General satisfaction percentage

[Edl16]

I am wondering after watching this video
From you guys who obviously are very well versed in forest river , what is the general satisfaction gauge on these travel trailers?
Do you guys who spend plenty of time in these forums find that there are more people happy with their caravans or more people unhappy. It strikes me that if one outfit builds a poor example like this video then everything coming from that same assembly line will be generally the same.

Would you say there is a specific build location that is head and shoulders above the others or below the others ?

Also I'm wondering if anyone views on the quality control that comes from the Forest river travel trailers out of
GOSHEN, IN plant. For example, does this plant have a overall good reputation or a specifically bad reputation ?

I really appreciate all the help and responses from people in the forum's and PMs since joining here and am looking forward to bringing home my 2006 Surveyor SV 291 within the next week. Let's just hope it doesn't fall apart on the 21 hour drive and 11 hour ferry ride. At end of the day I'm pretty excited though as you Americans know how to make spacious RVs unlike Australia who wack the double bed 3 quarters along the van sideways removing half the floorspace. Even if I end up pulling it apart and rebuilding it the space is amazing in these.

One other question , when did they start building then with aluminium bodies and not wood or has it always been like that and is there all that much wood in there behind those walls?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gxsjmwXNMj8

[Mr. Dan]

Originally Posted by Edl16

I am wondering after watching this video
From you guys who obviously are very well versed in forest river , what is the general satisfaction gauge on these travel trailers?
Do you guys who spend plenty of time in these forums find that there are more people happy with their caravans or more people unhappy. It strikes me that if one outfit builds a poor example like this video then everything coming from that same assembly line will be generally the same.

Would you say there is a specific build location that is head and shoulders above the others or below the others ?

Also I'm wondering if anyone views on the quality control that comes from the Forest river travel trailers out of
GOSHEN, IN plant. For example, does this plant have a overall good reputation or a specifically bad reputation ?

I really appreciate all the help and responses from people in the forum's and PMs since joining here and am looking forward to bringing home my 2006 Surveyor SV 291 within the next week. Let's just hope it doesn't fall apart on the 21 hour drive and 11 hour ferry ride. At end of the day I'm pretty excited though as you Americans know how to make spacious RVs unlike Australia who wack the double bed 3 quarters along the van sideways removing half the floorspace. Even if I end up pulling it apart and rebuilding it the space is amazing in these.

One other question , when did they start building then with aluminium bodies and not wood or has it always been like that and is there all that much wood in there behind those walls?

You might want to rethink/edit/explain some of your questions. For instance, you wrote "Also I'm wondering if anyone views on the quality control...." Say what? And to finish that question "that comes from the Forest river travel trailers out of GOSHEN, IN plant." 'THE plant'? I don't try to keep up with the count but a wild guess is that there are 15-20 or so Forest River plants in the Goshen, IN area.

[Old Forester]

I'm no expert but the Rockwood line and we have what I consider to be the buy of a lifetime, a 2016 Windjammer 3029, rear-living 35-footer with 3 slides we got in 2017 from a HUGE dealer here in Louisiana for 15K off it's 2016 price. Paid 22K as it had been temp quarters for a flood victim who did not smoke. Anyway, the build quality is great - I have found none of those pesky loose walls or blind screws penetrating wiring. The big selling point on Rockwood and Flagstaff is Aluminum inside Framework, (Not the outside panels, and Composite foam and fiberglass skin vacuum-bonded for outside walls plus a 4-inch curved foam roof with only 3 or 4 seams. Add frameless windows, superb graphics and the Diamond package with two A/C's and I have the room of a 5th wheel but for us at less than half the investment. We followed Rockwoods for 3 year before pulling the trigger and till liked what we saw... I hope their product stays true.

[Capt. Mike]

I agree with Mr. Dan that your questions are vague and ambiguous, and "quality" is subjective. I do think that people who have problems with a particular unit (whether travel trailer, 5th wheel, or motor home) tend to post their issues on these forums more so than the thousands who never have any issues with their purchase. For example, we've towed two different Rockwood travel trailers and and now our Columbus 5th wheel through 42 different states and five Canadian provinces. We've been on some of the worst roads this country (and Canada) have to offer. Think about towing your house over 100k miles. Things happen! Stuff shakes loose and has to be fixed. I've been satisfied with the "quality" of all three of our Forest River products.

