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Old 08-07-2018, 12:06 PM   #1
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Angry Trailer Not Living up to its Salespitch, Very Disappointed

We bought a Salem Hemisphere 36 ft 5th Wheel, with an electric fridge. We questioned the fridge when we were buying and was specifically told by our Dealer that this fridge would last 3 days on the batteries in this trailer. That is a lie, a total lie.

Since buying the trailer, the front stabilizer bolts have sheered off, we carry a bag of fuses up front for when we need to extend or return jacks, the railing has fallen off, the floor vents are dented from walking on them, there are screws falling out of the slides, etc. The trailer appears to be very poorly made.

We have contacted our Dealer, they have done nothing. neither of the employees that gave us the lies about the fridge work there presently, and the service mgr writes one-line emails.

They are in Wisconsin, we are in New York. They have offered nothing but I'm sorry.

So disappointed in what should be a major purchase and a happy one. Ours has been very problematic. We have spent about $5,000 more on the trailer since purchasing. Solar power to try and increase the life of our fridge, a new hand railing, stair stabilizers because the jacks may not come down if more sheer pins break off, the repair of fixing the stabilizer bar in the front, new floor vents that we think should withstand us walking around, and most of all, $3,000 for a new Dometic fridge.

Do NOT buy anything from Quietwoods RV Dealership in WI. They are the definition of a Used Car Salesman.
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Old 08-07-2018, 12:16 PM   #2
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Angry Quietwoods RV, Janesville, WI. DO NOT BUY FROM THEM

This Dealer is not a good one. They have 3 locations in WI. Just keep driving.

They sold us a 5th Wheel with a residential fridge, told us that the batteries would last 3 days, camping off the grid. What a farse. They lied right to our faces. My bad for not actually testing it before we bought, but we are in NY, we drove to WI to get this model that we wanted, the right color, you get it...

The trailer is literally falling apart. We have repaired the front stabilizer mechanism in it, we have had to redo the hand railing, we have screws falling out of the slide, and most of all, WE SPENT $3,000 FOR A NEW FRIDGE, after we soon discovered that the batteries didn't last 6 hours. We think that they left the batteries out in the trailer for 2 winters prior to selling it to us, conveniently forgetting to mention that.

The lies that this Dealer told to sell this trailer could write a book. I mentioned that it had a residential fridge and that may not work with camping off the grid, so my husband specifically asked them about it. He was ASSURED that the batteries would be good for 3 days. 6 hours later, dry camping, our trailer is dead. We weren't using anything else, nothing, totally dead. Couldn't even turn on a light.

Then, not realizing that we would have a totally dead camper after 6 hours, we had to run our generator long enough to charge them to even lift the trailer back onto the truck to go home.

While lifting it one time, the bolt sheered right off the front turning bar. Had to go to Home Depot to fix that ourselves because nowhere near any help. And then we couldn't get it off the truck because we had to fix it temporarily to get it home and then had to plug it in to get power to get it off the truck. THEN we had to have it repaired so we could use it again.

Yes, we have a Dealer around us, but this shouldn't be his problem, and it would take weeks for them to get this fixed, as this is a busy season, and he didn't sell it to us. I immediately wrote to the dealer (a month ago) and STILL am getting nothing from them.

I repeat, DO NOT BUY FROM QUIETWOODS RV.
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Old 08-07-2018, 12:44 PM   #3
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Yes, many dealers exaggerate. You probably should've done some research on the fridge before believing it would last 3 days on an inventor. Also, many new trailers have some issues.

If you didn't plan on making some minor repairs, you probably should've bought local.
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Old 08-07-2018, 12:47 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by buffalochick View Post
We bought a Salem Hemisphere 36 ft 5th Wheel, with an electric fridge.

Since buying the trailer, the front stabilizer bolts have sheered off, we carry a bag of fuses up front for when we need to extend or return jacks, the railing has fallen off, the floor vents are dented from walking on them, there are screws falling out of the slides, etc. The trailer appears to be very poorly made.

They are in Wisconsin, we are in New York. They have offered nothing but I'm sorry.

.
Even refrigerators that operate on propane have 'battery issues' because they have electronic ignitions. We carry either bottles of frozen water or cooler freeze packs to extend the cold in the fridge/freeze.

Warranty work is usually through the individual manufacturers ( like your fridge )

Anything else can usually be taken care of by a Forest River dealer near you. ( Try to find one that sells your unit.)

However, warranty work seems to be last on a dealers list. When we took our new rig into a local dealer, they wouldn't even look at it for 6 months. ( We too bought ours out of town.)
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Old 08-07-2018, 12:58 PM   #5
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As is mentioned in many of the threads dealing with new owners... buy local or plan on DIY repairs...

buy out of town and plan on camping in the dealer's lot for a couple of nights to iron out issues...

buy local and plan on driveway camping for a couple of nights to iron out issues...

either way you are going to have issues with a new trailer...

if it sat on the lot for two years you might have negotiated for NEW batteries because certainly the originally installed batteries are NOT maintained by the dealer, and were probably just charged up from being dead prior to your picking up the camper... once batteries are neglected for a year they are then weak forever...

