Forest River Quality

[pitzhauler]

From what I'm reading on these post, it seems to me that most problems people are having is with the dealers not following thru. The integreaty is lost on some of these dealers sad to say.

[cruisintx]

A bit of a rant here. I'm very new to the world of RVs. We just started considering getting one about 18 months ago. Then got to go on our first RV excursion in September of last year. It was 7 days in Lake City, Co. and one of the most peaceful experiences of my life other than some TV problems with getting there. That's the non-rant part. What kind of baffles me though, is what seems to be a complete lack of quality control by manufacturers across the board. There once was a time in this country you got high quality stuff when you spend 70 to 80K on something like this. Now a days I read every day about this or that being wrong with a brand new expensive RV with basically zero miles behind it other than what it took to get it from the assembly line to a dealer's lot. Do these people not have a quality control department at all? I owned a home improvement business for 12 years and I made sure things were done right or the employee would be out looking for another job in very short order; that included courtesy to the customer. It looks to me like RV makers simply hire what-ever high school graduate who can turn a screw driver or turn a wrench without hurting themselves at minimum wage and says follow these instructions but they never watch what happens next and put crap out for the public to buy. There is no doubt they are making huge profits and someone in the hierarchy of the companies is getting filthy stinking rich. So, what's it gonna take for that to change? Are there enough naive consumers who keep buying crap and accepting the low quality that they will never change or does there come a point where the consumers say NO MORE and companies have to up their game or go out of business? Do any of them even have a QC department with knowledgeable inspectors? It appears not.
rant over; hope someone will eventually take some pride in the products they produce in the RV world.

[5picker]

Welcome to the R/V world. You summed it up pretty well.
My rant... I fixed your post with some formatting so it is easy to read.

Originally Posted by cruisintx

A bit of a rant here.

I'm very new to the world of RVs. We just started considering getting one about 18 months ago. Then got to go on our first RV excursion in September of last year. It was 7 days in Lake City, Co. and one of the most peaceful experiences of my life other than some TV problems with getting there. That's the non-rant part.

What kind of baffles me though, is what seems to be a complete lack of quality control by manufacturers across the board. There once was a time in this country you got high quality stuff when you spend 70 to 80K on something like this.

Now a days I read every day about this or that being wrong with a brand new expensive RV with basically zero miles behind it other than what it took to get it from the assembly line to a dealer's lot. Do these people not have a quality control department at all?

I owned a home improvement business for 12 years and I made sure things were done right or the employee would be out looking for another job in very short order; that included courtesy to the customer.

It looks to me like RV makers simply hire what-ever high school graduate who can turn a screw driver or turn a wrench without hurting themselves at minimum wage and says follow these instructions. But they never watch what happens next and put crap out for the public to buy. There is no doubt they are making huge profits and someone in the hierarchy of the companies is getting filthy stinking rich.

So, what's it gonna take for that to change? Are there enough naive consumers who keep buying crap and accepting the low quality that they will never change. Or does there come a point where the consumers say NO MORE and companies have to up their game or go out of business? Do any of them even have a QC department with knowledgeable inspectors? It appears not.


rant over; hope someone will eventually take some pride in the products they produce in the RV world.

[JWood422]

That’s one reason we bought a 3-year-old trailer. The first owner seemed to have done a very good job of having any issues corrected.

[Igor]

I do love my Georgetown
Every RV I owned has had considerable flaws, and this is my favorite, however I Feel FR could have been a little more considerate and forth coming with answers from the beginning , I'm not sure if there's a dealer / manufacturers code of ethics to not speak to the owner, or at least until 20 emails 3 bad reviews and complaining to better business Bureau
But I have had very little trouble with this coach
And my experience with coachman and Thor was a few more quality issues but better factory and dealer support.
My best advice is read all the reviews, don't just buy it because the dear wife loves the spice rack.
For me customer service and honesty is key
We had 2 trips planned for over a year , had my dealer and or FR been honest about the time frame I could have changed them and kept our deposits.

[slammer]

To have a discussion on RV quality issues you have to include the complexity factor. They are making these things more and more fancy these days but fancy and complexity adds more stuff to break. I have a Grey Wolf 24JS. it does not have a slide, it's more or less a box on wheels with stuff in it. Can you have a boat load of issues with it? I'm sure it's possible. So far the only problem we had was with the Furrion Fridge (which for those who bought in 2020) will likely fail if it hasn't already. They put a different fridge in (GE).

I do think the industry needs to clean up the crap. It's these horror stories that had us after a year of researching choosing not to buy one. I have no actual idea why my wife chose to go by this particular dealer and I have no idea why she chose to buy after we had already rejected the idea, but so far it's been one of the funnest things we've ever done. and if you go try to reserve a spot, you'll see there are hundreds of thousands of these things rolling around the country that are NOT broken. So I get that people have had a bad time but you likely don't hear from the majority that do not.

