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Old 08-13-2013, 05:00 PM   #21
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No. They were not fixed in a timely fashion. My camper went to the dealer may 27 th. I didn't see it till July 19th. Needless to say my dealer sucked. Full of lies and bs. The main problem was the slide was built wrong at the factory. It could be adjusted to work but then would fall off track. That's how u missed it at pick up. It ended up going back to the factory and they had to "shim" it. I'm still pissed off about the whole ordeal. U can bet I will never use that dealer again. And I camp about a dozen trips a summer so anyone within earshot will hear my story. As for buying another Forrest river product I'm on the fence. There only saving grace is mike the service manager at palomino. The guy is awesome!
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Old 08-15-2013, 03:34 PM   #22
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It's nice to know that the service manager at Colon Michigan plant is awesome and looked after your trailer in lieu of the "non-service" of your selling dealer. When we bought our Solaire we dealt close to home and did some homework on what dealer to deal with. Our dealer will be celebrating 40 years in business in 2014. The PDI process was the best we have encountered to date and all issues were dealt with at time of pickup and a few a week or two later because parts had to be ordered. What we found is there seem to be too many little touch-ups and adjustments done to ensure the trailer was 99.9% perfect and to our liking. Being this our fourth trailer we found it to be way more then the others that we purchased. Hopefully Palomino can get their QC checks uniform in all of their operations and especially where the Solaires are made. Doing so will ensure a successful product line for many years to come.

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Old 08-15-2013, 04:12 PM   #23
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That's just it. The dealer I bought from gas been around forever. If u ever heard what's those idiots put us through your jaw would drop. Hopefully the problems are over and we can enjoy the rest of the summer. Currently sitting in a chilis restaurant on our way to holiday hill campground in spring water ny. Love that place!
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Old 08-15-2013, 04:35 PM   #24
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Sorry but the last two units I bought were hooked up to water in the middle of the shop when I arrived for my pdi.
We ran everything to check for leaks.
Sorry that your dealer isn't as great as mine whom is very concerned that were happy in every way.
Before we left everything that turned on or off or ran in someway was checked.

Turbs
wow, I want to come to Iowa for my next RV, never had the luxury of trying out everything on my PDI and I got 4 from the same dealer in the last 3.5 years and 1 from Bates airstream 4 years ago. I suppose I could have asked but than again i figure if I am paying 800 for prep. they should make sure it all works. The fact is most dealers charge you for a half assed prep than get to charge for all the warranty work when you actually use it.
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Old 08-15-2013, 04:38 PM   #25
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Amen on the prep charge!!! Freakin joke!!!!!!!!
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Old 08-15-2013, 04:53 PM   #26
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One reason we choose our dealer is no extra charge crap. Just price plus tax, title and plate. Other dealer were $300 for this and $400 for that etc. etc.
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Old 08-15-2013, 04:57 PM   #27
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wow, I want to come to Iowa for my next RV, never had the luxury of trying out everything on my PDI and I got 4 from the same dealer in the last 3.5 years and 1 from Bates airstream 4 years ago. I suppose I could have asked but than again i figure if I am paying 800 for prep. they should make sure it all works. The fact is most dealers charge you for a half assed prep than get to charge for all the warranty work when you actually use it.
I went in with the PDI checklist that is posted to our Library (if you're on the website, it's the green bar near the top of the screen; if you're in the app- use a browser and go to the website). It's 12 or 13 pages long and goes through almost all of the systems start to finish.

I was able to go through the PDI like f1100Turbo- with water hooked up, from the tank, electric hooked up, from battery, etc. We even "dumped" the tanks onto the ground (all clean water as far as I'm aware of!). Heat on (in the middle of July) and found that the heater was dead on arrival; their service tech fixed it on the spot. Air conditioning on - each one individually.

