Forest River and warranty issues

[hihosilver09]

I am concerned, I had two dealers in my area who have told me that Forest River is the hardest to deal with of all the manufactures they deal with on warranty issues, that Forest River does everything to get out of helping a consumer with problems. Since we currently have been denied a warranty issue on gel coat, I would like to know how other Forest River owners feel about the care they get. The dealer who we bought our rig from ignores us now that we have purchased the unit.?? When a person drops fifty grand or more on an RV one should be able to expect the manufacture to stand behind what they build and sell. Is it the vendors who Forest River blames it all on or should it be Forest River's responsiblity to take care of thier customers???? I recently found that Forest River only has a 54% approval rating from customers, a little disturbing

[bob34787]

I can only say that with my Ridgeview they sent a transport Company to my house and returned it to the factory for repairs that the local dealer was unable to perform. On my 2010 36RE they took care of all issues, so I do not see them as a bad company. there QC dept. should be put out to pasture but the service side has been fine.

[h20ski]

First off let me say I hate to hear that you are having warranty claim problems and yes I do expect a company to stand behind their product. That being said I've now owned 2 forest river products and had no problems with warranty claims. I will say they were small ones and not large ones. It makes me wonder if it's not the dealer rather than forest river?

[Boyd]

Good luck! I got a "tough," That's the nature of the beast," from Forrest River. I should have taken my issue to litigation, and still might do so. One would think that after four months of purchasing a NEW unit, Forrest River would have stepped up and taken care of the customerm (me)....NOT! Again, good luck and I hope you have a better experience with the home office than I did.

As far as the majority of the dealers go, (as reported here on this forum) once the unit is "out the door and over the curb," you're no longer in the position to make them money so their phoney smiles fade and you can expect the "cold shoulder" treatment.

I know many of the folks here on the forum have had a 100% positive relationship with both Forrest River and their dealer....I wish I was part of that list.

[Triguy]

Originally Posted by Boyd

I know many of the folks here on the forum have had a 100% positive relationship with both Forrest River and their dealer....I wish I was part of that list.

This is my situation, so far (and I hope that I didn't just jinx my good luck). My experience is with a Jayco and several FR trailers. And no big structural issues. My attitude might be different if there had been something major, but there hadn't. My biggest issue is small potatoes - a radio that still does not work. Glad I'm not musically inclined.

I am sorry to read the stories from you all as well as the others I read.

A lot, and I mean A LOT, depends on your dealer. Are they willing to go to bat for their customers? Are they willing to make something right regardless of the short cost to them? IMO - the teaming of the dealer as well as the manufacturer make the difference.

[georgetown]

Wish I could say that I had great luck dealing with Forest River warranty dept., but I didn't. In the end, after over 6 months of trying to get through to people with no answers and finally going to the BBB, things finally got resolved, however, the ordeal makes me think twice about buying another Forest River product and I pray that nothing else goes wrong that shouldn't other than the normal wera and tear and maintenance issues.

[greenliner]

We had quite a few issues with our 2011 Salem which have been documented elsewhere. When I finally got to speak to a person at FR (thanks to the Forum where I found contact numbers), I was referred to Lazy Days at Tucson. They had the TT for 8 weeks, but they did seem to make work with FR to get the problems fixed (and we didn't purchase from Lazy days). At this point, we are reasonably happy with FR and the dealer they referred us to.

[UPGRADER]

FR hasn't changed their website to reflect 2012 models and options. I got a reps' cell phone number and his first question was: "How'd you get my number?". He was upset the salesman gave out his number. The product is top notch, but customer relations stinks. They need to be "proactive" when dealing with the customers and they are not. The dealers in today's market have too many companies products on their lots and cannot keep track of which model has what features. Even the dealers do not know about changes/updates coming to their lots. "Oh, you have gotten a U-shaped dinette," was our salesman's reply when our hybrid arrived. He knew nothing about the changes. Very poor communications on FR company's part. I, too, worry about warranty problems...dealer is 3 hours away...What if I can't get hybrid back to dealer, if issue is axle/wheel problems? But the hybrid is new and the "glass is half full" philosophy will keep problems to a minimum.

[hihosilver09]

What sort of issues did you have? I have a feeling they are going to try to get out of this one, the gel coat failed on my coach the day we purchased it and they repaired it then, now three days before my warranty would run out I found three more cracks in the gel coat, all on the same side and they are blaming the vendors, who say they won't pay, as they are impact cracks, we did find a dealer in our town who can give us the reason for the problems and Forest River will pay to have the nose taken off to determine the problem. We have had three independent fiberglass shops tell us they are impact cracks from the inside not the outside, I am just worried as this is our dream coach and not a cheap one, over fifty grand. This could be expensive and after talking to legal advise we may have to take this one to court, which I am prepared to do if I have to. I agree with you about quality control, also our dealer is not at all helpful, once we bought it they no longer wanted to have much to do with us..

[bob34787]

Originally Posted by hihosilver09

What sort of issues did you have? I have a feeling they are going to try to get out of this one, the gel coat failed on my coach the day we purchased it and they repaired it then, now three days before my warranty would run out I found three more cracks in the gel coat, all on the same side and they are blaming the vendors, who say they won't pay, as they are impact cracks, we did find a dealer in our town who can give us the reason for the problems and Forest River will pay to have the nose taken off to determine the problem. We have had three independent fiberglass shops tell us they are impact cracks from the inside not the outside, I am just worried as this is our dream coach and not a cheap one, over fifty grand. This could be expensive and after talking to legal advise we may have to take this one to court, which I am prepared to do if I have to. I agree with you about quality control, also our dealer is not at all helpful, once we bought it they no longer wanted to have much to do with us..

not to add fuel to the fire but, they could be impact cracks, my 2010 36re touring edition had them in the bedroom slide, they were impact but not from me, the screws securing the bed to the wall were too long, dealer repaired gelcoat and corrected screws, no more problem. as far a seeking legal remedies be sure before hiring anyone, I do not think you will gain anything by going that route, even if you were to prevail it takes years. believe me I looked into it with our new 160,000 ridgeview, it had so many defects it is now at the factory being rebuilt. I had to really push the issue but with the dealer backing me Forest river did come thru. Fact is if your dealer does not back you, you will go nowhere with this issue, and no the dealer cannot start the conversation with Forest River, you have to.

