iRV2 Forums - You got to be kidding me.

Hello everyone, my name is Will and I am new to this forum, and I'm a RV Tech with a bunch of years experience.
And after so many years, I'm sometimes still mind boggled of the lag of support from manufactures, and the uneducated answers my customers and I get from the customers service department. It's almost like, yes we build those trailers but we don't know anything about it. Here I have a Keystone (Fleetwood) 40.5' Residence trailer. The trailer is just over 1 year old, and the customer has a cracked shower pan around the drain. Called Keystone the answer of course was, well it's out of warranty, yes I get that, however a 1 year old shower pan should not crack. So they told the customer that they might be able to honer the repair out of warranty if we can proof that it's there fault, well good luck with that, the customer was told that if they honer the repair they probable will get charged a absorbent amount of money, (oh OK, so you know how much time it takes to take the cabinets out and the complete shower, and put it all back together) So there answer to my customer was, YOU NOT SUPPOSE TO STEP ON THE DRAIN????? to make things clear with this shower pan, the drain is right in front of the entrance door, so now my customer and his Family and friends or whomever use this shower have to be aware to not to step on the drain because it will CRACK! does that make sense? I looked at the drain part, and the wood is just cut away to be able to put the P Trap in, well it's only 2" in diameter, so you could cut a 2.5" to 3" hole and everything will fit nicely in there, but of course that is common sense which is not readily available at Fleetwood, just think about the answer DO NOT STEP ON THE DRAIN. So, the whole repair including the new drain pan, is going to cost my customer $ 3100.00 out of pocket, just because of a Manufactures ( Fleetwood) mistake. My customer has a extended warranty on his trailer as well, and of course submitting my estimate to them is also a waste of time, because of course we forgot to read the fine print, and it's not covered. Yes, the extended warranty cost about 3 to 4 K, but you are only covered if the whole undercarriage falls off. It's like buying a new toaster, and pay $ 30.00 for a extended warranty, while the toaster only cost $ 24.95, EXTENDED warranties in generall are useless, especially if you have full coverage on your trailer because you still making payments on the trailer. Do your home work, get a good insurance company, and ask questions before you seal the deal, ask them what is and what is not covered, and for crying out loud, READ THE FINE PRINT FOR ONCE. Anyway, be aware of any manufacturers warranty, most of them try to stick it to you, and if they do not stick it to you, they will do it to the RV tech. I've been there and done that. Most Mobile RV Techs here will not do any warranty work, that's why most of my clients are Manufacturers warranty because I still do warranty work, (poor souls) and or extended warranty, again (poor souls) and gee what about me, ( poor soul also) Am I being negative? heck yes I am, I am so tired of the poor quality of the trailers these day's, and there is very limited quality control, most of my work comes from trailers who are not even 2 years old? does that make sense. not to me. There is another fun part, I ordered parts for this particular customer, it takes 5 weeks to get a door frame (2 pieces of MDF with a plastic wood film on it in a 80K trailer!!!) then don't be surprised if the part is damaged upon arrival which actually happened with this particular customer, now we are looking at 5 more weeks to get that damaged part replaced, by the time I have this simple repair done on my customers trailer, I'm looking at 3 months, that is why when you bring your trailer to a repair shop, don't leave it there, unless your planning to not to use it for the next 8 weeks. Have them order the parts, and when they are in, then make an appointment and get it repaired, that way you only missing your rig about 1 week depending on the extend of the repair. To me it's insane the amount of money you pay for those trailers, I have customers who paid in excess of 90K for there trailer, and still have more problems then you can trow a stick at. Yes, they build them in about a week, you just have to hope that it was not build on a Friday, and worse, on a Monday after the weekend. I try to keep a :) on my face, but most of the time I'm pretty :mad: and so are my customers. You just :banghead: your head against the wall. Having spilled my guts about all this, I actually should not complain too much, because those manufacturers mistakes keeps me in business for the rest of my life, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel afterall, for the RV Tech that is, :D

Will.