New Member - 2020 Horizon 42Q

[motomike1961]

Greetings Folks. Very happy to be part of this forum.



My wife and I are picking up our new Horizon this Saturday and looking forward to happy days ahead.



We are moving up from a 2020 Fleetwood Discovery LXE 40M. We had a great experience with this Coach in its first year. We are realistic RV owners that understand there will be shake-down issues throughout the first year. Hope to get those behind us quickly and stabilize our experience going forward.



We hope to educate ourselves on the Horizon and meet some great Winnebago owners here.


Best regards and say travels in this crazy time.


Mike

[creativepart]

Welcome congrats on the new coach.

I can’t stress enough your need to make your RV as perfect as possible in the first days you have it.

Don’t take possession, don’t pay for it, if anything is broken, missing or non-functional. Don’t accept “We Owe You” lists without firm commitments on when they will be supplied.

Make the dealer spend unlimited hours showing you how everything works, and that everything works. No rushing PDI. Plan on taking all day. Two days if you need it.

It’s super important to stay/camp in the RV for a few days as near as possible to the dealership so that you can know first hand that all is working and also for a refresher on how to operate everything. Have the dealer correct issues as you find them.

These steps are very important. You are the final quality control checkpoint. The more time, attention and usage you spend in the first week the better your experience with your new motorhome will be. Don’t shortchange yourself treat this like taking possession of a newly built house not like buying a new car!

[motomike1961]

Thanks so much for replying. I am aligned with all your statements. I've owned 2 coaches in the past so I know the orientation will take lots of time.


We are doing a shake-down weekend 30 miles from this dealership. I will accept minor items on a "must fix" list because I have experience with this dealer and their service department. This is my 3rd Coach being purchased from them. I will not take delivery nor sign any final paperwork if they are big issues until they are fixed.


Regards, Mike

[creativepart]

That's good news. The first few days after purchase they'll treat you like a customer. A couple of months later they don't remember that you were ever there before.

We bought our new WBGO at La Mesa Albuquerque and took 7 hours to do the PDI. We refused ALL options additions they offered at closing and camped literally across the street (IH-40) from the dealer ship for 3 days.

During that time they had to send a tech over to us twice to fix things and before we left they had to remove a hydraulic jack from another coach in inventory to replace one of ours that burst a leak on our last day in camp. Plus, they had to work on the water heater that quit working.

They did all of that in the first 3-days.

We live 900 miles away. When we got home we had two other issues that we took care of ourselves by working with the different manufacturers.

3-months later we were headed back through Albuquerque and I phoned over a month before we left home to make an appointment and they said we couldn't get in because they were too busy.

[creativepart]

Mike, I just remembered, the Horizon has the Xite "GPS Infotainment" system installed. We have the same unit. I just want to caution you that it's a bit different in the way it works. It uses Rand McNally for GPS and that system works differently than Garmin so you might want to take a look at the RAND operations manual before you pick up the RV.

I really like the system. But there a plenty of others that hate it. Some even go so far as to remove it.

Take some time, learn the system, UPDATE the software as soon as you can on the SD card and you'll see it's pretty powerful.

To update the SD you remove the card (It's located in the Core Unit ask them to show you where it is at PDI). You'll need a computer or laptop and you'll need a SD card reader if you don't have one.

Then you go to the RAND website and download their DOCK software to your computer. When you launch the DOCK software it will ask you to insert the SD card in your reader. Register your system (you'll need internet for all this naturally) and you'll see options to update your system if there is an update available and if not you'll see update your maps. They update the maps pretty frequently so that will probably be the option you see.

RAND has a trip planning website - it's not the easiest to use but when you get the hang of it it's fine. One of the options you'll see in the DOCK is to transfer a trip from the RAND trip Maker website to your SD Card.

Here's some links:

This is what the GPS system will look like and how it operates:
https://www.randmcnally.com/product/RVND-7

Here's a video - it's for a dash mounted unit BUT it's exactly the same software as you'll have on the Xite System:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PznDP-HRAE

DOCK download - scroll down to the DOWNLOAD section:
https://www.randmcnally.com/support/...dates-via-dock

For some reason RAND doesn't list the Xite System. So, if it asks you for your GPS unit choose the RVND7 option. When it tells you to connect your device, that means to insure the SD card into your card reader on your computer.

Here's the RVND7 Users Manual PDF - ignore the device mounting, etc and take a look at how to enter locations and find campgrounds, etc. The software will look and work just like your system. You'll get all this in your Operator's Manual in the suitcase they give you. But if you want to plan ahead.:


Hope this helps.