[peskin]

I understand exactly how you feel. In my case the factory's answer was that " You bought an entry level unit and that's what you got" After two years of frustration I took my lumps, traded in my $ 130,000 entry level unit and will never own or reccomend a Forrest River product again.
The only thing I'm going to miss is this site

[semlohde]

This thread is a good Halloween story! I got my FR 356RL Oct 14 and back to the dealer Oct 17 - the cable to the black water was crimped and the valve only closed half way.. Ya know what comes out of that drain cap when you unscrew it with an open valve! They spend 6.5 hours and finally cut a hole in the bottom, cut the drain pipe over an inch to fit a new valve in where the cable wouldn't crimp.. And they said the galley and gray water were the same- but they were working.. 2 days old.. Quality control certainly is questionable and I hope everything else holds together! My dealer worked hard for me though. May not be there next time, he's a small town dealer. He said he was going to have to call and explain their flaw to get his pay for that long working on it. Thanks for the other comments though - I'm not alone in my expensive venture. I'm 63, wife is sickly, and money won't be there for anything else.

[SaskCampers]

Had great service from our dealer with our few issues and so have not had to deal with FR (the way it should be) Also was given a ph number by the FR rep I talked to at the show prior to purchasing saying if indeed we did purchase the unit to give him a call directly if we ever had issues that our dealer could not resolve.

[yvesm]

I have a 2011 Rockwood and the roller brackets that support the rear slide out pulled out of the wall, they were just attached with 3/4'' lag bolts into luan plywood (1/4'' thick) and Styrofoam! Forest river told me to take it back to the dealer, but after we bought our unit the dealer now does not deal with the Rocwood camper. I sent a couple more e-mails to Forest River but I am being ignored. I will try to call and talk to someone but I usually get put on hold and no one picks up. We have had other issues with this camper but most repairs were done by us because I wanted the repairs done right. Being a Mechanical Engineer I have already designed new brackets to support the slide out, I might have our shop make them up this winter if Forest River does not help us. This is our second F.R. product, the first on was a 2001 and never a problem. This one is a different story, We will probably use it one more year and get something else.....but not a Forest River.

[hihosilver09]

My dealer is not at all helpful, once you buy from them they ignore you, so I will get no help from them, Dale Brubaker from Forest River is telling us that the vendor has refused to take responsiblity for the gel coat, humm, we bought it from Forest River not the vendors. We have researched gel coat and have talked to 3 people in the industry who tell us that they are reverse impact cracks and a manufacturing defect. They were going to pay to have the nose cap taken off, but now won't answer phone calls to us, our dealer told us that they have no experience taking off nose caps, so we took it to another dealer, at first Dale said he would ok another dealer working on the coach, but now he won't answer phone calls to the dealer or to us, we wrote to Trailer Live and it looks like they are going to try to help us. One way or another Forest River will fix it, we are determined to resolve it, and if it takes years and a lawsuit that is what we will do. I am really upset as I had thought Forest River would be better than that, I should have bought in another town but, wanted to do business locally, we only have two Forest River dealers in our area.

[hihosilver09]

My dealer is not going to help,in fact I should have known better than to buy from them however I wanted a Silveback and they were the only dealer in town, We did extensive research and found that we have what they call reverse impact cracks, Forest River denied all libility but, we pushed the issue and we took it to another Forest River dealer,they took the nose cap off yesterday, yep as suspected, the frame was pushing the nose cap from inside the closet and causing the gel coat to crack, so now Forest River will fix it we hope, they also denied the crack on the side, today we were informed by repair shop that the side walls are shifting causing the gel coat to crack on the side, have never heard of such a thing, this is not a cheap coach, so we will pursue the issues, we did talk to an attorney and they told us we have a good case and will go that route if need be, we can't afford to just let the coach go and we can't afford to fix it ourselves.

[TURBS]

I personally have never needed to deal with forest river for warranty reasons !
I guess both my campers were built by the same guy and he does excellent work !

I have had only minor things taken care of under warranty on two new units I purchased and the dealer handled it in fine fashion !

[crocus]

I only had a very minor warranty claim, and on my first phone call to FR got straight through to the Flagstaff warranty guy, and he sent out my parts right away. I had them in a few days.
I treated them with respect and got it back in spades. They are 100% in my books.

[TURBS]

Originally Posted by crocus

I only had a very minor warranty claim, and on my first phone call to FR got straight through to the Flagstaff warranty guy, and he sent out my parts right away. I had them in a few days.
I treated them with respect and got it back in spades. They are 100% in my books.

crocus you reminded me that I have used forest river !


in a post on this forum I explained that my sliding mirrors in my bedroom had broken first weekend .

I posted this to Sabre sam and he responded very promptly with a question about my address .

I believe 2 days later I had them in my hand no questions asked .... except my address .

way to go sabre sam !


post number 23 of ask the sabre factory !

[niedobry1]

We had some major water leak issues and after going around the dealers and working with Forest River directly we got them ironed out. When FR got involved they made things happen. Don't give up, keep talking to them. So far so good.