[Bhrava]

Originally Posted by pitzhauler

From what I'm reading on these post, it seems to me that most problems people are having is with the dealers not following thru. The integreaty is lost on some of these dealers sad to say.

Its the same regardless if it is an RV, a car, a truck, or a boat. Dealers can make any brand look bad, or make them seem really good.

[Stevemal]

I got an e-mail from my dealer, Pete's RV, yesterday asking for some measurements. So they obviously not even ordered my parts since June!

[Clarkdubya2]

We've owned a FR Cherokee 274DBH for 4 years now and overall we are very happy. It was very affordable, compared to comparable models from other manufactures. We've looked at upgrading, and we will start with FR models when we do based on our experience with this model. I'll echo what a lot of people on here have said that there are going to be minor issues, and any major issues people have could probably happen to any model. We have been lucky though, and have never had to have it in the shop for anything(including winterizing, I do that myself) so I can's speak to that process and how difficult it might be to get parts from FR.

With my particular unit, the only issues I've had to address are changing out the valves under the kitchen sink and changing out USB ports. I had a blow out on one of the valves, not surprised, they are pretty cheap, so I just removed the outside fridge, so I could access the valves, and upgraded to quick connect fittings. Very easy since it's plumbed with PEX to begin with. Also, one or two of the USB ports stopped working, so I ordered some off Amazon for around $10 apiece and changed those out as well. They seem to be much better quality and have covers and blue LED lights built in, so that's a bonus.

Other small items I've addressed are the small brackets that hold the curtains back at the bottom are super cheap plastic and we have broke a couple of those just by hitting them with our arms, so I changed those out to something more durable. I changed out the kitchen faucet and I cut down some PVC pipes to about 14 inches and I use those as braces under the table when we use that space as a bed. It was fine before, but I feel better having the support of the cleats on the ends, and then those "poles" in the center to beef it up. I've also changed out the handles to the bedroom doors, and one of those came off in my hand, after a couple beers....

[Bhrava]

Originally Posted by Clarkdubya2

Other small items I've addressed are the small brackets that hold the curtains back at the bottom are super cheap plastic and we have broke a couple of those just by hitting them with our arms, so I changed those out to something more durable. I changed out the kitchen faucet and I cut down some PVC pipes to about 14 inches and I use those as braces under the table when we use that space as a bed. It was fine before, but I feel better having the support of the cleats on the ends, and then those "poles" in the center to beef it up. I've also changed out the handles to the bedroom doors, and one of those came off in my hand, after a couple beers....

I have the same issue with my curtains, what did you use to make them better?

[Clarkdubya2]

@Bhrava

I used a cabinet door pull. They're small and light weight, and you can get different styles. Most of them are set up to screw in from the back side for cabinet doors, but you can find them with holes all the way through, so you can screw through the front into the wall. If not, you could always bore out your own holes.

[Bhrava]

Originally Posted by Clarkdubya2

@Bhrava

I used a cabinet door pull. They're small and light weight, and you can get different styles. Most of them are set up to screw in from the back side for cabinet doors, but you can find them with holes all the way through, so you can screw through the front into the wall. If not, you could always bore out your own holes.

Ah, that looks like a great idea, Thanks

Now back to your regularly scheduled FR Quality thread, sorry for the sidetrack.

[Stevemal]

Originally Posted by Clarkdubya2

We've owned a FR Cherokee 274DBH for 4 years now and overall we are very happy. It was very affordable, compared to comparable models from other manufactures. We've looked at upgrading, and we will start with FR models when we do based on our experience with this model. I'll echo what a lot of people on here have said that there are going to be minor issues, and any major issues people have could probably happen to any model. We have been lucky though, and have never had to have it in the shop for anything(including winterizing, I do that myself) so I can's speak to that process and how difficult it might be to get parts from FR.

With my particular unit, the only issues I've had to address are changing out the valves under the kitchen sink and changing out USB ports. I had a blow out on one of the valves, not surprised, they are pretty cheap, so I just removed the outside fridge, so I could access the valves, and upgraded to quick connect fittings. Very easy since it's plumbed with PEX to begin with. Also, one or two of the USB ports stopped working, so I ordered some off Amazon for around $10 apiece and changed those out as well. They seem to be much better quality and have covers and blue LED lights built in, so that's a bonus.

Other small items I've addressed are the small brackets that hold the curtains back at the bottom are super cheap plastic and we have broke a couple of those just by hitting them with our arms, so I changed those out to something more durable. I changed out the kitchen faucet and I cut down some PVC pipes to about 14 inches and I use those as braces under the table when we use that space as a bed. It was fine before, but I feel better having the support of the cleats on the ends, and then those "poles" in the center to beef it up. I've also changed out the handles to the bedroom doors, and one of those came off in my hand, after a couple beers....

You say your unit is 4 years old. Just wait till you see how much they've degraded since then. It's a total shame for what they cost. My dealer did offer however a trade in value of about $8K below what we paid for this defective piece of junk.