Entegra Service Center Issues

[jherrin99]

First off let me say that I would not have survived my 2 weeks at the service center without the support of Joyce. I can not say enough good things about her. I know that is a given to anyone who has ever met her. She was there with an open door every time I needed help or to vent my frustrations. She was there every time with a smile on her face. She believes in doing what is right and fair. You can't ask for anything more. But, she is only one person and can not control every thing that goes on in the service department. She has the unwanted job of trying to right all of their wrongs. This is also not my first rodeo. I have been RVing for about 40 years. This is my third motor home and I have owned fifth wheels and numerous trailers over the years. I have experience driving and working on heavy trucks and equipment. I also have experience in construction, plumbing and electrical. I am able to do most of my own maintenance and repairs. I am no expert, but I know just enough to keep me out of trouble most of the time. This was my third trip to Middlebury for repairs with this coach, which is a 2200 mile round trip for us. The first trip was right after we bought the coach to fix a major water leak in the wall and floor that the dealer could not repair. The second trip was again for more major water leaks and my 2 year PDI. We have had major leaks with water lines in the walls and floor, leaks with the holding tank plumbing and leaks in the roof/sidewalls.

This spring I was doing some modifications to the fresh water plumbing when I discovered the wet bay floor was rotten. At the time my coach was almost 3 years old. I had voiced my concerns earlier about the wet bay floor when I was at the service center for my 2 year PDI. The white laminate was loose in the wet bay. I was concerned there was some underlying damage from the numerous leaks causing it. They checked it out and assured me at that time there was no need for concern. When I discovered the rotten floor, I contacted Joyce about the problem and she made me an appointment to have it repaired. My service adviser was Big Mike. My coach was in the service center for almost 2 weeks. The shop foreman fought me on this issue from the very beginning. They took my coach back to repair the rotten wet bay floor and when they brought it out, they had only replaced the small portion of the wet bay floor just inside the door, but not under the water tank. I knew this was a just a quick and easy repair to appease me. I was told this was the only damage that was found. They had checked all the rest of the wet bay and it was in good shape with no further damage. I then showed Mike the damage to the rest of the floor. It was very obvious by feeling the spongy bottom of the floor. The white laminate was also completely loose on the top. Any competent tech would have found it. After Mike brought it to their attention, the shop foreman finally acknowledged there might possibly be further damage but it was surely caused by my plumbing modifications. I was then given an estimate of what my cost would be to fix the rest of the wet bay floor, which was over $6k. I told them all the damage was caused by my leaks during warranty and previously reported to Entegra during warranty. If they are not willing to stand behind their product I would take my business elsewhere. I then got Joyce involved. I showed her and the shop foreman the damage. He again says it is likely caused by my plumbing modifications. He never asked me any questions about any previous leaks, when I modified the plumbing or even check the coach history to investigate to see if there had been any previous leaks that might have caused the damage. I heard Joyce ask him if he checked the coach history and he said "No". It was quite obvious to me that he had no desire to fix it. We had numerous major leaks from the day we purchased this coach and they were all caused by poor construction and lack of quality control during manufacture. My plumbing modifications did not leak or cause any damage. He was just looking for reasons not to fix it. I discovered the rotten floor earlier this year while installing the plumbing modifications that the shop foreman suspected of doing the damage, but in fact the damage was already done prior to my plumbing modifications. Wood does not rot overnight, this started right after we bought the coach. After talking to Joyce it was decided that the previous leaks were a possible cause of the damage to the wet bay floor and the right thing to do would be repair it. I later seen where they removed the back side of the wet bay floor, under the tank. This was the portion that they assured me there was no damage to originally. It came out in pieces because it was so rotted. They also discovered a small crack in the low point drain fitting in the bottom of the fresh water tank, yet another cause of the rotten floor that had probably been there since day one. I was told that the tank would be repaired by spin welding a new fitting to the bottom. Next the coach sat for 5 days because they were supposedly waiting on someone to come do the repair. Now maybe if I personally was having a tank repaired for myself, I would have to wait 5 days for someone to repair my tank. A company as big as Entegra and Jayco that builds probably hundreds of trailers, fifth wheels and motor homes each week certainly has better access to this than an individual. Each one of those units they build has at least 3 plastic tanks. Each tank probably has at least 3 or 4 connections each that have to be spin welded into each and every tank when it is installed. This spin welding probably happens hundreds of times each day between Entegra and Jayco. Somehow they can not find any one to do this one fitting on my water tank. There is something wrong with this picture. I again contacted Joyce for help and the decision was made on Tuesday to just install a new tank since they could not find any one to repair my leaking tank. The money they had spent on my motel room would have paid for a new tank not including the money wasted because my coach was taking up a bay instead of someone elses. Mike assured us the coach would be ready on Wednesday by 2:45pm. We checked out of the hotel that morning and patiently waited on our coach. About 4 pm after no word from anyone, we finally located Mike and asked where our coach was. He said he would go check and in about 15 minutes or so someone drove up in it. I opened the door and discovered the low battery alarm was beeping. The batteries were completely dead. We checked the refrigerator and it was over 60 degrees and everything was ruined.The coach was probably not plugged in most of the time it was in the service center for 8 days so my batteries were ruined. I also discovered the plumbing was not hooked up and my water pump was completely removed because they had broken a fitting while it was being worked on. There was of course no water. Mike informed us we would be without water for the night, which did not make my wife very happy. When he finally figured that out, he decided to get us another hotel room. We had to clean out the refrigerator and freezer and threw everything in the trash.

