Winnie quality control?

Bryan66 · 03-10-2016, 07:51 PM

Good day everyone, First of all I want to say that we love our 04 34H Journey!
I am I believe the 3 owner here are the TWO biggest goofs I have ever
seen on an RV.

The first thing I found was that the black and gray tanks are marked backwards! The color of the valve handles are true to the markings but
The black handle empty's the gray tank and the gray handle is for
the black tank!

Has anyone ever ran into this?

Well that is kind of minor but duh...

The next one is a killer of sorts. I would get some dripping water
from the drivers slide. This one has the galley on it. I though at first
must be some condensation but it kept showing up every now and again.

Well one day I went to investigate this problem and found a whale of
a #$R% up by the manufacture!

There is a 1 1/2 inch flexible tube that connects the sink to the gray
tank. Winnie in all there quality control placed a "C" clamp on the floor
right where the slide out comes in. See the pictures for what I am talking
about!

The hose was cut dang near in half and every time you used the sink
only about a quarter of the water reached the gray tank!

Well anyway repairs are underway my yours truly but I would ask other
owners of similar vintage to check and see if they have the same problem.

dpinvidic · 03-10-2016, 07:57 PM

Good thing you posted pictures, otherwise I would have said it was a lie.....nobody would do something that stupid. At least they should put a second layer of protection before clamping.

Regards,

Dan

Witt74 · 03-10-2016, 08:02 PM

Just when you think it's idiot proof, someone comes out with a new and improved idiot!

Mr_D · 03-10-2016, 08:12 PM

And that's the troubling part of Winnie buying CC! Will Winnie upgrade their quality to what those of us with CC's have come to expect or will the name go down the drain so to speak.

Mr Miyagi · 03-10-2016, 09:16 PM

Hi there Bryan, I've read about the two dump handles being switched as well but your sink drain hose got me up out from behind my computer and I quickly walked outside to check ours...Evidently, this issue was rectified before any water damage occurred in our coach. I just wanna thank you for bringing these kinds of problems to light.

Cheers and happy camping!

Bryan66 · 03-10-2016, 11:31 PM

Thank you Mr. Mijagi! I see that the improvement was not to put
the dang clamp in at all! I am waiting for the floor to dry out some
more and then I have to de mold the place! Lots of bleach to be used
then. I was wondering about the torque that would be placed on
the gray tank connection. I would guess that by seeing your pictures
that it would not seem to be an issue...

Thank you again!

Bryan

Mr Miyagi · 03-10-2016, 11:44 PM

I guess there are times when it's better to be lucky than good! The original owner of our coach did a great number of improvements both mechanical and electrical and we were simply the lucky recipient of all of his troubleshooting wizardry. We're constantly looking at small easy to do improvements as well and the members here are some of the best to ask. Best of luck with yours.

BVThunder · 03-11-2016, 07:06 AM

The same person must still be working on the Winnebago assembly line, because the black and gray labels were reversed on our new '16 Journey!

dpinvidic · 03-11-2016, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BVThunder

The same person must still be working on the Winnebago assembly line, because the black and gray labels were reversed on our new '16 Journey!

That guy used to be a carpenter. Every other nail he pulled out of his bag, he threw away.
His boss asked him why, and he said "The head was on the wrong end of the nail"......his boss said "You idiot, those are for the other side if the house".....they both left the housing market and started building RV's.

Dan

530ktm · 03-11-2016, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BVThunder

The same person must still be working on the Winnebago assembly line, because the black and gray labels were reversed on our new '16 Journey!

It is amazing to hear this because mine has the same mishap, gray handle and gray label are on the black tank and vice versa.

First time I dumped I could not believe how clean the poop tank was.

Duner · 03-11-2016, 11:02 AM

When I ordered my 2004 Chieftain it was built in Oct-Dec 2003, about the same time as yours. At that time in the rv industry was experiencing max growth and sales. I think 1/3 of the Winnie factory workers were rookies, and the quality had dropped significantly from the 1999 Chieftain I had for 5 yrs.

One of my problems was with the drain for the dishwasher in drivers side slide.
When the slide was out it was completely pinched off and 1st time in use it flooded out the door and many gallons of soapy water all over our brand new coach.

Also I experienced about 1 or 2 out of every 5 drill screws stripped out. So for 12 yrs now I have replacing with one size bigger screw.

Bryan66 · 03-11-2016, 02:23 PM

Thank you Bill for the story! Gads it sometimes seem just impossible that
some things can be done so dumb! Next time I buy an RV (there will be a next time) I will be more careful about my inspection.. I will run everything
and check all the nooks and cranny's...

Bryan

Mr Miyagi · 06-18-2016, 01:31 PM

Good morning Bryan. As we had talked about my luck running out with regards to the kitchen sink drain hose and ours finally cracking at that same location. We were going to simply remove and reverse the hose direction after repairing the crack as you'd suggested but instead bought a few feet of flexable hose and connected to the existing OEM hose for a leak free solution. Hope this helps those of us with kitchen slideouts... I did utilize the sealing tape in addition to the hose clamps. Happy Camping!

bigfatguy · 06-27-2018, 04:17 PM

working, as I do, in the aerospace industry, I was terrified when I saw how bad Winnibago's QC is.

Even in my own rig, which has nothing along the lines of what you've noticed, we had issues like:
1: cupholders full of screws, clips, washers, etc
2: tools left behind
3: as many as a dozen phones' configurations set up in the stereo
4: screws randomly left around on the floor
5: our sofa's seatbelts were installed in such a way that they could not have been used
6: the sofa retraction motor's worm gear was installed in such a way that it cut and shorted out the power lines for the in-sofa USB sockets every time it was moved

after a year in and out of service, and much work on my own, I think we've finally got things to a fairly respectable level.

The terrifying thing is, I'm told Winnebago is among the best mfg's...