Update on front end alignment issue

[NWJeeper]

A little background first: We discovered that our front tires on our one year old Georgetown were shot on our last trip by a fellow RVr that was good enough to bring it to our attention. Both tires had been worn bald from the center point inward indicating that the caster was not set correctly before the rig left the factory, our rig only has 9000 total miles since new. Upon contacting FR about the issue and requesting that they pay the $900 we had to pay for new tires and a front end alignment we were told that FR only covers this in the first 90 days. I find this policy to be absurd as most RVrs will never put enough miles on an RV in the first 90 days to see abnormal wear on the tires. I therefore submitted my complaint to Good Sams Action Line in their Highways magazine.

Forest River contacted me yesterday and offered me half the cost of new tires and the alignment as a good will gesture. I gratefully accepted as it is a lot better than nothing.

A friend or ours recently had a conversation with a fellow RVr who has bought 5 new RVs in the past and stated that his first stop is always to a shop for an alignment as he has found that more often than not the alignment on most coaches is done incorrectly. It would seem that as long as you contact the manufacturer and tell them you feel something wrong with the steering or handling in the front end in the first 90 days of ownership that they will more than likely pay for the alignment. At least this is what the gentleman in the campground stated as he has not had to pay yet for an alignment and he hasn't had to shell out big dollars for new tires after only a year either.

Good Sam just paid their own dues for life for helping on our behalf.

[aintgotnun]

Right on Good Sam!

You are correct that half is better than nothing. Glad it worked out a bit for you.

Good advice for hitting an alignment shop within the 90 period.

[cfsoistman]

That's great to hear. Now I feel like I actually know someone that has used Good Sam's Action Line and was sucessful. It's a shame the FR had to be coaxed by Good Sam though, but no one wants bad PR and hopefully GS will print it in an upcoming issue so more RVers will know about this situation with motorhomes and front end alignments.

[NWJeeper]

Originally Posted by cfsoistman

That's great to hear. Now I feel like I actually know someone that has used Good Sam's Action Line and was sucessful. It's a shame the FR had to be coaxed by Good Sam though, but no one wants bad PR and hopefully GS will print it in an upcoming issue so more RVers will know about this situation with motorhomes and front end alignments.

I sure hope they do to however we got a copy of the letter that Action Line sent to FR and it does state that due to the enormous amount of mail they get that most of the letters never make it to the magazine but that they do try and pick ones that will be educational to their readers.

Best thing we can do is spread the word that this seems to be a bigger problem than I would have guessed. This is my first experience with a new RV and I have learned a lot. To bad the education can be so costly sometimes.

[Charlie Brown]

We had a similar problem in that our steering wandered side to side and we talked with our dealer and Camping World several times. The end result we were told to live with it. We then installed front and back anti-sway bars and still had the problem. Finally after many months, we were told that the mfg do not balance tires. The dealer finally had them balanced and the front aligned. This corrected the problem. The Lexington 255 drives normal now. Wish we knew about this when we bought it.