The voltage reading on my batteries was at 11.1 when I brought Joyce out to our coach to show her what had happened. I took a picture of the display and the thermometer that was in the refrigerator. She had also called the shop foreman out to look at it. I had told Joyce I was concerned my batteries were ruined. She asked him about the batteries being damaged and he replied that they were not hurt because they were deep cycle batteries and could handle it. Joyce apologized for the mistake and promised to reimburse us for the food. I visited with Mike first thing the next morning about the status of repairs and my batteries. He read me an email he received from the shop foreman earlier. He said the batteries were not hurt and were only down to 11.8 volts when he was in the coach and the refrigerator was a little warm. I told Mike I had pictures that proved otherwise. I also told him I was tired of fighting an uphill battle with the shop foreman. It was a battle I was not winning. I told him I would be back that afternoon to pick up my coach finished or not. I actually have some experience with this exact type of repair. Before this coach, I owned a Tiffin Phaeton with the exact same problem- a rotted wet bay floor. Tiffin used defective materials for a time and were repairing all the coaches manufactured with defective materials which amounted to thousands. At the time Tiffin repaired my coach it took two techs about 4 or 5 hours. This repair should have been done in a couple of days not a couple of weeks. My coach was being abused while in their possession. My batteries were ruined and no one was concerned. They never even checked their status. It would be less hassle for me and less chance of my coach being further damaged if I finished the repairs myself. The shop foreman had a beef with me or my coach from the very beginning. You would think the money for this repair was coming out of his own pocket and it did not matter to him what caused the damage. The techs working on it did not have enough regard for my coach to even keep it plugged in. I felt my coach was safer anywhere but that service center. I returned to the service center that afternoon and picked up my coach. They had completed the wet bay floor and installed the new water tank, but some of the plumbing was still not hooked back up. When they cut the hole for the drain pan in the wet bay floor, they did not center the hole with the sewer hose fitting. I can no longer use some of my fittings on my sewer hose because the hose does not fit through the center of the hole any more. My water pump was still missing a fitting to hook it up and was just laying loose in the wet bay. I am still finding and fixing some minor leaks. They left a mess in the wet bay with saw dust and such. I will not be surprised if I find more problems.