If we could all know all the right questions to ask when buying/picking up the campers then this would be a much better world...

hopefully others will learn from your mistakes... thanks for posting about your problems
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Old 08-07-2018, 01:10 PM   #6
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Did you buy the new fridge to combat the battery draining issues? Or were there other issues with it?

Either way, these fridges are known to be a real power hog when you're dry camping, if you're not aware of it and don't shut off a feature of the fridge. We have a sticky at the top of the Electrical section about it:

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...art-26676.html

In summary, the fridge has anti-condensation heater that pulls around 2amps. Shutting this off can help you save 48 amphours worth of battery usage per day. The battery that came in my trailer is a cheap dual-purpose AC Delco, with only about 52 amp hours of capacity. Shouldn't pull a battery below 1/2, so that means I only have 26 amp hours of useable battery. With that 2 amp draw, I'd be effectively killing the battery in 13 hours, less when you factor in the radio, propane detector, etc...)

It's unfortunate that some RV dealers don't know enough and keep giving this false kind of information to people. My dealer is pretty knowledgeable, but there's a lot out there that aren't.
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Old 08-07-2018, 01:12 PM   #7
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And now you know why buying an RV 1000 miles away from home to save a couple thousand dollars doesn't really save any money at all.

As for the fuses on the front jacks, that is a common problem with all brands!

Instead of blowing the fuse every time, what you need to do is to slowly extend the jacks out all the way to the end...bring them back in about 1/4 inch...then make a mark on the jacks so you can see where to stop the next time!

Also do the same for bringing them up.

Once I did that...I haven't popped another fuse since!
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Old 08-07-2018, 01:24 PM   #8
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The fridge has since been changed out, I have a shiny new stainless beer fridge in my garage. I had a perfectly good fridge before this one, so not the reason. We tried everything to extend the life of this fridge. We now have a 19" huge lithium battery that can power our entire trailer for a week and 2 4x6 solar panels on the roof. Our new Dometic fridge is awesome. We have power for days now.

The fuses thing should be told to you BEFORE you go camping, just sayin. My hubby works for the power company so he's pretty knowledgeable about these things.

The stabilizer bar mechanism is just plain cheap. There is no other way to describe it. If we end up keeping this trailer, we will put regular hydraulic jacks on it and be done with that crap.

And we saved almost $7,000, not a couple thousand. We do have a FR dealer by us, but they couldn't get us this model. And yes, warranty work is at the bottom of the pile, hence us doing it ourselves and going to another dealership to get the fridge changed. How sad is that...

Quietwoods wanted over $5,000 to change the fridge. We got it done for $2,800 and it's another foot larger and perfect. Have run the trailer unplugged for 5 days and lots of power left. Left the fans running, the CPAP machine running, a bunch of stuff, right in our driveway, for 5 days, just to see if it really was the fridge. And it was....
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Old 08-07-2018, 01:24 PM   #9
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Sorry to hear about your experience. Quietwoods RV, Janesville location, has had a very bad reputation for years. Don't know anything about their other 2 places but doubt it's much better. They had a TT friends of ours wanted to look at and I told them to stay clear.
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Old 08-07-2018, 01:34 PM   #10
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Sorry to hear about your experience. Quietwoods RV, Janesville location, has had a very bad reputation for years. Don't know anything about their other 2 places but doubt it's much better. They had a TT friends of ours wanted to look at and I told them to stay clear.
I've never purchased anything from them but have stopped at both of their other locations. Each time, I left laughing at them. Salespeople are very uneducated and mostly don't seem to care much about making sales. I would never purchase anything from them. I don't think their prices or financing are great either.
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Old 08-07-2018, 01:41 PM   #11
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Sad you had to change the fridge but as the Buyer you have to be responsible for this. Believing the sales department was the first issue. A simple google search revealed this.

residential fridge time on batteries

https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/rv-...igerator-power

They did all the work, they are a good couple and that provides real user information.

As far as your other issues that is RV ownership. I had electric landing gear and never blew a fuse. There was a automatic reset breaker that I never blew. Look at the top if the landing gear, there are two grease zerks. Pump the landing gear full of grease. I would do 10 hand pumps a side to start. This made all the difference on my Rockwood.

You can contact Forest River and they might dispatch a mobile repair tech to diagnose the landing gear for you.