We were there a good 4 or 5 hours before going inside to sign papers. They did have $5k of mine as a deposit on the factory order- but that's it.
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Old 08-15-2013, 04:57 PM   #28
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Originally Posted by bob34787 View Post

wow, I want to come to Iowa for my next RV, never had the luxury of trying out everything on my PDI and I got 4 from the same dealer in the last 3.5 years and 1 from Bates airstream 4 years ago. I suppose I could have asked but than again i figure if I am paying 800 for prep. they should make sure it all works. The fact is most dealers charge you for a half assed prep than get to charge for all the warranty work when you actually use it.
No charge for pdi.
Cheyenne camping center walcott Iowa.
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Old 08-15-2013, 05:04 PM   #29
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FYI from a "disinterested party"

If you read down through the posts, you will find out why many FR reps choose to "lurk" rather than "come out."

They reply to HELP you; not be a sounding board for your gripes about the dealer or how poorly you were treated in the past.

If you have something SPECIFIC you want fixed/addressed they can be an awesome asset and we welcome their participation here.

Paint a target on their avatar and they just don't come back. When that happens WE ALL LOSE.

Remember please we have NO OFFICIAL AFFILIATION with Forest River. We just use their stuff and most of us like it. Having a "go to guy" for your unit is a "pearl beyond price." Treat him (or her) as such and you may find life is much nicer.
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Old 08-16-2013, 01:28 PM   #30
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Out of curiosity, is this *every* camper or just a select handful?
Every camper goes through that process here, there are a select few that go to forest river headquarters to be disected completely, I would say 20 units a year or so, out of about 2500 TT's built. No unit has ever left the factory perfect, nor ever will, but I will say the people that work here do care about there quality of work and take pride in it. There are alot of moving parts when it comes to manufacturing an RV and everything is hand done, no way to use any type of computer or robot to make anything on an RV, so there's always going to be some tweeking that's hopefully caught during the pdi process if not at the factory.
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Old 08-16-2013, 01:34 PM   #31
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No charge for pdi.
Cheyenne camping center walcott Iowa.
X2 for my Dealer (Norman Campers in Atlanta, GA)!



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Old 08-16-2013, 09:30 PM   #32
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Thanks, Palomino Pal for the explanation. It sounded like another brand only checked a handful of campers at random. Or, at least that's what I got out of it. Maybe it was just a more thorough one or something. I don't know...

As for paying for the PDI. I have no idea if my dealer charges for it or not- I negotiated a bottom-line/out-the-door price. If I paid for a PDI, so be it. If I didn't, so be it. They gave me an extensive walk-through and we tested almost everything before signing papers.
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Old 08-28-2013, 08:25 PM   #33
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I question the QC process. My unit had the hot water heater wired wrong it took my dealer a few days and many discussions with FR headquarters as well the maker of the hot water unit only to discover the wires were connected wrong. The shower leaked like crazy the first time out. Didn't get noticed at walk through because it took a considerable amount of water to leak through the wall. This was discovered the first time out as well. Half way through the season my dinette in the slide pulled out of the wall and the floor collapsed. The unit was sent to the factory and they discovered the wall was not made correctly and was missing the metal support that was suppose to be there. My first year with the unit it was back to dealer after every trip for repairs. Factory reps were mildly responsive to fixing unit but no compensation for trips to dealer, road mileage on the trailer tires and unit to and from my home (east coast) to factory. Dealer and factory reps initially made me feel like I was bothering them. Dealer did little to instill confidence in FR rather talked about how poor the units were made and said its to be expected in the industry. They were not a glowing endorsement for FR. I don't know about others but for the price of the units I would hope things would be wired and made correctly. I had a used Jayco or 4 years and not a single issue. I love the layout of new trailer but he jury is still out on FR products. I'll see what the next few years bring. Here's to hoping! On a separate but related issue I had a problem with my Blue Ox Sway Pro hitch. Blue Ox reps were awesome with addressing the issue and went above and beyond working with me to make sure I was happy. No red tape no excuses just service they you expect. I had only used Reese products prior but now I'm a huge fan of Blue Ox. Shows what good service can do.
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Old 08-28-2013, 09:34 PM   #34
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Interesting. The warranty manager at fr told me when I was going through hell that they would reimburse us for any camping trip we may miss because of our problems. My dealer can go to hell, but forest river stood behind there product and made things right. The service manager and warranty manager were great stand up guys and took care of us!
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Old 08-29-2013, 06:26 AM   #35
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I question the QC process. My unit had the hot water heater wired wrong it took my dealer a few days and many discussions with FR headquarters as well the maker of the hot water unit only to discover the wires were connected wrong. The shower leaked like crazy the first time out. Didn't get noticed at walk through because it took a considerable amount of water to leak through the wall. This was discovered the first time out as well. Half way through the season my dinette in the slide pulled out of the wall and the floor collapsed. The unit was sent to the factory and they discovered the wall was not made correctly and was missing the metal support that was suppose to be there. My first year with the unit it was back to dealer after every trip for repairs. Factory reps were mildly responsive to fixing unit but no compensation for trips to dealer, road mileage on the trailer tires and unit to and from my home (east coast) to factory. Dealer and factory reps initially made me feel like I was bothering them. Dealer did little to instill confidence in FR rather talked about how poor the units were made and said its to be expected in the industry. They were not a glowing endorsement for FR. I don't know about others but for the price of the units I would hope things would be wired and made correctly. I had a used Jayco or 4 years and not a single issue. I love the layout of new trailer but he jury is still out on FR products. I'll see what the next few years bring. Here's to hoping! On a separate but related issue I had a problem with my Blue Ox Sway Pro hitch. Blue Ox reps were awesome with addressing the issue and went above and beyond working with me to make sure I was happy. No red tape no excuses just service they you expect. I had only used Reese products prior but now I'm a huge fan of Blue Ox. Shows what good service can do.