Now the story about my batteries. My original batteries just lasted a couple of months past the end of my warranty. I suspect they were abused pretty bad by the factory and dealer. The coach probably spent a lot of time unplugged at each place and the batteries were probably completely discharged many times before I bought it, which is why they did not last no where near as long as they should have under normal conditions. So these batteries were about 1 year old and well taken care of. I did not realize just how bad they were damaged until I started doing a little research. I knew Trojan Batteries are the gold standard in the deep cycle battery world. They are well known in the RV and golf cart industries. They have been in business for a long time and I consider them experts in this field with flooded cell batteries like mine. According to the State of Charge chart on their website, 11.1 volts is well below 90% discharged state (90% is 11.51v). I believe my batteries were 100% discharged or very close to it. Unfortunately this was not the first time this happened. They took our coach back to the service center on Wednesday (9/20/17) and we went to the hotel while they worked on it. Thursday afternoon we went by the coach to pick up some clothes. When we entered the coach, the low battery alarm was going off and the display showed 11.2v (which again is well below the 90% discharge rate). I told Mike and he had the techs plug it in. I verified it was plugged in before we left. Evidently it had not been plugged in since they took it back there the day before. We stopped by again Friday afternoon for more clothes and I noticed the inverter was inverting,which means there was no shore power. We told Mike to check it when we left. When the coach was returned on the following Wednesday afternoon the low battery alarm was again on and the battery voltage reading was 11.1v. Upon further investigation we found the refrigerator was at 60 degrees, so it had not been plugged in for a long time, probably for many days. According to Trojan's website- "Do not fully discharge flooded batteries (80% or more). This will damage (or kill) the battery." I know for a fact that my batteries were discharged completely at least 2 times to near 100% discharge state. I also know of at least one more time it was not plugged in again. During the 8 days my coach was inside the service center, we only visited the coach twice and both times it was not plugged in. I believe the coach was plugged in very little if any of those 8 days. I believe my batteries have been ruined or at the very least severely damaged. They might be able to hold a charge for a short period of time and be slightly useful, but their lifespan and capacity has been severely shortened.

I am telling this story in hopes that it will affect change in the service department so no one else has to go through what we did. I experienced incompetence in the service department from the bottom to the top. It was a team effort. It was not any one persons fault, although one person did make a much bigger contribution than the others. The sad part is the attitude I observed. They think it is OK to leave a coach unplugged. They think these batteries will handle it because they are deep cycle. They don't care because its not their batteries, they will not have to pay to replace them. If I was a service manager and I had a customer to end his appointment before the repairs were completed, I would be contacting that customer to see what the problem was. Maybe it was a problem with my people that I needed to know about or maybe the customer was just a jerk. What ever the issue, I would want to know and hear both sides of the story. No one has contacted me since I left. It is a shame things are like this because it was nothing like that when I was there before. My first repair at the service center was major compared to this one and we left thinking those people in the service department were very caring and very good at what they did. We had the utmost confidence in them taking care of us and our coach. I have seen the service department change and grow just in the 3 years I have been going there. It will continue to grow and change as they make more coaches. I can only hope the right people will read this and try to make some much needed improvements so this does not become a common problem.

[marjoa]

Boy, with such a detailed and thoughtful post, I would of thought someone would of responded by now. Hopefully my comment will push you back to the top of the list for another try.

[Victory Blue]

Originally Posted by marjoa

Boy, with such a detailed and thoughtful post, I would of thought someone would of responded by now. Hopefully my comment will push you back to the top of the list for another try.

It was posted at almost 10:30 last night.

[MRUSA14]

Wow, that is a very sad report. Surprises me as I was at the the factory service center in August and got superb treatment and outstanding work.

The battery issue is particularly disturbing to me. Your batteries have no doubt been damaged and there is no excuse for it. It is a simple matter to keep the coach plugged in at all times and should be a rule that is never violated. This is a problem industry wide, and is especially prevalent at dealer lots. I would guess that most of the for-sale coaches on dealer lots around the country have had their batteries abused. I know mine was. I special-ordered my coach and when it arrived at the dealership I got a call that it had arrived but had not yet been cleaned up and would be ready the following week. I could not resist seeing the new coach and the next day I drove three hours one way to see it, but not to pick it up. When I walked in the door, the batteries were at 10 volts! I immediately tried to start the generator and it would not start. Wound up starting it by using the aux battery switch to pull power from the chassis batteries. I found several lights had been left on in bays and in the generator compartment. When I complained they said that they would do a load test, then told me that batteries tested okay. But I am convinced that this is the reason that I got only three years out of these batteries when many people get 6 years or more.

As for the leak repairs, your experience is very disheartening. Hopefully Joyce will eventually get you satisfaction. She tries hard to do that for everybody. There is a lesson here and that is don't do mods on anything that might need warranty repair, as it gives the factory an excuse to point a finger at you rather than fix the problem.

