Apology

[nastyt]

I just want to give every FR owner an apology for my bad mouthing all of FR due to my dissatisfaction with my personal Coachmen Catalina. I am sure that most of you are very pleased with your rv. I was just having one of those days were nothing was going right and when I came in my wife asked if I wasn't tired of working on the tt all the time. Sorry!

[OldCoot]

Not to worry, everyone has bad days. We just have to hope there are not too many and too close together.

[cyberdude47]

I have been in forums for years and have seen someone make a post like this possibly twice.

Was big of you to make an apology like this and my hats off to you for it.

[mark0224]

Really what this says is even campers have bad days but they always admit a bad day camping is better than a good day at work. Sorry to hear your having trouble with your
Coachmen Catalina know how it is to have bad Dealer, seems they only want to see you when you spend money. Found that it was like buying a house learn how to do most repairs or get a big wallet, well don't have the big wallet so I'm a jack of all trades. Lots of how to books on my Kindle and they can at least get me in the right direction.

Plus the guys here are great at giving advice. Think there are ways of getting the Rep for that division notice so they can help you out

[Frank-VA]

2x posts 2,3 & 4

[nastyt]

Just wanted to say thank you for all the words of understanding. Sorry I took so long to reply, haven't been on the site in awhile.

[jpaskell]

Had several issues with my Coachmen Catalina. Had it into the dealer four times In the last 5 months. Each visit seems to take three or four weeks to complete repairs. It is in there now and has been for two and a half weeks.

It does get frustrating, but quality these days seems to be less than in the past. Guess it's that "new normal".

Good luck and enjoy the Catalina once you get to use it and stay cool.

Jim

[bitNine]

You shouldn't apologize for being frustrated with FR's shoddy manufacturing. In my brand new trailer I had to rewire all the speakers, replace both p-traps in both sinks, fix a water leak at the water pump, clean out all the construction debris from some cabinets, and a whole host of other things that should have been done at the factory during a quality check.

[OldCoot]

Originally Posted by bitNine

You shouldn't apologize for being frustrated with FR's shoddy manufacturing. In my brand new trailer I had to rewire all the speakers, replace both p-traps in both sinks, fix a water leak at the water pump, clean out all the construction debris from some cabinets, and a whole host of other things that should have been done at the factory during a quality check.

Should have been caught at the factory I agree, but your dealer should have definitely caught them if a good pdi had been accomplished.

[dbarr]

A $60,000 trailer will fall apart in your driveway just as fast as a $20000 one will! Helps if you can fix them yourself.

[jgahlhoff]

Amen dbarr!

[bitNine]

Originally Posted by OldCoot

Should have been caught at the factory I agree, but your dealer should have definitely caught them if a good pdi had been accomplished.

I'm not sure they did a "good" PDI. It was late November, so no water. It's a small mom & pop RV dealer which saved me almost $4k compared to anyone else. I would be surprised if any of them could properly explain what 5.1 surround sound is, or that voice in a 5.1 video comes from the center channel. Hard to tell if both P-traps were cracked when I bought it, or if they cracked while moving. Both were cracked in the EXACT same place, on the top part of the curve. I fixed all that stuff myself, so I think it was worth at least $4k

[OldCoot]

Originally Posted by bitNine

I'm not sure they did a "good" PDI. It was late November, so no water. It's a small mom & pop RV dealer which saved me almost $4k compared to anyone else. I would be surprised if any of them could properly explain what 5.1 surround sound is, or that voice in a 5.1 video comes from the center channel. Hard to tell if both P-traps were cracked when I bought it, or if they cracked while moving. Both were cracked in the EXACT same place, on the top part of the curve. I fixed all that stuff myself, so I think it was worth at least $4k

So why the badmouthing of FR? Sounds like the dealer didn't winterize it and had no idea what they were selling and you saved $4k.

[bitNine]

Originally Posted by OldCoot

So why the badmouthing of FR? Sounds like the dealer didn't winterize it and had no idea what they were selling and you saved $4k.

The trailer was winterized when I looked at it and purchased it, and I have no idea when the PDI was done. At that time, there really wasn't an option to connect the water just to check all the connections, just to re-winterize. Maybe they inspected it, maybe not. Maybe the p-traps cracked while towing. We'll never know.

IMO, FR has far more responsibility to put out a good product than a dealer does to ensure FR did everything perfectly, even though they both have a responsibility. FR should do a quality check of EVERYTHING before it leaves the manufacturing plant. They didn't.

It's one thing for FR to manufacture a product to perfection, and in the time between it rolls off the line and I take delivery of it, something happens that the dealer should check. While I'm unsure what the PDI process of a dealer is for a toy hauler, I kind of doubt part of that process is "Make sure the left front speaker puts out audio from the left front channel of the DVD audio signal", then repeat for the 5 other speakers in that setup. I'm also pretty sure that it's not the responsibility of the dealer in any PDI that they open up cabinets such as where the stereo is installed, in order to ensure there are no leftover construction materials. I would imagine that a dealer has a pretty simplified list of items to check, which cover the major functions of the trailer... lights, water, sewer, doors windows, appliances, electrical, etc. But the manufacturing process quality check should be checking every single item in existence on that trailer. One hour of employee time on one trailer could save them many times the cost of that employee if they catch even one small item that would be handled through warranty work.

