New 2019 Wildwood 40 FDEN Impressions

[Up North]

I wish I could be more positive but it is what it is. I'm not picking on Forest River specifically but probably more of a statement of the rv manufacturing industry as a whole. These things are made of less than quality material and are put together shoddily. This isn't the fault of the people doing the work necessarily as they are under pressure to get these things out the door and onto the dealers lots as fast as humanly possible.

I knew this going in. I wasn't shopping brands because it's the same across the board unless you are doing custom build like Lazy Daze and wait 18 months to two years for your rig to be assembled and spend north of the 100K mark. We were shopping floor plan paying little attention to what brand we were standing in as long as the layout was what we wanted.

Being a destination trailer it was moved from the dealers lot to our lake property never to be moved again. I was hoping I'd have a better chance of it holding together not bouncing and twisting down the road every weekend. Slide outs should only need to go in and out twice a year.

It started at the dealer where we got the high pressure sales to buy the interior/exterior/mechanical extended warranties to the tune of $7000. We said no thanks. We just spent $35K on a camper and lots of other expenditures coming on property improvements. Well they took the hard run at us three times with the last time in the service managers office where we told what was covered in the manufacturers warranty (not much) and what would be covered under this Cadillac plan. I finally ran out of patience and told them I'm not handing over $7 grand and you and i both understand the things are put together cheaply and manufacturers warranty sucks but I can fix a lot of stuff for $7 grand!

So now it's been on site for about 5 weeks. We are not living in it full time but I'm there about 3 days then come home for two days before going back to do dirt work on the property. I'm starting to notice little things already. A brace on the steps has a broken spot weld. All the window shades and there are a lot of them are those easy roll up type where you just tug downward and let go and the shade rolls slowly up. 3 of those are no longer working properly. The rear outside door that goes into the master bedroom all of a sudden needs to be slammed shut to close properly.

And now the last time I noticed the Furrion sound bar system is acting up. Sometimes you can control it from the buttons on the sound bar and sometimes not. Sometimes only the remote will turn it on or off or increase or decrease volume. None of this surprises me as this is our 4th camper we've owned but first brand new one. Like I said it's no secret what level of quality materials and equipment are used and the circumstances under which they are assembled.

Had i spent another $5 or $10 grand it would be the same thing. So far it's been just these little bugaboos and nothing real major. I'll wait until the fall months to go around and see what I can fix.

It would just be nice to see the RV industry step up it's game a bit.

[Florida.Traveler]

I have opened up most enclosed areas of our 7 month old 2018 Wildwood 26 foot TT. Sawdust ragged cutouts, half staples, missed screws The fresh water intake did not work so I took the undersink area apart and found that the fresh water inlet hose to the tank was installed with more uphill than down, no wonder the tank would not fill

I have to agree that there is NO QA or sense of the workers doing a good job putting these TT together.

I did not spend a lot on mine, because of the exact reason you stated in your post. I have spend many hours in the "NEW" TT to fix what I have found not to be correct, and now I'm going to enjoy the unit.

I really know where to look when it comes time to trade for another TT

[Up North]

Well it's been a little over 6 months now with the FDEN. No major problems to report over the summer. But now that things are cooling off I've been running the furnace a bit. Lows are getting into the 20's at night. I winterized everything a few weeks ago but still been using it on some nicer days when I can get some fall chores done around the property.

I went up this past Friday to spend the night and do the final close up of everything until next spring. I am woken up 2:30 am Saturday morning to this terrible racket in the kitchen/living room area. The fan/blower motor on the furnace is rattling like it's falling apart. Which it is of course. Nothing to do but shut it down. Great. 2:30 am and it's 23 degrees outside and I have to shut the furnace off. I always felt that these electric fireplaces were a eye candy gimmick and for the most part they are but I was sure glad to have it right then. It kept it just warm enough I could sleep on the couch with about 3 blankets.

I had already taken all my tools home previously so I had nothing to work on it with and even if I had tools I was in no mood to tear this thing apart in a cold camper. It will be there in spring. What a joke. That furnace doesn't even have 20 hours run time and it's falling apart. No sense in calling the dealer because they will want $250 for the service call due to our location. Best I can hope for but not expecting is when I get the motor out in spring and bring it in they will give me a replacement free. But I'm guessing they won't because it wasn't a certified service rep of theirs that did the work and I could have damaged it during removal and the manufacturer won't replace it.

Actually I may save the aggravation of even getting the dealer involved. I will pull it out and see if I can buy a replacement on line and just be done with it.

[Bersa45]

On all my rvs first thing I do is go around and tighten up all the water connections and pipes. Be surprised at what I found loose on my new 2020 5th wheel. I had to secure all the drawer frames and seal all the knooks and crannies to keep critters out. Fire place fan squeaked so bad, I took it apart and lubed the fan bearings. Radio quit working but all it needed was to be reset, after hours of checking all connections. My only question is, how did this pass QUALITY CONTROL?

[bjkirschn]

I just wanted to point out that it's the dealerships responsibility to do a pre-delivery inspection and correct any issues that might be occurring I know some dealers go to the point of completely soaking the camper to make sure it's waterproof and doesn't leak to simply washing it and delivering it. It is disgraceful how little some do, and I have seen horrible things happen hopefully we bought our new camper from a place that does a good pre-delivery inspection they claim to we will see.

[Bashful365]

Purchased a Heritage Glen 36FL a couple of weeks ago. Supposed to take delivery Saturday but when they brought it up to connect, water was leaking out of a hole in the underbelly. Service manager said they would have to pull it and find out why it was leaking at all. Shouldn’t have water in it yet. We will see. And about that unplanned hole in the underbelly? Hmmm

[bjkirschn]

The only answer on how that got missed is they NEVER checked. My opinion is that most dealers don't take the time to check.