Like I said, your experience is disturbing on several levels, and does not reflect the good experience that I had at the same facility. Maybe it depends on who your tech is, but that is no excuse. I hope that you sent a copy of your posting here to Joyce, so that she can address it. I have never met anybody who is more dedicated to customer satisfaction than Joyce.

[jherrin99]

I actually did wait until my warranty expired to do these plumbing modifications because I had feared they would try to blame any problems on my work. However the rotted floor was cause by all the leaks during warranty. I do appreciate Entegra stepping up and standing behind their product however the repair experience was a nightmare. I just got back to Texas late yesterday and I am still looking over their work. Besides all of the problems I had while I was there, the quality of the work they did on my coach was very poor and disturbing. They originally tried to just do the small portion of the floor inside the door. When they later pulled water the tank and did the rest of the floor, they did not bother to do the whole thing in one piece like what was originally in there. Instead they just added onto what they had cut out and just taped it together. There is a seam now between the two pieces with absolutely no support except a piece of tape on the bottom and top. With just the stress of the drive from Middlebury to Texas the seam is already separating. I know it will not last like that and will require some additional work to fix it correctly.

[jherrin99]

I also want to make it clear that my problems in Middlebury were with the Service Department. Joyce is Director of Customer Service (I believe). That is a totally different department. Although she ends up addressing and fixing all their mistakes, it is a different department with their own managers. I can't say enough good things about Joyce and the work she does. Anyone who has ever met Joyce knows what I am talking about. She was there for us the whole time, we could not have anyone better to work with. She can only do so much. She can't watch each and every coach being worked on, nor should she have to. I should have never had to go to her for help. My coach should have been taken care of and plugged in. They should have repaired the wet bay floor with no questions asked. It was caused by leaks that were caused by poor workmanship when the coach was built. This damage was brought to their attention when it was under warranty and they decided not to fix it. I made a huge investment in my coach and Entegra as every other owner has. That is why it bothers me to be treated this way by the service department and see such poor work coming out of the service center.

[DSL417]

Now I understand why I have had no response from the Service Center Manager concerning several large scratches made to my front passenger side slide while they were adjusting the fit two months ago. Sadly, he must have been busy giving you the run around. And all I was asking for was an acknowledgement that the techs had screwed up and didn't own up to doing it.

There are so many aspects of this that just don't represent what we've all come to expect from Entegra. Having the kind of floor leaks seems unprecedented. Then the techs not plugging the coach in while it was in the service bay is just unusual. That said, I have seen (during many trips there) usually 10 or so coaches sitting behind the fence; owners had dropped off and the coaches were waiting there turn. How many of them had been put into complete shutdown mode to try to avoid screwing up the batteries. You certainly never heard generators.

This morning I had a discussion with CS on another issue. I told Dan that he might want to have Jacob (first line supervisor in CS) take a look at the forum and this thread (Joyce is at Octoberfest in Arizona). Don't know if he will, but if he does, I would assume he will forward something to higher management. A sad commentary. JMHO

[Tom n Sandra]

Following

[Johnnypac]

I'm pretty sure people do not want to post bad reviews and burn bridges with Factory repairs. We really like our Entegra but were totally dissatisfied with their factory service. They did more damage then repairs, We found the service techs for the most part were crude, had zero pride in their work and any repairs lasted only a few days. We actually found old parts that were replaced put in our refrigerator. I can go on and on. Joyce tried to intervene which had the shop redo some of the repairs but again they were done poorly. We were there for 1 week but it took 3 weeks to repair the repairs, all basically simple repairs in the first place. We gave up and left the facility. Our goal was to use our Aspire for 4 years and trade up but we truly think its time to start looking at other options. We heard many horror stories but in all fairness we did speak with Entegra owners that were very happy with their factory service.

[Ann n Gene]

We were extremely pleased with our factory service. They fixed everything on our list and found others that we did not know about including an Aqua Hot pump. Best trip there yet and we have been many times over the years.

[lowejug]

I think it's important to remember that these repairs are being done at no cost to the owners... 2 and 3 and I have even heard 4 years later .

Who else does that? Most other manufacturers will fight you tooth and nail to even repair there products in the 1 st year...

