Ken, unfortunately what you have said is a lot more realistic than many may be prepared to admit - and dealers will rarely if ever admit. I think you are correct to sweep in all manufacturers as well. I'm not sure which manufacturer, if any, has not had such problems.
We just switched to an HR product (primarily because the floor plan gave us something we could really use and could not come close to with a Winnie DP) and while it is too early to form an opinion, some of the things we have found in our first 2 days are annoying. Fortunately only one has an impact on use (connecting toad lights - can't determine the problem yet so "fault" is still undetermined [this may be related to the different wiring for the Winnie with the orange turn signals - but I don't know for sure]). We found very few problems ourselves, but to our surprise a senior dealer service staff member (we bought the Journey there so he "knows me") went through it with us even though it was not his job to do this (he said he knew that if he didn't, I'd find any problems over the next few months anyway [unstated was probably that I'd then drive him nuts to fix them]) and he filled half a page with items that need attention. For example, he identified 4 speakers that have to be replaced because when they were installed the screws were over tightened (we didn't see the hairline cracks until he pointed them out). Also a faux wood panel on the dash was over tightned and had a small crack at a corner next to the screw. Some of these things might never cause problems but we might as well get them fixed because we only have a year to do so.
I'm hoping we don't find anything that warrants a visit to the factory, but if we do, at least it is much closer to our home (382 miles vs 860 miles if we had to go to Winnie - in addition HR has a facility at Wildwood, 112 miles from our lot in Florida [something Winnie might want to look at doing]).
IMO all manufacturers should have regional factory operated service facilities (in fact, the manufacturers could really SHARE such facilities [novel idea but they are too stubborn to ever do this]) with highly skilled service techs. When I suggested this to Winnie the answer was simple - they want customers to see their current product line when they take their Winnie for service. What they seem to be missing is that owners get so aggrevated with poor service that the current situation could be a negative to customer retention rather than a positive seeing new products.
So, I'll keep sending them ideas and they can continue to ignore them.
I hope your Vectra problems have all been fixed and don't have to go back again.
Don
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kenbt:
Now that I have gone thru the trails and tribulations of a new 2005 Winnebago Vectra and saw that to get any of the warranty work done correctly it was necessary for us to travel 1900 miles to the factory...I think I would consider a coach that was manufactured closer to where I live..Apparently all new r/v owners of all manufactures are having warranty work issues and getting the work done properly by their selling dealers </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
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