Lesson Learned with FR Owner Support

[tamdle]

I was very frustrated on my first contact with FR Georgetown Owner Support. I called Cel Lopez, left him couple messages and did not get any response until almost a week later.

Turn out after talking with Cel, he may be the only contact for those of us who live in his support region. Needless to say, there were hundred of phone calls to ask him for help, and each call would take much more time than it should. That is why he could not keep up with the enquiries.

He suggested me to email him instead, email would take less time for him to response.

I did tried at least 3 times on email communication with Cel, and each time he responsed to my email within few minutes, only once that took him 4 hours.

This is great and I just want to share with you all on my experience with Cel, he is a great guy and very helpful. Give him time, he will take care of you, better yet, email him instead of calling him unless that you are desperate to talk to him in person, that would takes few days.

Here is his email for your record.

Celestino Lopez <CLopez@forestriverinc.com>

Have a great day,
Tam Le

[tamdle]

Just like any brand new unit, my 2016 Georgetown XL 352QS has only 1600 miles on the odometer, I just only drove 250 miles back from the dealer in Dallas to my home town in Willis, TX. On my first 2 night camping trip to the Galveston Island which is 200 miles round trip from my home, the hydraulic system gave out.

Since I bought the RV from an out of town dealer, none of the dealer but one in the Willis and Houston area would want to service my RV since I did not buy it from them. The one would take my RV for service warned me that it would takes 2 to 3 months to get them work on it. That is suck.

Then I heard about the RV mobile service.

I went to the RV park just about 1 miles from my home and asked for the RV mobil service and got the phone number. Many if not all of the RV park alway has the RV mobil service contact to help the RVer incase of problem.

I called the RV mobile service and got his attention right away. He came the next day, and diagnose the problem, the trip charge was $70. I then called FR and talked to Celestino and provided him my RV mobile service. Celestino called my RV mobile service to qualify him, then authorized for the service. Make the long story short, the RV was fixed correctly, fast, and right at my driveway. I paid for the service, then sent the receipt of payment to FR, 3 weeks later, I received a check from FR for the full amount.

Many of you buy your RV wherever the price is right, but you may run into the same situation like myself. If you do, call your RV mobile service, it would work out much better. Beside, the dealer charges about $120 to $200 an hour depending on where you live. In my case, the dealer rate is $150 and my RV mobile service only charge me $75 an hour labor and much faster service.

There you go, a lesson to learn on my new RV life adventure. Hope this would help to some newbie like myself.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season and Merry Chrismas to all of you out there.

Tam Le

[Mr Havercamp]

Originally Posted by tamdle

Turn out after talking with Cel, he may be the only contact for those of us who live in his support region. Needless to say, there were hundred of phone calls to ask him for help, and each call would take much more time than it should. That is why he could not keep up with the enquiries.

All that says is they need additional help in that department, but I suppose a company with close to 3 billion in revenue can not afford it.

Both Rockwood and Flagstaff used to have 4 people listed under the service category on the "contact us section" of the website. They were the same 4 people. Recently that has been reduced to one for each brand. At least they are two different people. Not sure of the significance of that but they were hard enough to contact before and receive a response in a fair amount of time. By their own guidelines back then it said expect a response in 48 hours but that never happened. I can only imagine now that they only list one rep taking into account Rockwood and Flagstaff are most likely one of, if not the, highest volume divisions. Hopefully the other ones that used to be listed are still in the "service" capacity behind the scenes.

[tamdle]

Originally Posted by Mr Havercamp

All that says is they need additional help in that department, but I suppose a company with close to 3 billion in revenue can not afford it.

I am in agreement with you, however, what we want may not be the same as what we would received. We could voice ourself all day long or year long for hope that FR would change, but that is something still far away. At least, we could get something that work decent enough for now, and at least we could get some supports to help us move along.

Cheer!

[dphorton]

Great information. Thank you.

[glenn56h]

in key largo I use Larrys he comes to the RV, is competent and honest.

[AquaMan]

It really depends on the time of the year. I called GTown with an issue that couldn't get fixed at Goshen, and got right in to the service center. In fact, they said they were looking for things to do at that point. This was a few weeks after the rally. I also called while I was traveling with questions, and they called back almost immediately. I know this sounds bizarre to some, but I've never had problems getting in touch with FR.

[jkoenig24]

Unless ALL the camping you do is close to home, buying any RV at a "local dealer" is at best, a crap shoot. There's a VERY good chance, that when you DO need service, you'll be a LOOOOONG way from home. That means, even though you "bought locally", you'll STILL need service from a "remote" dealer.

[rhamilton]

We recently bought our first Forest River/Forester from a local FR dealer 20 miles from Home. We had a minor problem with the oven that needed a replacement part. We have an RV, re-sale, storage, repair business about 3 miles away (no new sales). The FR dealer could not help us for 2-3 months. Our local RV repair business got us in within a few weeks. The problem was fixed in less than 1/2 a day, and we were on our way. Maybe local repair is better than original purchase location??

[asquared]

Thanks for Sharing a positive experience and helpful tip.

[woodpile]

Originally Posted by tamdle

I am in agreement with you, however, what we want may not be the same as what we would received. We could voice ourself all day long or year long for hope that FR would change, but that is something still far away. At least, we could get something that work decent enough for now, and at least we could get some supports to help us move along.

Cheer!

I admire your attitude. Happy Camping!!

[tamdle]

Originally Posted by woodpile

I admire your attitude. Happy Camping!!

Ha ha ha... Thank Woodpile. Have a great Holiday season.

[Mdaniels4]

We have 2 mobile repair guys in our area. Ed is an older fellow, and I'll be really bummed when he finally does retir . He's that good. Owned a full service shop until about 2 years ago and then went strictly mobile. But what he's done when needed has been phenomenal. The other one I'm not as fond of but to be fair I've only had one experience with them so far. I wonder if I should email FR and get these two guys pre registered as repair facilities. My dealer is about 50 miles away.

[tamdle]

Originally Posted by AquaMan

It really depends on the time of the year. I called GTown with an issue that couldn't get fixed at Goshen, and got right in to the service center. In fact, they said they were looking for things to do at that point. This was a few weeks after the rally. I also called while I was traveling with questions, and they called back almost immediately. I know this sounds bizarre to some, but I've never had problems getting in touch with FR.

Hello AquaMan, you must have all of the lucks, and that is great to know, however, if you are running into the worst case like I did, then the email would be the helpful solution.

Cheer!

[tamdle]

It sound to me from many response here is the Mobile Service is a better solution for the RVer, quicker service, lower hourly cost, unlike the dealerships, at least from my experience.

Thanks for all of the sharing and comments here.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year RVers.

[manvel]

Mr Lopez has been great,he is very easy to reach with email.I had problems with my coach in 2012 when it was new,could not get hold of any one ,or get any response. Mr Lopez has always got back to me,work with me on the covers for the chairs.It is nice to know you have a contact that will respond.

[tamdle]

Originally Posted by manvel

Mr Lopez has been great,he is very easy to reach with email... .It is nice to know you have a contact that will respond.

Most definitely, Amen!