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Old 05-06-2019, 06:57 PM   #1
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Angry Forest River Warranty Delays

I’m not sure if this is the correct forum to post in but I just have to voice my total dissatisfaction with Forest River. We purchased a new Alpha Wolf 27RK-L in Jan this year. We took it on our first trip in February- to Alabama where it rained 10 inches in a little over a week. We had leaks all over - from the slide out, from the awning, from the bathroom fan, and water sitting in window wells until they got full and started running down the wall. There were several other problems as well - sliding door to bathroom came off track and got messed up, trim in many places falling off, and a USB port that didn’t work. We cut that trip short because we were tired of everything being damp, things being broken, as well as the weather forecast of a lot more rain. We dropped off the camper on February 22 with our long list of issues. Dealer checked everything out and fixed what they could, then contacted FR in early March for warranty approvals. We just picked up our camper today from dealer. They called on Friday - 10 weeks to the day from when we dropped it off. I have a list of dates when FR was contacted and when they responded (approvals, parts ordered, parts received at dealer).

It is totally unacceptable to me to have lost 10 weeks of usage as well as 10 weeks of our warranty period on a one month old camper. Has anyone else had extreme cases of delays by FR, and if so, was there any recourse for you?
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Old 05-06-2019, 07:52 PM   #2
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I would call FR Warranty Dept directly, to confirm what the dealer says.
I've found dealers often fabricate these delays from FR.
Not saying your dealer is, just to confirm and get FR's side of the story.
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Old 05-06-2019, 07:57 PM   #3
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The dealer may have passed blame, but also 10 weeks for what exact repairs and how big of dealer ? That may not be excessive.
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Old 05-06-2019, 08:00 PM   #4
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Who did the PDI on your rig? I'm guessing that the dealer didn't do much of anything and just essentially handed you the keys and sent you on your way. They make pretty much nothing on lower end trailers and therefore aren't going to go out of their way to spend any time or money on them. You'd be better off to fix as many issues as possible yourself unless you need expensive parts. Ride the dealer like a pony until you get everything you want, if you don't get the answers you like call the factory rep for Alpha yourself and push for your own agenda.
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Old 05-06-2019, 08:13 PM   #5
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I do plan to contact FR tomorrow but also wanted to find out what others experiences have been. The lady that I talked with at dealer reviewed all of their records and took notes to give me. She was willing initially to say it may have not been all FR fault and to give me a general manager name at dealer but after review said it was a FR issue. We purchased from Camping World in Indianapolis (they did PDI) but took to CW in Bowling Green since they are a little bit closer to home (and we were coming home from south).

As far as repairs, they replaced windows, repaired trim, fixed the sliding door, added extra silicone to fan in bathroom, adjusted the slide out, replaced a USB port, removed and replaced silicone on awning. I’m not sure if that qualifies for a large amount of work but it seems to me like it is. It took a month according to their records to receive the parts needed after they were ordered. Once the parts were received it took about a week to complete the work and perform several more water tests.

I was in contact with dealer once a week during this entire time. They did tell me today that our unit had been there the longest of any others that they had in for repairs. I think they would have been interested in getting it out of their way as quickly as possible. Hopefully I’m not being gullible but from everything I’ve heard over the past 2 1/2 months I don’t think it was the dealer holding up things.
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Old 05-06-2019, 08:33 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Carolem View Post
I do plan to contact FR tomorrow but also wanted to find out what others experiences have been. The lady that I talked with at dealer reviewed all of their records and took notes to give me. She was willing initially to say it may have not been all FR fault and to give me a general manager name at dealer but after review said it was a FR issue. We purchased from Camping World in Indianapolis (they did PDI) but took to CW in Bowling Green since they are a little bit closer to home (and we were coming home from south).

As far as repairs, they replaced windows, repaired trim, fixed the sliding door, added extra silicone to fan in bathroom, adjusted the slide out, replaced a USB port, removed and replaced silicone on awning. I’m not sure if that qualifies for a large amount of work but it seems to me like it is. It took a month according to their records to receive the parts needed after they were ordered. Once the parts were received it took about a week to complete the work and perform several more water tests.

I was in contact with dealer once a week during this entire time. They did tell me today that our unit had been there the longest of any others that they had in for repairs. I think they would have been interested in getting it out of their way as quickly as possible. Hopefully I’m not being gullible but from everything I’ve heard over the past 2 1/2 months I don’t think it was the dealer holding up things.

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Old 05-07-2019, 06:41 AM   #7
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Sorry about your bad experience with your RV and Forest River. My experience is the exact opposite. I used my Riverstone Legacy extensively for 6 months before calling the warranty department for my punch list of issues. Got an appointment within two weeks. Dropped off the RV and got approval for all repairs before I left the repair facility. Riverstone warranty adviser met me at repair site. Advised all repairs should be done within two weeks! No waiting for extra appointment, waiting for approval, bringing RV back, then waiting weeks upon weeks for repairs. Love my Riverstone Legacy and and their warranty staff.
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Old 05-07-2019, 08:26 AM   #8
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Sorry about your bad experience with your RV and Forest River. My experience is the exact opposite. I used my Riverstone Legacy extensively for 6 months before calling the warranty department for my punch list of issues. Got an appointment within two weeks. Dropped off the RV and got approval for all repairs before I left the repair facility. Riverstone warranty adviser met me at repair site. Advised all repairs should be done within two weeks! No waiting for extra appointment, waiting for approval, bringing RV back, then waiting weeks upon weeks for repairs. Love my Riverstone Legacy and and their warranty staff.
Rusty
Glad you had a good experience with yours. A couple of things I failed to mention about our experience - it was fortunate that we took ours out when we had so much rain - otherwise we may not have known about the leaks until after warranty expired. The non-leak issues I do think we. Oils/would have repaired ourselves but couldn’t have repaired some of the leak issues (new windows).