Go to forums for any other manufacturer - Thor, Winnebago, Jayco, even Airstream (which some consider the Cadillac of travel trailers) and you'll find horror stories about the poor quality of units. Some are obviously self-inflicted problems, some less obvious but maybe self-inflicted nonetheless (how fast do you tow? how smoothly do you start/stop? do you do regular preventive maintenance?).

Asking on these forums for an opinion of the "quality" of trailers coming out of "the plant" is guaranteed to get you a lot of horror stories and not much else.

[5picker]

That video is of a 2009 unit. Could be 11-12 years old now depending on when it was built as new model years come out the year preceding.

Not sure I can put much faith in that video as we don't know what the circumstances were that lead to that... but... I CAN put stock in the fact of the approximately 15 or so R/Vs we've owned over 40+ years of camping, our current Flagstaff 5th wheel is one of the finest we've owned.

Was it perfect... no... but it has had few issues (non major) and we've been very happy.
I would certainly buy another.

There are horror stories on EVERY R/V forum about every model made.
That seems to be what these forums lean to. People mostly come here in the beginning to complain because they have a problem and think they are the only ones to have them. Often the the bad taste in their mouth is because of poor dealer response and that is certainly an area where the R/V industry could do WAY better.

Little things that could be taken care of in a few hours turn into weeks and then it all snowballs from there.

Not ALL FR products are made in the same plant and there certainly differences in quality. If you spend any time on this forum, you'll see some have more issues than others and factory support is the same.

Some brands/models have FR employees here that regularly monitor this forum and respond to customer concerns immediately... others, not so much or ever so you simply can't say FR (as a whole) is bad... or good for that matter. Each unit has to be handled on an individual case and over the years, I've seen FR folks step in here and give help to those in need.

As for the aluminum structure -vs- wood... there are still to this day some of each style built. It just depends on the make/model.

[Capt. Mike]

I really appreciate all the help and responses from people in the forum's and PMs since joining here and am looking forward to bringing home my 2006 Surveyor SV 291 within the next week. Let's just hope it doesn't fall apart on the 21 hour drive and 11 hour ferry ride. At end of the day I'm pretty excited though as you Americans know how to make spacious RVs unlike Australia who wack the double bed 3 quarters along the van sideways removing half the floorspace. Even if I end up pulling it apart and rebuilding it the space is amazing in these.

One other question , when did they start building then with aluminium bodies and not wood or has it always been like that and is there all that much wood in there behind those walls?

Edl16, you are also talking about a 14 year old trailer. What kind of maintenance has it had over the years? How long (if at all) has it been sitting - which will make a trailer deteriorate faster than using it?

Manufacturing techniques and materials have changed dramatically over the last 14 years. Some folks say that "back in the day" RVs were better built. I don't know if that is true and/or how to accurately compare the quality of RVs today versus older units WHEN THEY WERE INITIALLY BUILT.

Your profile says you are from Australia. Where are you going from and to with the trailer that will entail a 21 hour drive and an 11 hour ferry trip?

Good luck with your purchase.

[Discovery]

I am new to camp trailers but I have been watching youtube video's for years and what I got from that video was this.

Addressed a water leak in 2016 on a 2009 camper.I also noticed the host said "floor collapse cause it got alittle wet" I read this as there has been a small noticeable leak but considered not a big deal. This is a complete guess on my part>>>>>>

Finding stuff like this is always upsetting,but any leak in any camper will be bad news especially long unseen or neglected ones.

[Edl16]

Originally Posted by Capt. Mike

I agree with Mr. Dan that your questions are vague and ambiguous, and "quality" is subjective. I do think that people who have problems with a particular unit (whether travel trailer, 5th wheel, or motor home) tend to post their issues on these forums more so than the thousands who never have any issues with their purchase. For example, we've towed two different Rockwood travel trailers and and now our Columbus 5th wheel through 42 different states and five Canadian provinces. We've been on some of the worst roads this country (and Canada) have to offer. Think about towing your house over 100k miles. Things happen! Stuff shakes loose and has to be fixed. I've been satisfied with the "quality" of all three of our Forest River products.

