. Nice upgrade. While it was there it needed a lot of other work that General dragged it's feet on. Such as the leaking driver and passenger windows, loose ceiling panels, bathroom light that came crashing down on the mirror while we were driving, both front fenders were recalled for cracking, had to be replaced and repainted, the trailer hitch was recalled too, all the kitchen drawers had their slides and latches redone and the stairs had to be replaced.

At the same time I've had to, at my own expense, redo the gray and black sewer connections. I had to rewire the awning because it would go out but not in. That was due to the fact that it was wired to the chassis battery not the house batteries. Both headlights are getting replaced this spring. All on a just over 2 year old RV.

Now, as bad as all this sounds, Coachmen has been excellent to work with. They upgraded the refrigerator which was a very nice bonus. Last fall when we were in Texas the recalled trailer hitch failed. The recall was on the bolts, not the hitch itself. Well, the recall, in my opinion, was not a correct fix and I ended up in my campground with a bent receiver and a towbar dragging on the ground. I knew the RV was out of warranty so I started calling all over Texas looking for a new hitch. There are none. I called Coachmen hoping to be able to buy one from them knowing the shipping was going to be outrageous. Coachmen sent me a new receiver and hardware at no charge, even sent it overnight. Coachmen even payed for the rebuild kit for my towbar, parts and shipping.

And it gets more interesting. Our main TV went out while in Texas. It was a Hitachi. I called Hitachi for warranty help only to find out that it was made in 2010 and out of warranty. I called Coachmen to ask why a 5 year old TV was put in a 2015 RV. It's all about volume buying. Coachmen came through again, they sent us a new TV.

I would never buy from General RV but I would certainly buy from Coachmen again.

biggcrisp · 03-22-2017, 06:16 AM

@Crankshaft,

I have owned 3 coachmen tt's. One older and two newer Forest River units. I didn't have any warranty claims but, if I had they would have been through Forest River.

Sounds like you are saying coachmen motor coaches division does a good job of handling warranties and the 7 months was covering a range of different issues. All covered by coachmen to boot.

Some other brands could learn from coachmen.

rgmiller32 · 03-22-2017, 06:32 AM

The people at Coachmen have been great to work with. We had issues that the dealership made worse, when the unit was new and Coachmen took care of it. The trip to the factory service center was worth it. Going to the Coachmen rally in Goshen this year and will get a couple of minor things taken care of while we are there.

mojoracing · 03-22-2017, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crankshaft

Well, it was a bit more than the refrigerator. Actually it took them 2 tries to find one that would work. The first one was a regular depth fridge, it stuck out in the hallway too far. They finally realized that they needed a counter depth fridge instead. My coach came with a freezer on top/fridge on bottom 18 cu ft unit. Coachmen replaced it with a french door fridge, freezer on bottom, water inside, 27 cu ft unit. Nice upgrade. While it was there it needed a lot of other work that General dragged it's feet on. Such as the leaking driver and passenger windows, loose ceiling panels, bathroom light that came crashing down on the mirror while we were driving, both front fenders were recalled for cracking, had to be replaced and repainted, the trailer hitch was recalled too, all the kitchen drawers had their slides and latches redone and the stairs had to be replaced.

At the same time I've had to, at my own expense, redo the gray and black sewer connections. I had to rewire the awning because it would go out but not in. That was due to the fact that it was wired to the chassis battery not the house batteries. Both headlights are getting replaced this spring. All on a just over 2 year old RV.

Now, as bad as all this sounds, Coachmen has been excellent to work with. They upgraded the refrigerator which was a very nice bonus. Last fall when we were in Texas the recalled trailer hitch failed. The recall was on the bolts, not the hitch itself. Well, the recall, in my opinion, was not a correct fix and I ended up in my campground with a bent receiver and a towbar dragging on the ground. I knew the RV was out of warranty so I started calling all over Texas looking for a new hitch. There are none. I called Coachmen hoping to be able to buy one from them knowing the shipping was going to be outrageous. Coachmen sent me a new receiver and hardware at no charge, even sent it overnight. Coachmen even payed for the rebuild kit for my towbar, parts and shipping.

And it gets more interesting. Our main TV went out while in Texas. It was a Hitachi. I called Hitachi for warranty help only to find out that it was made in 2010 and out of warranty. I called Coachmen to ask why a 5 year old TV was put in a 2015 RV. It's all about volume buying. Coachmen came through again, they sent us a new TV.

I would never buy from General RV but I would certainly buy from Coachmen again.

All of these problems sound like they were coachmen quality issues to begin with, that happened on the road or in texas. Coachmen sounds like they stood behind it as they should have, where did the dealer go wrong? Also, power awning are usually wired to the chassis side, they have a lead that senses ignition so they dont deploy while the ignition is on.