The other thing is that we didn’t have to concern ourselves with winter storage of our unit - we had free storage this year ��
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Old 05-07-2019, 11:31 AM   #9
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I've had good luck with the few warranty issues we've had with two Forest River products we've owned, even when it was stranded at a campground due to a bad hydraulic solenoid. They worked with Lippert Components to get a tech there to get me back on the road.

I've found that working with a good dealer is key. I've generally had nothing but good things to say about the dealer we used but I was left a little disappointed that they were no help with the hydraulic issue and couldn't even give me an answer on where to start with trying to get it back on the road. Now that it's in their possession for some other warranty issues I hope they redeem themselves.
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Old 05-07-2019, 12:32 PM   #10
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When we purchased new back in 2018, I had several warranty issues. I used FR as a first point of contact and asked for specific processes/directions to resolve my issues. it all worked out well. I had very good experiences with their warranty group for the issues I had to get fixed.
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Old 05-07-2019, 12:50 PM   #11
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We bought a F River Sunseeker, last September. Sure, there were lots of little things, as well as a couple of larger things (I insisted they replace entire kitchen counter) that needed fixing. We took it on a couple of trips (since the "season" wasn't quite over yet), then I sent my LIST of 12 things needing repair to our dealer (called first, asking for the warranty mgr's email address). Within a little over 2 weeks (they needed to get some parts from F River). they got us in, & fixed everything, in 2 days. You can't just "drop your RV off" & expect to have everything fixed immediately; even the warranty folks told me, "Best thing you could have done was to send us that list, most folks just drop their unit off, all pissed off & tell us to fix everything; it's not that simple!"
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Old 05-07-2019, 02:00 PM   #12
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Dealer woes

Be glad you didn't take it to MHSRV!

They couldn't find their butts with their hands in their hip pockets in a hall of mirrors at high noon. More the less a problem and fix it in a fair amount of time.
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Old 05-07-2019, 02:16 PM   #13
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That is not much more time then I have had during the past 10 years and three fivers.
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Old 05-07-2019, 02:23 PM   #14
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We've had good luck on getting warranty work done. We bought our TT in the Fall of 2015 from a local dealer. Near the end of first year, we had a few minor things fixed under warranty and had no out of pocket costs. TT was at the dealers for less than 2 weeks. The next year the dealership sold to CW. Fortunately, almost all workers stayed. Last October, I found that our A/C was not cooling. Our camping was over for the year and colder weather was moving in so I talked to the dealer about looking at it in the Spring. The A/C was a year out of the original 2 year warranty but we did have an extended warranty. So we took it in this past March. Took a couple of days to get diagnosed that coolant had leaked out and new A/C unit needed. It took less than a week for warranty approval and 3 more days to get the replacement A/C installed. Our total out of pocket was only our $34 deductible. This was one instance we were glad to have taken out the extended warranty.
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Old 05-07-2019, 02:42 PM   #15
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DTordoff - LOVED your statement about not finding their butts, but what is MHSRV?

Sebourn - In my humble opinion, even sitting at the dealer for nearly two weeks is way too long... (Our Sunseeker stays warm, dry, & out of the sun in our nice, well insulated shop); I just hate seeing all the rigs sitting out in the sun, at the dealer, awaiting repairs...
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Old 05-07-2019, 03:21 PM   #16
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That is a dealer in Alvarado, Texas. They have had our FR Legacy for way too long/
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Old 05-07-2019, 05:07 PM   #17
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I agree with others that FR does an amazing job for their warranty work! My problems were from dealers that did not have enough help to get the warranty requests to Forest River! Forest River tries-to approve the items within 24 hours! Jeff Hood at warranty dept for 2017 Georgetown 364TS has approved things the same day! Campers World said they had sent in requests 2 weeks before! I found they were sent the day I was there three weeks after I dropped it off! Took to another dealer for something later and had no problems! Forest River warranty Dept Rocks!! I find some dealers only want to do work they make most money on!
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Old 05-07-2019, 05:33 PM   #18
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Sunseeker Funseeker - I did call first and make an appointment. They initially thought they could fix it same day and hoped not to need to keep it. Once they saw the full extent though they realized it was going to take more time. We did have the option of taking it back home, letting them work through what all needed to be done, order parts, etc and then we could take it back. We chose not to do that since we would not be using until the repairs were made - never thinking it would take so long. As it turned out we had free storage for the winter.

Jvenditte - good to know that for warranty issues I could contact Forest River directly to begin the process. I will definitely look at doing that next time. I would be curious to see the difference in timing by starting with them rather than the dealer.
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Old 05-08-2019, 05:45 PM   #19
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Sorry for your experience. But, it seems to be fairly typical in the RV world. The dealers are notorious for poor service. And, FR as well as many other manufacturers are not noted for quick or accurate response. Polite persistent nagging along with meticulous documentation helps. Once you are out of warranty; I suggest you cultivate relationships with recommended local RV technicians and service/repair shops. Also, Learn how to perform your own regular maintenance. Good luck.
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Old 05-09-2019, 10:25 AM   #20
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I had a laundry list of things to fix, went through it all with the service manager. The only thing they actually fixed was the 2nd Roof A/C that was the wrong model (Paid for the Lopro, didn't get it) AND leaked. It sat for two months. And the dealer ran over my 50amp cable with a fork lift and damaged it.

Ended up fixing it all myself, and I'll never purchase another FR product, or use that dealer again. For anyone reading this Hitch RV in DE/NJ are completely incompetent.
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