I know this isn't a excuse for trashing batteries
Or getting some dis grunted employee who is rude.

But that is a pretty honorable company to give something back..
Jmo

[DSL417]

Gene, as you now I have been back there at least twice a year, including emergency service two weeks before the incident I mentioned above, and they were super. It just seems there is a growing inconsistency, based upon what I see reported here. Maybe it is the increased volume combined with decreasing tech knowledge as they staffed up over the last year. What I do believe is, if all is as reported by OP or even close (and I'm not even remotely suggesting that it is not, as that is between Entegra and OP), it is a major black mark on service. Heck, even Tiffin stood up to its wet bay rotting issues...and this seems a one off kind of problem. The battery/charging issues are ridiculous. You can't leave a coach there and have them not hook up or park in the lot without discussing with OP what there plan is. This is far to prevalent at both service locations at the factory and dealers across the industry. And it is too easy for both to suggest "...It isn't me..." JMHO

[Rollin101]

I just posted a couple of weeks ago how the service department had gone to s---. I believe most of the techs and service mgr. are from towable and could care less about your mh. They have no pride in their work and the present shop mgr. is obviously worthless.
I won't go into details, but they came real close to ruining a $60,000 paint job and did manage to ruin some other things for us. As usual Joyce got most of it taken care of, but she can only do so much and shouldn't have to babysit the service department.
Lack of attention to detail and carelessness is rampant and I expect it to get worse.
Shaun Huxford was on the path to having a first class service department, but it has rapidly gone to hell since he left. Thank you very much Thor and Matt Thompson both due to poor decisions made by the Bontragers.
Unless things take a drastic change for the better I have owned my last Entegra mh.

[Chuck1957]

Originally Posted by jherrin99

First off let me say that I would not have survived my 2 weeks at the service center without the support of Joyce. I can not say enough good things about her. I know that is a given to anyone who has ever met her. She was there with an open door every time I needed help or to vent my frustrations. She was there every time with a smile on her face. She believes in doing what is right and fair. You can't ask for anything more. But, she is only one person and can not control every thing that goes on in the service department. She has the unwanted job of trying to right all of their wrongs. This is also not my first rodeo. I have been RVing for about 40 years. This is my third motor home and I have owned fifth wheels and numerous trailers over the years. I have experience driving and working on heavy trucks and equipment. I also have experience in construction, plumbing and electrical. I am able to do most of my own maintenance and repairs. I am no expert, but I know just enough to keep me out of trouble most of the time. This was my third trip to Middlebury for repairs with this coach, which is a 2200 mile round trip for us. The first trip was right after we bought the coach to fix a major water leak in the wall and floor that the dealer could not repair. The second trip was again for more major water leaks and my 2 year PDI. We have had major leaks with water lines in the walls and floor, leaks with the holding tank plumbing and leaks in the roof/sidewalls.