Go to forums for any other manufacturer - Thor, Winnebago, Jayco, even Airstream (which some consider the Cadillac of travel trailers) and you'll find horror stories about the poor quality of units. Some are obviously self-inflicted problems, some less obvious but maybe self-inflicted nonetheless (how fast do you tow? how smoothly do you start/stop? do you do regular preventive maintenance?).

Asking on these forums for an opinion of the "quality" of trailers coming out of "the plant" is guaranteed to get you a lot of horror stories and not much else.

Here in Australia every factory and manufacturing plant has a job position called "Quality assurance officer." It is their job to go over every aspect of every finished product be it a box of springs or a car and for them to make sure that everything is exactly how it should be. So for me to ask about the quality control might be vague to Americans but I think the ridicule over me asking something that maybe just doesn't relate to the way you guys do things over there is a bit too much. I would have thought that it was someones job to do a final inspection and make sure everything left as it should. I.e. screws not being screwed in on angles and half screwed in when they should be screwed in straight and complete. Bolts tightened to a specific torque rather than half done up.
It's so easy to jump on new members from other countries asking things and saying thanks and trying to be polite rather than saying, hey, I think maybe you are speaking about something that we don't really say or use over here. But no, all I get is a bunch of Americans pouncing on me post after post going on about how vague the word quality is.
Im starting to now understand why so many people are complaining about American products in America and saying everything is junk because you guys don't even understand that "Quality Control " is a important position for any manufacturing plant.

As for forest river having heaps of plants in Goeshen, well in their VIN DECODER PDF out of all the forest river products there is only one single address that is under Goeshen.

....

[Edl16]

Originally Posted by Discovery

I am new to camp trailers but I have been watching youtube video's for years and what I got from that video was this.

Addressed a water leak in 2016 on a 2009 camper.I also noticed the host said "floor collapse cause it got alittle wet" I read this as there has been a small noticeable leak but considered not a big deal. This is a complete guess on my part>>>>>>

Finding stuff like this is always upsetting,but any leak in any camper will be bad news especially long unseen or neglected ones.

Thank you for a fair response. It was appreciated

[Iwritecode]

Originally Posted by Edl16

Here in Australia every factory and manufacturing plant has a job position called "Quality assurance officer." It is their job to go over every aspect of every finished product be it a box of springs or a car and for them to make sure that everything is exactly how it should be. So for me to ask about the quality control might be vague to Americans but I think the ridicule over me asking something that maybe just doesn't relate to the way you guys do things over there is a bit too much. I would have thought that it was someones job to do a final inspection and make sure everything left as it should. I.e. screws not being screwed in on angles and half screwed in when they should be screwed in straight and complete. Bolts tightened to a specific torque rather than half done up.

First of all, that job exists here in the US as well and AFAIK, all manufactures should have someone doing that job. How good they are at their job and how much stuff still manages to slip by is another conversation altogether. But you assuming that we've never heard of this job is incorrect.

Originally Posted by Edl16

It's so easy to jump on new members from other countries asking things and saying thanks and trying to be polite rather than saying, hey, I think maybe you are speaking about something that we don't really say or use over here. But no, all I get is a bunch of Americans pouncing on me post after post going on about how vague the word quality is.

Nobody jumped on you for anything. As far as I can read, everyone was polite and just trying to get a little more clarity on your questions so that we can help you better. The problem with your first post was that I think you were missing at least one word in one of your sentences so it made it difficult to read. I made some additions to your sentence in red to show what I mean.

Also I'm wondering if anyone has any views on the quality control that comes from the Forest river travel trailers out of GOSHEN, IN plant.

Originally Posted by Edl16

As for forest river having heaps of plants in Goeshen, well in their VIN DECODER PDF out of all the forest river products there is only one single address that is under Goeshen.

Forest River is the parent company and has a number of other companies under the same umbrella. Palimino, Dutchmen, Puma are all FR products that are built in plants in Goshen, IN.