Dealerships are not electronics and audio/video experts, nor would I ever expect them to be. And clearly, FR also knows very little about audio/video setup since they installed an entertainment system with an HDMI output, ran a component cable, and hooked up the video signal via composite.

Who knows what other bad/incomplete work was done by FR manufacturing that the dealer ended up catching during the PDI.

[mhartzel]

My Coachman came off the line in mid December, delivered end of January, and still had water in the sinks and water pump.

I was "guaranteed" that the trailer was winterized.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Forest River Forums mobile app

[OldCoot]

The PDI is for the buyer at time of delivery/pickup, not the dealer. A good PDI will demonstrate the different components to the buyer of any rv, not just a toy hauler. We are long time campers and our last PDI took 2 hrs from start to finish. The tech demonstrated the complete sound system, refrigerator, water heater, electric jacks, awning, turned on all the faucets, shower, toilet, slides, roof antenna, ceiling fan, light switches, they had even filled the fresh water tank, etc. To us, it was boring as it was the same as our 08 Flagstaff, but he insisted, so we complied. We did find some snow in the light fixtures, but told him we'd take care of it. When we finished, he dumped all the tanks and opened the drain on the fw tank. We then hooked up, signed the check and left. They had even switched our tires /wheels and drilled and bolted the axles up thru the 2x4 tubing. As a result, we've been completely satisfied with our 5er.

[youroo]

I can just Visualize a man with a beard and a brim hat installing and then sitting in a RV listening to 5.1 surround sound to (Dial it In)! Youroo!!Camp On!

[BamaBob]

X2 What OC Said -- people who complain about this and that being broken, non-functional or missing on a brand new RV have it all wrong. Sure you can say FR has shoddy workmanship when in reality they do not. Every mass-produced item will have a percentage of product that is under standard. Maybe that was the day the newly trained plumbing installer did their first RV.

That is what the dealer is there for. If the dealer was doing their job, all these flaws would be caught when the dealer inspects newly arrived RVs - LONG before you, the new owner does your PDI.

[TURBS]

Originally Posted by HSVBamaBob

X2 What OC Said -- people who complain about this and that being broken, non-functional or missing on a brand new RV have it all wrong. Sure you can say FR has shoddy workmanship when in reality they do not. Every mass-produced item will have a percentage of product that is under standard. Maybe that was the day the newly trained plumbing installer did their first RV.

That is what the dealer is there for. If the dealer was doing their job, all these flaws would be caught when the dealer inspects newly arrived RVs - LONG before you, the new owner does your PDI.

I agree!


Can't complain if you dont do a pdi at the dealer before you buy.

We did ours in a nice big building and tried everything.

My dw found a few issue's and they we're fixed before we left.



TURBS

Sabre owners united!

[BamaBob]

Another X2 what OC says about the PDI. When we went to pick up our unit, it was in the bay at the dealer's fully deployed in camp mode (including city water, sewer, and 50AMP power).

The PDI tech (yes, that is his full time job!) walked us through every nook and cranny of the exterior - even demonstrating how you manually retract the slides! After about a hour (really) on the exterior we went inside. We finally finished up two hours later on the inside including testing every faucet, hot water, the shower and the toilet. They had even powered up the refer to demonstrate it and the freezer worked.

Then, the PDI tech said any questions? No. Good. Prep the 5er for the road. He walked over to the side and left it to 6 Actual and myself to get the rig road ready while he observed. (He had even tried to trick us by leaving the TV mast extended but we had painfully learned about THAT in our TT ) Point being though the dealer CARED about the customer and their ability to operate their new RV.

During the PDI we went over everything about our 5.1 Dolby surround sound system - the tech had a USB stick and a iPod and demonstrated how they could be hooked up. Then he synced 6 Actual's and my iPhones to the sound system via bluetooth. So I disagree with previous comments that Dealers know nothing about the sound systems.

When we were done putting in the slides and prepping the interior for the road, the tech said they had all the tanks half filled with water and proceeded to show us how to dump our tanks and prep the sewer for the road.

Now that, folks, is a properly done PDI (oh, and Dandy RV's PDI checklist is 3 pages long front and back.)

One final comment about dealers. Mom & Pop dealers cannot by definition save you thousands. That is done by large dealerships who buy in volume and pass on some of that savings to the customer.

What you SHOULD get from a Mom & Pop dealer is superior customer service and, IMHO, a PDI like we had. Small dealers should be all about establishing personal relationships. Maybe that is why Dandy is so good - they started out Mom & Pop and did such a good job of it they grew into a large volume dealership....who never forgot their roots OR the customer.