This spring I was doing some modifications to the fresh water plumbing when I discovered the wet bay floor was rotten. At the time my coach was almost 3 years old. I had voiced my concerns earlier about the wet bay floor when I was at the service center for my 2 year PDI. The white laminate was loose in the wet bay. I was concerned there was some underlying damage from the numerous leaks causing it. They checked it out and assured me at that time there was no need for concern. When I discovered the rotten floor, I contacted Joyce about the problem and she made me an appointment to have it repaired. My service adviser was Big Mike. My coach was in the service center for almost 2 weeks. The shop foreman fought me on this issue from the very beginning. They took my coach back to repair the rotten wet bay floor and when they brought it out, they had only replaced the small portion of the wet bay floor just inside the door, but not under the water tank. I knew this was a just a quick and easy repair to appease me. I was told this was the only damage that was found. They had checked all the rest of the wet bay and it was in good shape with no further damage. I then showed Mike the damage to the rest of the floor. It was very obvious by feeling the spongy bottom of the floor. The white laminate was also completely loose on the top. Any competent tech would have found it. After Mike brought it to their attention, the shop foreman finally acknowledged there might possibly be further damage but it was surely caused by my plumbing modifications. I was then given an estimate of what my cost would be to fix the rest of the wet bay floor, which was over $6k. I told them all the damage was caused by my leaks during warranty and previously reported to Entegra during warranty. If they are not willing to stand behind their product I would take my business elsewhere. I then got Joyce involved. I showed her and the shop foreman the damage. He again says it is likely caused by my plumbing modifications. He never asked me any questions about any previous leaks, when I modified the plumbing or even check the coach history to investigate to see if there had been any previous leaks that might have caused the damage. I heard Joyce ask him if he checked the coach history and he said "No". It was quite obvious to me that he had no desire to fix it. We had numerous major leaks from the day we purchased this coach and they were all caused by poor construction and lack of quality control during manufacture. My plumbing modifications did not leak or cause any damage. He was just looking for reasons not to fix it. I discovered the rotten floor earlier this year while installing the plumbing modifications that the shop foreman suspected of doing the damage, but in fact the damage was already done prior to my plumbing modifications. Wood does not rot overnight, this started right after we bought the coach. After talking to Joyce it was decided that the previous leaks were a possible cause of the damage to the wet bay floor and the right thing to do would be repair it. I later seen where they removed the back side of the wet bay floor, under the tank. This was the portion that they assured me there was no damage to originally. It came out in pieces because it was so rotted. They also discovered a small crack in the low point drain fitting in the bottom of the fresh water tank, yet another cause of the rotten floor that had probably been there since day one. I was told that the tank would be repaired by spin welding a new fitting to the bottom. Next the coach sat for 5 days because they were supposedly waiting on someone to come do the repair. Now maybe if I personally was having a tank repaired for myself, I would have to wait 5 days for someone to repair my tank. A company as big as Entegra and Jayco that builds probably hundreds of trailers, fifth wheels and motor homes each week certainly has better access to this than an individual. Each one of those units they build has at least 3 plastic tanks. Each tank probably has at least 3 or 4 connections each that have to be spin welded into each and every tank when it is installed. This spin welding probably happens hundreds of times each day between Entegra and Jayco. Somehow they can not find any one to do this one fitting on my water tank. There is something wrong with this picture. I again contacted Joyce for help and the decision was made on Tuesday to just install a new tank since they could not find any one to repair my leaking tank. The money they had spent on my motel room would have paid for a new tank not including the money wasted because my coach was taking up a bay instead of someone elses. Mike assured us the coach would be ready on Wednesday by 2:45pm. We checked out of the hotel that morning and patiently waited on our coach. About 4 pm after no word from anyone, we finally located Mike and asked where our coach was. He said he would go check and in about 15 minutes or so someone drove up in it. I opened the door and discovered the low battery alarm was beeping. The batteries were completely dead. We checked the refrigerator and it was over 60 degrees and everything was ruined.The coach was probably not plugged in most of the time it was in the service center for 8 days so my batteries were ruined. I also discovered the plumbing was not hooked up and my water pump was completely removed because they had broken a fitting while it was being worked on. There was of course no water. Mike informed us we would be without water for the night, which did not make my wife very happy. When he finally figured that out, he decided to get us another hotel room. We had to clean out the refrigerator and freezer and threw everything in the trash.



The voltage reading on my batteries was at 11.1 when I brought Joyce out to our coach to show her what had happened. I took a picture of the display and the thermometer that was in the refrigerator. She had also called the shop foreman out to look at it. I had told Joyce I was concerned my batteries were ruined. She asked him about the batteries being damaged and he replied that they were not hurt because they were deep cycle batteries and could handle it. Joyce apologized for the mistake and promised to reimburse us for the food. I visited with Mike first thing the next morning about the status of repairs and my batteries. He read me an email he received from the shop foreman earlier. He said the batteries were not hurt and were only down to 11.8 volts when he was in the coach and the refrigerator was a little warm. I told Mike I had pictures that proved otherwise. I also told him I was tired of fighting an uphill battle with the shop foreman. It was a battle I was not winning. I told him I would be back that afternoon to pick up my coach finished or not. I actually have some experience with this exact type of repair. Before this coach, I owned a Tiffin Phaeton with the exact same problem- a rotted wet bay floor. Tiffin used defective materials for a time and were repairing all the coaches manufactured with defective materials which amounted to thousands. At the time Tiffin repaired my coach it took two techs about 4 or 5 hours. This repair should have been done in a couple of days not a couple of weeks. My coach was being abused while in their possession. My batteries were ruined and no one was concerned. They never even checked their status. It would be less hassle for me and less chance of my coach being further damaged if I finished the repairs myself. The shop foreman had a beef with me or my coach from the very beginning. You would think the money for this repair was coming out of his own pocket and it did not matter to him what caused the damage. The techs working on it did not have enough regard for my coach to even keep it plugged in. I felt my coach was safer anywhere but that service center. I returned to the service center that afternoon and picked up my coach. They had completed the wet bay floor and installed the new water tank, but some of the plumbing was still not hooked back up. When they cut the hole for the drain pan in the wet bay floor, they did not center the hole with the sewer hose fitting. I can no longer use some of my fittings on my sewer hose because the hose does not fit through the center of the hole any more. My water pump was still missing a fitting to hook it up and was just laying loose in the wet bay. I am still finding and fixing some minor leaks. They left a mess in the wet bay with saw dust and such. I will not be surprised if I find more problems.