What is the year, model and VIN number of your unit?
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Old 08-29-2013, 09:04 PM   #36
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Antler man - don't get me wrong FR fixed everything but I went through a heck of a time. I purchased the trailer in January picked it up in May and it was one thing after another. Finally shipped back to the factory in October and in April I was informed by the dealer that the trailer was back on their lot. FR extended the warranty 6 months from purchase date so it was covered till July which in New York due to weather really only gave us one trip this year to test the trailer. The list of repairs on my unit is long and I even explored the lemon law but RVs are not coved under the law in NYS. It really wasn't until I involved the president of the dealership and he started corresponding with FR that things started to move. Gene Cronin of FR was fantastic and very responsive once the president of dealership was involved. However given my problems I never should have had to involve the president of the dealership. It was just a very frustrating year last year 8-10 round trips back and forth from dealership to home and ending the season with the added wear and tear on the unit of the round trip to the factory. Not an experience one would expect if a business had quality QC which is why I posted on this thread about QC or lack of. My unit had enough problems without the hot water heater being wired wrong, the slide wall mixing a support, the outdoor kitchen door with the seal about 10 inches to short causing a leak, and shower leak all of which were issues that should have been caught before leaving the factory after it was built - certainly QC issues. Also regarding QC I thought the comments from dealer were interesting when the service manager said its to be expected in the industry.
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Old 08-29-2013, 09:17 PM   #37
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Palomino Pal - it is a 2011 Palomino Throughbred T-829 QBS-K. Why would you need the VIN? I'm not sure I feel comfortable posting the VIN on this forum. I would be happy to provide you with the number given to me when shipped to the factory on this forum. I also have a list of repairs from all my visits last summer from the dealership which I requested when the unit was returned to me which I could email you or get you the VIN some other way if it would matter.
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Old 08-29-2013, 09:27 PM   #38
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Palomino Pal - it is a 2011 Palomino Throughbred T-829 QBS-K. Why would you need the VIN? I'm not sure I feel comfortable posting the VIN on this forum. I would be happy to provide you with the number given to me when shipped to the factory on this forum. I also have a list of repairs from all my visits last summer from the dealership which I requested when the unit was returned to me which I could email you or get you the VIN some other way if it would matter.
Send it via a PM (even us moderators can't see them).
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