Changing to Hydraulic will not be cheap and most likely will require a lot of frame modifications to accept the hydraulic system. Costly..
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Old 08-07-2018, 02:09 PM   #12
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You also have the option to have warranty work done by an independent RV shop or a mobile RV tech.
You just have to get FR and be willing to be reimbursed.
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Old 08-07-2018, 02:28 PM   #13
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I am corresponding with the Service Mgr for all of QW RV now. He has asked me to send him all of my receipts for all costs incurred. If they cover half, I would be happy.

I already explained to him that this was partly my fault for not doing my research, but mostly his because 2 of his people, including the Svc Mgr in Janesville, lied to us, outright.

We will get this taken care of, one way or the other, and will be reimbursed for some of the costs we have incurred. So sad to think that buying such a nice trailer, paying that much money for it, brings so much pain. I miss our 2002 Winnebago. Had NONE of these problems with it--very well made.
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Old 08-07-2018, 03:45 PM   #14
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Hopefully all will work out!

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Old 08-08-2018, 12:17 PM   #15
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Fox Valley location was great

I purchased my 26ft tt from the Fox Valley location. I have nothing but good things to say about them. The few minor issues I had were addressed by them.

To be honest though I went in with a lot of research before going in. I think that based on the high level of questions I was asking them they were not comfortable giving me information that was not 100% accurate. Pretty much told the dealer to not try and bull **** a bull *******.

To be fair I treat car dealers the same way. Put them on the defensive and they tend to be more forthcoming.
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Old 08-08-2018, 01:28 PM   #16
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Yes dealers and their salespeople exaggerate, they are repeating what their fellow sales people have told them, mouthing off myths of the RV world, outright lying in some cases and repeating faithfully all the sales crap they learn at the manufacturer demo's they get when new models come out... Same as car sales associates do! Many dealerships have sales people that can rattle off all sorts of baffling BS about hitches, towing, setup, etc. But don't have a clue to what they are talking about. It's really hard to get the truth, to wade through ambiguous, incomplete or non existent info from the manufacturer or dealer. Maybe we are expecting a perfect world and want the dealers to offer more than they are capable of. That's allot of items to be an authority on and keep up with. (No I wouldn't run my business like that either and expect to do it better each time) I do look up as much manf printed info or you tube videos I can find to get a base... then I come to you the forum to see what real life experience has taught you about your rig. What problems you've had and what solutions. I probably have about 15 lbs of extra weight in my rig with manuals, print outs and info on every system and piece in my rig. The majority of questions and problems are to be found in one of these related forums and not from a dealer or even manufacturer of an RV. Now the maker of some of the RV components like WH, Fridge, Gas system, Appliance, Electronics can be better addressed contacting them directly for info. Your dealer has to go to them for parts, replacements and warranties anyway.
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Old 08-08-2018, 02:02 PM   #17
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Yes dealers and their salespeople exaggerate, they are repeating what their fellow sales people have told them, mouthing off myths of the RV world, outright lying in some cases and repeating faithfully all the sales crap they learn at the manufacturer demo's they get when new models come out... Same as car sales associates do! Many dealerships have sales people that can rattle off all sorts of baffling BS about hitches, towing, setup, etc. But don't have a clue to what they are talking about. It's really hard to get the truth, to wade through ambiguous, incomplete or non existent info from the manufacturer or dealer. Maybe we are expecting a perfect world and want the dealers to offer more than they are capable of. That's allot of items to be an authority on and keep up with. (No I wouldn't run my business like that either and expect to do it better each time).
Really...not all salespeople are that way.
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Old 08-08-2018, 02:11 PM   #18
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In our experience with this dealer:

At one location, we were told that they didn't take trades and that I should come back after I sell mine on Craigslist. They also wanted very close to MSRP and had used units on their lot. All that is fine. Maybe they don't take trades.

The second time we stopped, we wanted to look at several trailers and they were all locked. A person up front connected us with a salesperson who opened the trailers that were of interest. She then said, I'll be inside at my desk if you have any questions. We were there for over an hour and she never checked back. We bumped into other customers that were looking for a similar RV and they also had no salespeople around. Asked us how we got these trailers open. No pressure to sell at all. We will never go back to this dealer and purchased our trailer at a normal dealer.

I can't imagine this dealer ever being a low price leader and traveling to purchase anything from them.
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Old 08-08-2018, 02:59 PM   #19
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Really...not all salespeople are that way.
I will agree with that... sorry to all the great honest and professional sales people who strive to know what you sell.
All it takes is a few bad ones to sour the perception of all sales people.
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Old 08-08-2018, 10:51 PM   #20
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And now you know why buying an RV 1000 miles away from home to save a couple thousand dollars doesn't really save any money at all.

As for the fuses on the front jacks, that is a common problem with all brands!

Instead of blowing the fuse every time, what you need to do is to slowly extend the jacks out all the way to the end...bring them back in about 1/4 inch...then make a mark on the jacks so you can see where to stop the next time!

Also do the same for bringing them up.

Once I did that...I haven't popped another fuse since!
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