Now the story about my batteries. My original batteries just lasted a couple of months past the end of my warranty. I suspect they were abused pretty bad by the factory and dealer. The coach probably spent a lot of time unplugged at each place and the batteries were probably completely discharged many times before I bought it, which is why they did not last no where near as long as they should have under normal conditions. So these batteries were about 1 year old and well taken care of. I did not realize just how bad they were damaged until I started doing a little research. I knew Trojan Batteries are the gold standard in the deep cycle battery world. They are well known in the RV and golf cart industries. They have been in business for a long time and I consider them experts in this field with flooded cell batteries like mine. According to the State of Charge chart on their website, 11.1 volts is well below 90% discharged state (90% is 11.51v). I believe my batteries were 100% discharged or very close to it. Unfortunately this was not the first time this happened. They took our coach back to the service center on Wednesday (9/20/17) and we went to the hotel while they worked on it. Thursday afternoon we went by the coach to pick up some clothes. When we entered the coach, the low battery alarm was going off and the display showed 11.2v (which again is well below the 90% discharge rate). I told Mike and he had the techs plug it in. I verified it was plugged in before we left. Evidently it had not been plugged in since they took it back there the day before. We stopped by again Friday afternoon for more clothes and I noticed the inverter was inverting,which means there was no shore power. We told Mike to check it when we left. When the coach was returned on the following Wednesday afternoon the low battery alarm was again on and the battery voltage reading was 11.1v. Upon further investigation we found the refrigerator was at 60 degrees, so it had not been plugged in for a long time, probably for many days. According to Trojan's website- "Do not fully discharge flooded batteries (80% or more). This will damage (or kill) the battery." I know for a fact that my batteries were discharged completely at least 2 times to near 100% discharge state. I also know of at least one more time it was not plugged in again. During the 8 days my coach was inside the service center, we only visited the coach twice and both times it was not plugged in. I believe the coach was plugged in very little if any of those 8 days. I believe my batteries have been ruined or at the very least severely damaged. They might be able to hold a charge for a short period of time and be slightly useful, but their lifespan and capacity has been severely shortened.



I am telling this story in hopes that it will affect change in the service department so no one else has to go through what we did. I experienced incompetence in the service department from the bottom to the top. It was a team effort. It was not any one persons fault, although one person did make a much bigger contribution than the others. The sad part is the attitude I observed. They think it is OK to leave a coach unplugged. They think these batteries will handle it because they are deep cycle. They don't care because its not their batteries, they will not have to pay to replace them. If I was a service manager and I had a customer to end his appointment before the repairs were completed, I would be contacting that customer to see what the problem was. Maybe it was a problem with my people that I needed to know about or maybe the customer was just a jerk. What ever the issue, I would want to know and hear both sides of the story. No one has contacted me since I left. It is a shame things are like this because it was nothing like that when I was there before. My first repair at the service center was major compared to this one and we left thinking those people in the service department were very caring and very good at what they did. We had the utmost confidence in them taking care of us and our coach. I have seen the service department change and grow just in the 3 years I have been going there. It will continue to grow and change as they make more coaches. I can only hope the right people will read this and try to make some much needed improvements so this does not become a common problem.

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