Shoddy Workmanship

[revrnd]

A while back there was a thread about shoddy details & I saw the thread about the peeling decals. The peeling decals brought to mind something I saw last year when I was shopping around for a TT.

A local dealer had a big "sale" @ the local mall w/ a bunch of trailers (of all types & sizes) on display in 1 corner of the parking lot. I noticed on the front of an aluminum skinned TT an example of poor and/or lazy workmanship. At 1 point when the front decal was being applied, rather than the decal "following" the corrugated alum', it bridged the "gap" & was unsupported for more than an inch. If the buyer and/or dealer didn't catch it & replace the decal before the TT went off the lot, I don't imagine the unsupported vinyl would've lasted long.

[rockwood06]

One has to look over any rig before one buys. There is a lot to look at in side and out and hard to catch everything, especially when one is a first time buyer.
After one buys it and it ends up in the shop for one reason or another inspect your rig before you leave the dealers. Mine was scrape on one of the storage doors when I had it in to have the a/c replace and it was scrape by the Mechanic carrying the old a/c unit which he had just taken it off of the roof. The damage was not bad and I told the Manager and he offered to order a new storage door, at this time I did not what to come back so I made deal, give me a store credit for the cost and we will call it good and so he did....I made the repaires, I was able to buff it out.

[PumaPro]

The problem with many of the decals is that the head honcho in purchasing got the wrong vinyl. The "shrinking stickers" are due to indoor-only vinyl or another inferior type of vinyl is being used to make them. The stickers were applied properly at the factory. Wrong material.

[revrnd]

Just a quote from my external speaker thread:

From the factory the TT has 2 speakers over the dinette. When I had the stereo out to solder the connections, I noticed that the forward speaker was wired to the A room RH yellow wires & the rearward speaker was wired to the B room RH blue wires. Is this normal or not?

Would you not wire the LH speaker to the LH side output of the A room & the RH speaker to the RH side output of the A room? The wiring diagram is on the back of the ZX-75, so I have no idea what the reason for both speakers being wired to RH outputs, other than they both are on the RH side of the trailer.

If the same person that did that wiring, also put the terminal end on the co-axial cable (it was improperly done), I can see not a lot of care was taken in this portion of my TT's construction.

[Mr. Black]

Hmmmmmm

I could go on an on about shoddy workmanship. Don't kid yourself, if you think it is only Forest River brands. I have been around 4 brands in my life and IMO they are all crap. You could pick every one of them apart. Even an Alfa Gold.

That being said, we tend to buy used. Save a lot of money up front and I don't mind fixing all the other crap most people just gripe about and or make thousand trips back to the dealer for.

It usually takes me a year of ownership before I can get a rig into 100% condition.

As for Forest River, here's a little story.

When we first bought this rig it needed a few things right away. The biggie was no heat in the bedroom/bathroom area. It is a forced air system with sheetmetal ductwork. There is a primary duct running under the trailer to two main registers. Only the one in the living room worked. After some careful investigation, I removed the register from the bedroom. I was now looking down a 2 foot vertical box. The vertical box was in line with the horizontal box running under the floor from the furnace. Only problem was, the vertical box had no opening. Looking down in there I could tell where the horizontal should have met up with the vertical. I took my hand and pushed on the sheet metal. Low and behold I was able to push the flap up THAT SOMEONE AT THE FACTORY FORGOT TO BEND. Holy crap, now we have heat. The dust bunnies that came out of there were insane lol. This also enabled the forward basement/storage heat to work now.

On that story, these are the kind of problems that could frustrate a person to the point of trading something back in or just selling it.

Now that this one is almost bug free, we are really starting to enjoy this unit.

[4 Spennys]

Bought our Coach 'new' in August of 2009. Its been in the shop approximately 4 months total throughout the year for warranty work. i think this thing was put together with elmers glue, the tv in master bedroom fell out of the wall and landed on the bed. Toilet won't flush without pouring water in it. Wiper blade motor is too weak for the wipers, so it burns up and has to be replaced AGAIN. And the list goes on and on.

[yvesm]

We owned a 2001 Shamrock until this past spring, we had very few problems. We purchased a 2011 (ordered for us from factory with all options). Took delivery in April, its been a bucket of bolts...nothing but problems, leaks, bad wiring, poor assembly. We hope to get 3 years out of this camper, then we will get a Tiffin coach or Carriage fifth wheel.

[NWJeeper]

Originally Posted by 4 Spennys

Bought our Coach 'new' in August of 2009. Its been in the shop approximately 4 months total throughout the year for warranty work. i think this thing was put together with elmers glue, the tv in master bedroom fell out of the wall and landed on the bed. Toilet won't flush without pouring water in it. Wiper blade motor is too weak for the wipers, so it burns up and has to be replaced AGAIN. And the list goes on and on.

About 99% of the time it is the service centers fault for rigs taking so long to get fixed. Service centers at RV dealers are horrible, inefficient and slow at getting things fixed. That is why most people will fix the small things they can fix and leave the big things to a shop. However if the problems encountered are with a component (microwave, furnace, water heater, refrigerator) then one should look for the closest factory authorized service center for THAT item and take the rig there instead of the RV dealer. I have found that in most cases the service has been much quicker and better in doing this.

[cerealjoe]

Hi revrnd. Can you post some photos of it so that we can evaluate it? I think that the quality of the vinyl is not really good at all.

[revrnd]

Originally Posted by cerealjoe

Hi revrnd. Can you post some photos of it so that we can evaluate it? I think that the quality of the vinyl is not really good at all.

I don't have the TT in question, they were on the dealer's "lot". It was an aluminum trailer. To me it looked like the "assembler" rather than "squeegee" the decal down into the valley & back up, he just applied it from 1 "peak" to the next.

The vinyl did not look stretched in any way.