FRR2EYW · 03-22-2017, 06:39 AM

Bought from them also, had same problems with warranty work. Wife blasted them on Facebook and the phone was ringing 15 minutes later with Yes Sir, No Sir. And it got fixed right.

rick kirby · 03-22-2017, 06:59 AM

got the MH yesterday and it seems they got it taken care of except a couple of items.. they put a new cable on the eurosofa and it doesn't seem to latch shut and the entry door is real hard to open and close, it wasn't like that yesterday..when it warms up a bit i'll try to adjust the striker pegs and see if i can see where the sofa latch is...if i can't fix it, they'll have to to when they send a man here to me the whirlpool guy to replace the doors.
another interesting thing happened, when i got the rig park and shut off the engine i could hear a motor noise, it was hard to tell where it was coming from because the wind was blowing so hard..but i did find it..it was the awning motor, i ran the awning out a bit and back in and it still made the noise, i shut off the power to it and turned it back on and it's gone...a new worry huh ? i'm going to have to get someone to look at it because the thought of the awning coming out during travel is more excitement than i need. slow progress, but at least i got it home and we do have a small rv repair facility close by in this small town...thanks for all the posts fellas !

rick kirby · 03-22-2017, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobbieH

My brand new 2014 Thor spent 172 days in the shop during the first 11 months. The main issue is the slide kept failing. It was unusable. I'd take a dented door over our horror story with our Thor's full wall slide any day.

i sure wish i hadn't read that...

mojoracing · 03-22-2017, 07:03 AM

The problem with the rv industry and by that I mean RV manufacturers and RV dealers all falls back on one thing. The warranty of a unit is not looked at as a single warranty and the decision to warranty a component may or may not fall on one person, company or manufacturer. When you pull into your local toyota dealer, pretty much everything is covered under the manufacturers warranty except the tires and the factory is very clear about what they will cover and relays that information to the dealer and have systems in place to quickly approve a warranty claim. This is important because if they were not clear and have those systems in place, dealers could assume an item was covered, replace it and then later not get reimbursed by the factory for the part and labor.

In the RV industry, there is very rarely any continuity when it comes to handling a warranty repair. Rather than the manufacturer have quick and efficient systems in place for the dealer to warranty an issue as well as having clear and concise policies in place regarding the manufacturer approving claims, the RV industry falls back on the individual components warranties and policies which may or may not mirror those of the RV manufacturer. Until the RV manufacturers get together with the component manufacturers and can have one "rv manufacturer warranty" that covers "bumper to bumper" for a set period of time along with a policy in place for the dealer to make warranty decisions without the fear of not being paid, this will continue to happen. Dealers would be happy to repair a warranty concern without delay if they knew they were going to get paid.

The problem with the current system is if the dealer just said "yep, its broke and we will fix it immediately!" The rv manufacturers find every way under the sun to either put the repair back on the component manufacturer or delay the process. Some Manufacturers, not all will try and find any way possible not to pay a warranty repair. The other issue is the parts pipeline from the manufacturer, but thats a whole different issue. LOL

rick kirby · 03-22-2017, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emcee

Don't see that flooplan on the Thor website.

37YT..my bad !

https://thormotorcoach.com/challenger/floorplans/

TonyMac · 03-22-2017, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Highway 4x4

E mail is your friend, use it to document every repair and conversation. Send the e mails to multiple people so everyone is in the loop on the issues and will be held accountable in the future. E mail never goes away and can be used later. Good luck.

ABSOLUTELY document everything and make sure the idiot on the other end KNOWS you are documenting everything. Service writers are not the guy to talk to, get a service manager. He's the guy who assigns tasks to the service technicians. Talking in person is good too, but visably take copious notes in front of the guy you're talking to. Get the General Manager involved too, cc this person on everything.

computerguy · 03-22-2017, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojoracing

The problem with the rv industry and by that I mean RV manufacturers and RV dealers all falls back on one thing. The warranty of a unit is not looked at as a single warranty and the decision to warranty a component may or may not fall on one person, company or manufacturer. When you pull into your local toyota dealer, pretty much everything is covered under the manufacturers warranty except the tires and the factory is very clear about what they will cover and relays that information to the dealer and have systems in place to quickly approve a warranty claim. This is important because if they were not clear and have those systems in place, dealers could assume an item was covered, replace it and then later not get reimbursed by the factory for the part and labor.

In the RV industry, there is very rarely any continuity when it comes to handling a warranty repair. Rather than the manufacturer have quick and efficient systems in place for the dealer to warranty an issue as well as having clear and concise policies in place regarding the manufacturer approving claims, the RV industry falls back on the individual components warranties and policies which may or may not mirror those of the RV manufacturer. Until the RV manufacturers get together with the component manufacturers and can have one "rv manufacturer warranty" that covers "bumper to bumper" for a set period of time along with a policy in place for the dealer to make warranty decisions without the fear of not being paid, this will continue to happen. Dealers would be happy to repair a warranty concern without delay if they knew they were going to get paid.

The problem with the current system is if the dealer just said "yep, its broke and we will fix it immediately!" The rv manufacturers find every way under the sun to either put the repair back on the component manufacturer or delay the process. Some Manufacturers, not all will try and find any way possible not to pay a warranty repair. The other issue is the parts pipeline from the manufacturer, but thats a whole different issue. LOL

Mojo,
Yep, I heard the exact same info from a director at Lazydays. Doesn't make it right. I recall you have intimate first hand experience in this area. It's sad that the consumer pays the price in lack of use of a unit for months on end for this incompetence and the pure frustration in this information not being relayed to the consumer.

Yet, bring the unit to the manufacturer and it is fixed in mere days what could not be done at the dealer in months.