Finally, I'll repeat what has already been mentioned in that the opinion of the quality of any FR RV is going to vary widely depending on who you ask. Some people have had theirs for years with little to no problems. Others have had theirs for just a few months with a laundry list of issues. Typically the ones with problems are much louder than the ones without so it's difficult to judge. Although every manufacturer has a few problems if you look hard enough.

[5picker]

Originally Posted by Edl16

Here in Australia every factory and manufacturing plant has a job position called "Quality assurance officer." It is their job to go over every aspect of every finished product be it a box of springs or a car and for them to make sure that everything is exactly how it should be. So for me to ask about the quality control might be vague to Americans but I think the ridicule over me asking something that maybe just doesn't relate to the way you guys do things over there is a bit too much. I would have thought that it was someones job to do a final inspection and make sure everything left as it should. I.e. screws not being screwed in on angles and half screwed in when they should be screwed in straight and complete. Bolts tightened to a specific torque rather than half done up.
It's so easy to jump on new members from other countries asking things and saying thanks and trying to be polite rather than saying, hey, I think maybe you are speaking about something that we don't really say or use over here. But no, all I get is a bunch of Americans pouncing on me post after post going on about how vague the word quality is.
Im starting to now understand why so many people are complaining about American products in America and saying everything is junk because you guys don't even understand that "Quality Control " is a important position for any manufacturing plant.

As for forest river having heaps of plants in Goeshen, well in their VIN DECODER PDF out of all the forest river products there is only one single address that is under Goeshen.

....

My apologies if you believe that I, as an American, was jumping all over you as an Australian with my reply to your post. Written words can be read with many different meanings I guess.

I'll bow out now and just to be sure, I'll not post to any future posts/threads of yours.

[Keystoner]

What does "Quality Assurance" really mean? The standard of quality at what production speed? Seems to me that it is a level arbitrarily set by someone or group at whatever position. The engineer designs to their understanding of that level and everyone else down the line has their own understanding quality standard. The builders, assurers, and supervisors each answer to someone above. Each and everyone had to have the same understanding and work to that end all the time.

Company A' pulls every 10th widget off the line to test for "quality". Company B' pulls every 14th to test. Each adjusts production to maintain "quality". How many bad widgets get to market?

A company back home made automotive carpeting for a few car brands. Ford, GM, etc. each had at "quality level". So did the manufacturer produce individual levels or just a higher one that satisfied each car brand? The chemist didn't tell me that.

[MR.M]

Originally Posted by Edl16

I am wondering after watching this video
From you guys who obviously are very well versed in forest river , what is the general satisfaction gauge on these travel trailers?
Do you guys who spend plenty of time in these forums find that there are more people happy with their caravans or more people unhappy. It strikes me that if one outfit builds a poor example like this video then everything coming from that same assembly line will be generally the same.

Would you say there is a specific build location that is head and shoulders above the others or below the others ?

Also I'm wondering if anyone views on the quality control that comes from the Forest river travel trailers out of
GOSHEN, IN plant. For example, does this plant have a overall good reputation or a specifically bad reputation ?

I really appreciate all the help and responses from people in the forum's and PMs since joining here and am looking forward to bringing home my 2006 Surveyor SV 291 within the next week. Let's just hope it doesn't fall apart on the 21 hour drive and 11 hour ferry ride. At end of the day I'm pretty excited though as you Americans know how to make spacious RVs unlike Australia who wack the double bed 3 quarters along the van sideways removing half the floorspace. Even if I end up pulling it apart and rebuilding it the space is amazing in these.

One other question , when did they start building then with aluminium bodies and not wood or has it always been like that and is there all that much wood in there behind those walls?

Doesn't matter what you buy some good and some bad with all . you want bad look at the open ranges or keystone . forest river is middle of the road . 5 yrs with my unit and very little has gone wrong and what has the dealer shipped me parts under warranty . now that warranty is long over have not had anything to complain about . but some people have issues from the get go . you won't find that proverbial Gem it does not exist . best thing is to know what your looking for and what you're looking at before you buy

[Capt. Mike]

I, too, apologize if my posts offended anyone.

