Picking Up Your New or New To You RV - Must Read!

[creativepart]

Many, most? dealers receive RVs delivered with obvious issues and the good ones, the smart ones go ahead and fix those things. The lazy ones, the bad dealers you should avoid give the excuse you were given.

They like to blame in on the manufacturer saying they can't get paid for fixing a unit until it is sold and under warranty. I doubt that's true, but dealers worry that if they fix one thing that there will be another and another and it will eat up all of their service dept capacity.

The dealer is actually paid to do some QC on units they receive. They just don't want to use any of that money for pre-sale repairs.

From the way it appears to me, the people that own and manage a majority of RV dealerships don't care about the products, the customers or even their employees. They are not RV owners and have scant knowledge about RVs in general or the products they sell.

 

[Pointyears]

Many, most? dealers receive RVs delivered with obvious issues and the good ones, the smart ones go ahead and fix those things. The lazy ones, the bad dealers you should avoid give the excuse you were given.

They like to blame in on the manufacturer saying they can't get paid for fixing a unit until it is sold and under warranty. I doubt that's true, but dealers worry that if they fix one thing that there will be another and another and it will eat up all of their service dept capacity.

The ironic thing is that the smarter buyers (or me) insist on the PDI (and/or inspection) and repairs BEFORE signing on that dotted line else you lose your leverage: a lost sale to them. Once you're in the warranty queue AFTER the purchase you're scrod: You're no different than any other person in the warranty queue and will be treated accordingly.

 

[creativepart]

Yes, but you'd be surprised how many ignore this important step. Especially new and first time buyers.

 

[Pointyears]

Yes, but you'd be surprised how many ignore this important step.

No, I really wouldn't be. Oxygen and ignorance are the two most common elements on Earth.

 

[Morich]

Step one is often missed as it DOES take some honest thinking!
Step one seems to be that folks are never willing to admit that they don't know! I installed mobile phones and that was way back when they were a really "special" item that hardly anybody had in their cars.
But it was nearly impossible to get a customer to really settle down and let the details of making a call be explained!
When running the Workamper jobs at RV shows for a bit, I watched people come in who had NO motorhome knowledge come in and absolutely refuse to let anybody show them how to operate things like the furnace.
The RV public in general can be among the most ignorance animal that walks the earth but heaven forbid that they would let you find out how little they know!
Try to tell them about jacks and they are apt to tell you they have one in the car and used it just last week!

The best buyer is going to have some experience and that experience will let them admit they don't know everything! Is there any reason to think we know the important details of an item that has just come on the market?
Taking one other person with you when you shop is a very good thing to do!
That other experienced person is much more likely to know what you don't know!
Most of us who have had a number of RV, are likely to be the first to admit we will never know ALL the points that are changing every day!

 

[Bnystrom]

Important Rules when Buying a new RV.

• Do not let your eagerness, excitement, and enthusiasm cloud your good judgement. If you rush into a purchase, you may end up paying for it with months or even years of headaches. If anything seems off, be prepared to walk away. And don't plan a time-sensitive trip for right after you make the purchase, as you don't need that pressure pushing you to close the deal.
• Always hire and independent inspector to check out any RV before you buy it, especially a new RV. It will be money well spent. Unless you're highly knowledgeable, they are the only thing standing between you and possibly buying a massive problem. The dealer's only goal is to make the sale.
• Do not sign the paperwork and accept the RV until all of the problems are fixed to your satisfaction. Once the dealer has your money, they have zero incentive to fix anything in a timely matter, or at all. Their promises to fix it later are meaningless.
• Make sure you read the paperwork before you sign it. Better yet, have an attorney review it. Typical RV purchase agreements have you signing away all of your rights to legal recourse if the RV has problems.

As for why RV quality is so bad these days, there are two main reasons:

• Lack of accountability. As was mentioned, RVs are typically not subject to "lemon laws". Once you sign away your legal rights, you have no real recourse. The system is designed this way, so dealers and manufacturers can just walk away from any problems if they choose to. They just delay repairs until the worthless one-year warranty expires, then say "too bad". Extended warranties are just cash cows for dealers, and they often don't cover the most common or expensive problems.
• Piecework. RV production workers are paid based on the quantity of their work, not the quality. The faster they build them, the more they make. There is no incentive to fix construction issues or replace defective components, they just push them down the line and out the door. Units with known defects are often shipped to dealers so the factory doesn't have to fix them.

The RV industry is a disaster, but as long as people keep buying them, there's no incentive to change. Fortunately, Winnebago is arguably the best of the large RV manufacturers.

 

[Pointyears]

In actuality, a pre-delivery inspection does/should not involve a buyer. It is the dealers opportunity to find everything wrong, ill-fitting, or mis-adjsuted and correct same BEFORE a buyer sees the unit..
The part that does involve the buyer is a demonstration walk-through. This is the opportunity for the dealers rep. to show a buyer how everything works, what controls what, and location of everything.
At that time the dealers rep, has the option of disclosing what was found and corrected during the PDI.

Not in any actuality I've ever lived in. And, PDIs/trainings are conducted by the most junior (read=cheapest) person that can be found.

 

[Pointyears]

The RV industry is a disaster, but as long as people keep buying them, there's no incentive to change. Fortunately, Winnebago is arguably the best of the large RV manufacturers.

Well, I'd qualify it to say "best of the worst." The best that can be said is they're not Forest River or Thor, whose quality ranks right up there with Soviet-era Ladas.

 

[ARKBIZ44]

Motorhomes can be used for a variety of things besides camping. Too, if you are picking it up in winter and/or live east of the Mississippi, camping itself may be a challenge. I think everybody should have their rigs professionally inspected by a third party. I've bought two new Winnebago motorhomes and despite factory and selling dealer inspections, both had lots of issues. There is a delivered quality problem and a reluctance to initiate recalls. Sometimes coach systems work as well as they'll ever work given the parts, design, and vendor but, nevertheless, that isn't really good enough.

WGO needs to start getting delivered QC right.

 

[klook]

The easy, but unsatisfactory answer to this is that the volumes of even the slowest selling automobiles is 25 times the volume of any RV model. And, without mass volumes the margin of profits in RVs is minuscule compared to autos and trucks.

That lower profit margin shows up in dozens of ways in every RV. The entire design is cost constricted, the parts list is lowest cost, and the vendors providing goods know they must build to a low cost to become successful in the RV industry, Plus the sales chain is built on the realization that a dealers best sales are on the lowest cost products.

Add to this that it's always been this way in the industry and yet buyers keep buying regardless.

With automobiles the sales volumes are high enough to fund design, testing, QC and both vendor and dealership control.

Keep in mind, that nobody has to buy a RV, or Boat, for that matter. So, the price of entry is highly elastic. Like anything there are those starting out with their first RV and there are alos those that are at the top 2% of buyers that demand higher specifications. But even on expensive RVs, much higher priced that your $100,000, the volumes are extremely low.

And many high end owners, or mid to high end, report the same quality problems.