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Senior Member
Join Date: May 2020
Location: Right in the Middle
Posts: 1,252
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I think this is par for the course, Campon. Many of us have figured that the Rockwood factory that is assigned to manufacturing your 2506 does batch production, and has a calendar slot scheduled to do the current run of 2506's (not only your order, but also the orders placed by dealers so that they have inventory). The factory has been hit with the Covid condition (where materials and parts and subsystems and components are delated), but that doesn't do you any good - that's general information. You want (and need) specificity. YOUR build, YOUR camper, so you can make YOUR plans.
Large Michigan-based pizza chain has made a pizza tracker, so you can watch your order from the time it was placed, to know who is making it, to see whn it's in the oven, and when it's ready for pickup, or delivery.
The largest American internet marketplace named for a rainforest and a river have a delivery order system, that shows what's up with your order, when it gets shipped, when it's out for delivery, and even have a truck tracker in place when you can see the truck's location when it's less than 10 stops away.
Premium auto shops have put in some systems so that the mechanic can communicate with you, showing you where your car is, what they are up to with it, and when it will be ready.
I don't think it's asking too much to know exactly when your build will commence, where it is in the process, how far away from completion it might be, when it rolls out of quality assurance and preps for delivery to the dealership.
And even though it's designed for efficiency, there's still a LOT of manual process in the system. I don't think dealers or manufacturers want to be in a position to say "these things take about five days to build, and we'll start building yours in two months." But they could provide an anticipated build start date (and an actual date), and provide updates along the way. Units are tracked back to build sheets, and the factory knows where they are in the system, the same simple bar code scanner that can alert the factory about material use and production targets could also trigger an alert to the dealer AND the customer. Smaller cottage builders don't have the luxury of this working but larger builders could certainly take advantage of this technology.
I think the one thing you can do it look at the experiences of others, take hope and hold your breath. We finalized our deal the first week of Feb on a Roo 235S. Our salesman advised we were looking at middle/end of May MAYBE beginning of June for an availability date. He also said "this is going to be a hard time right now - the time to wait. Contact me if you need to, but you won't hear from me for a while, because I won't know anything to share. Be patient, and trust me that as soon as we have actionable information, we'll share it."
And they did.
Three and a half weeks ago, Scheduling reached out and advised we were due to be complete in two weeks. And last week, Scheduling reached out again and said we'd be good to schedule pick up this week.
So maybe not exactly on time. But pretty close.
The silence and not knowing and being in limbo is hard. And your dealer likely doesn't know. The factory likely has an inkling, but they produce thousands of trailers. Yours is every bit as important as every other one they make, and they mean that. They want to share with you the joys of camping, and make a profit, while operating a good business - one that turns out good things, for good people, and makes it possible for those same good people to come back when they are ready for their next trailer. Yes, there are quality issues, and yes, there are shortcomings (esp on communication), and YES there are horror stories (a lot of them, in fact). But people come here in large part to share information, contribute to a community, report problems, and even to complain a little.
If I can offer you any advice, I'd say to have a little faith. You will be your own best advocate for quality and your satisfaction, but the process works this way (for now). Take heart that you have bought from a large and generally trusted manufacturer, and that the process that delivers trailers is working (albeit with challenges), and that you will get your 2506s very shortly.
I'd also suggest reaching out to your salesperson and asking for a status update on YOUR trailer, or - barring that - when they anticipate ANY batch of 2506s' being delivered from the factory (as, again, it's likely that they will all be turned out at the same time).
Best of luck, friend - as the old song says about the waiting: It is is the hardest part.
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2022 Rockwood Roo 235S
15kBTU AC; 12v fridge; 1kW roof-mounted solar panels; 80 amp MPPT charge controller; 3,500w pure sine wave inverter; 30a automatic transfer switch; MicroAir EasyStart, 600ah Chins LiFePo; Honda EU2200i (with Hutch Mountain propane conversion kit) gathering dust in the storage unit.
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