Before the financial meltdown here in 2008, there were a lot more manufacturers and/or a lot more independent manufacturers than there are today. The crash put some completely out of business and others were sold or merged in order to remain viable. Fast forward 8 or 9 years. The economy is booming, the demand for RVs has never been higher. Tons and tons or RVs are being built each week by the remaining manufacturers and they are rushing to get them out the door. Quality suffers, I'm sure. Although each factory has people whose job it is to catch and correct mistakes, they concentrate on cosmetic things and don't look at how screws are inserted, unless something is very obvious, like a screw protruding through a wall. So, yes, "quality" is probably a little lower than it was pre-2008.

But I still contend today's "quality" standard, whatever it may be, is totally non-applicable to your 2006 Surveyor.

That said, like 5picker, I'm out of this conversation.

[filthy-Beast]

Originally Posted by Edl16

As for forest river having heaps of plants in Goeshen, well in their VIN DECODER PDF out of all the forest river products there is only one single address that is under Goeshen.

....

that is the corp HQ. I've scheduled a factory tour for FR Riverstone, when I asked for the address it is plant 70 located in Topeka IN.

[rsdata]

Do you guys who spend plenty of time in these forums find that there are more people happy with their caravans or more people unhappy. It strikes me that if one outfit builds a poor example like this video then everything coming from that same assembly line will be generally the same.

When I went to the DOCTORS office this morning, all I saw in the waiting room were sick people with more coming in the front door every minute.

I might conclude that everyone in the area was sick and going to the DOC.

Reading a forum like this one you usually hear from people with a problem. Often that person is irate because their expectations were higher than reality. They spent a lot of money and expected more. As you keep reading in this or and RV forum, after some respondents post trying to help with the original problem, there are usually others then that chime in that their FR product has been nearly perfect for so many years and have not had the same experience as the original poster ( what we call the OP, as you are in this thread). Only a few people post that they made a great investment in a FR product, although it does happen from time to time.

Certainly I will say that my now 6 year old FR product has not been perfect, but it has been very good. A couple of screws fell out, a plastic knob broke off the stove, and there were some electric brake wires underneath that were not tied up out of the way, that might be a cause of failure if I had left them that way. All of these things I corrected myself and nothing MAJOR is wrong with the trailer, or has ever kept me from using it. Older trailers, especially those that have sat for a while, and not had someone do normal 2X a year inspection/maintenance on the ROOF for instance, will have floors that fail and walls that fall apart due to rain water intrusion through the roof. After all, towing at 65 MPH is nearly the same as have your home in a hurricane (or as you might call it a typhoon), conditions for hours on end, besides being bounced along on a bumpy road like you may find in an earthquake.

There is NOT one huge plant in Goshen, IN that makes all the FR products. As has been pointed out earlier, different FR models come from different plants in different locations in IN and other states also. They are all owned by FR at the corporate headquarters address that you mention. I am sure that some plants are better than others. Usually one plant makes one BRAND or MODEL of that brand and another makes a different model. I own a Shamrock BRAND, but it is the same as the ROO brand, both made at the same plant and both have the Forest River logo on them. Generally, I gather from this forum that both enjoy a good reputation for few major factory defects, but I don't really know that for a fact.

Further, often, many forum posters have problems with using small screen phones or tablets typing in-correctly , or have auto word correct CHANGE what they think they are typing, and that makes the posts difficult to read. My pet peeve... many do NOT PROOF read what they wrote, before hitting the SUBMIT button and their written thought just does not make sense. I think this might be a part of the problem with your # 1 post here.

I believe that Quality Control is an issue at all manufacturing facilities. Some companies and plants insist on higher standards than others, and that is usually reflected in the retail price.

One thing that IS A BIG PROBLEM is poor dealers in many areas that do not live up to the quality or service that buyers expect. This is the biggest complaint you will find on the FR forum.

Finally, I did not read after your original post that anyone was dis-honoring your nationality or way of speaking. I read that they were only trying to figure out what you were asking people to comment on and pointing out that there is NO central factory location. I am sorry you took offense, as I believe everyone on this forum is pretty civil.