Warranty Woes and Not Buying Local - heads up to first-time buyers

[Jan Gerstner.]

We had a similar, very distressing, experience with the dealer we got our Forester from in 2013. Sturtevant WI.



We discovered it is imperative to learn whether the dealer does warranty work, and how they go about it. The sales people were GREAT, but the service people were bizarre.


Thereafter, it is very important to develop a relationship with the place where routine and warranty work will be accomplished. They speak their own language and you need to learn it.


We did purchase the extended warranty, which is through a third party. In my opinion, this is a sham intended to let the manufacturer off the hook. In our case, it turned out to have paid for itself and saved us a lot of money. This speaks poorly of the manufacturer. My advice is to buy it anyway.

[Nancy O]

Originally Posted by MR.M

Seems most dealer do a PDI and submit any warranty items fix them and then sale the unit . they are throwing away work and money, though less then a private pay would pay . but they negotiate with FR on labor hrs etc . so it seems the unit should have all ready been through some kind of warranty work before it was even sold . I do think the OP should have done their own pdi and had that taken care of before closing the deal which makes out of state buying sometimes a challenge . I was lucky i bought from Couches RV nation and the few warrant items i had i was able to get them to send me parts and i did the installs and better then most dealer techs .

Agree; no one should sign or fork any money over until they do an inspection themselves. In fact, the day we arrived in OH, we went and did our own visual inspection *before* signing anything. That's when we discovered most of the issues, some cosmetic (e.g., missing molding, grease on the bedspread, the end of a screw sticking out of an exposed panel, etc.), some not (shoddy caulking on some exterior vents, hanging wires underneath, etc.). All things that IMO the dealer should have caught and had repaired before putting it on the lot. Thankfully nothing major. BTW, the unit had only been on their lot for a few weeks so it wasn't from people traipsing through it. Given they didn't catch these things or bother to even clean the unit up even though they knew we were coming to look at it (it was really a mess), I didn't get a warm fuzzy that we could trust them to take care of any issues we might find once they had our signature & money.
So we gave them the list and made it clear that we wouldn't sign a contract or hand them a check until these issues were taken care of. Everything on the list was addressed by the time we had what they called our PDI / orientation the next day where they showed us how everything works and that the components (a/c, heat, stove, etc.) were all in working order. THEN we signed the contract and gave them the check. We did find a couple of additional cosmetic issues that weren't so obvious after taking possession and bringing it back to TN, and that's where we had the issues having warranty work done.

But hearing about some of the debilitating mechanical horror stories people have had with new units, I consider us lucky. Again, ours were all cosmetic and we haven't had any major issues to date. We love our Grey Wolf and are racking up some good memories.

[mitchhelms]

What resource do you use to find mobile repair techs?

[NMWildcat]

Originally Posted by mitchhelms

What resource do you use to find mobile repair techs?

We ask local RV park personnel when traveling, they usually have a list and know if they are good, and of course we use Google for the area. Then call them up and ask all the pertinent questions; certified for our brand or component and warranty work, costs for onsite, or appointment for shop, familiarity with our type of problem, etc.

[AbdRahim]

Originally Posted by Idcruiserman

Buy a lightly used trailer that the previous owner has already dealt with the early problems. Fix anything else yourself. Save a ton of money and hassle.

Or dumped it as is for a better quality unit.

[GOTTOYS]

Originally Posted by NMWildcat

We have bought all our latest RVs long distance. Never local. Once we buy from a dealer, we never see them, or any other dealer again for any warranty work. We use independent service only shops. Some mobile, some not, some both. Use RV park personnel and Google for suggestions when traveling. Have had warranty, and extended warranty work done all over the country, all by independents. The service techs always got the pre-authorization for work, and we only had to pay up front once. Work done was always great and very timely.
If you can find a great local dealer to take care of all your warranty needs in a timely manner, fantastic! I've never found that elusive dealer, and most problems don't happen close to home anyway.
So is a dealer necessary after the sale? Not at all.

Agree 100%. What if you buy locally and the service is still terrible? That happened to me. Might as well drive and save several thousand. The warranty lasts only a year. I do most of my own repairs. If you aren't handy then maybe this isn't for you.

[AbdRahim]

Even with local good service, the wait can be long enough to have it fixed by a mobile tech anyhow. Major item means loo...ng wait.

[quicky06]

Originally Posted by upflying

Odd how the RV industry does not use the painless car dealer model for warranty claims. This is 2019, not 1949.

I have not read any further than this post of the first page.

I have worked in there service department of a large Honda dealer for a decade. If your require an Rv dealer to have the same requirements from manufactures as a car dealer the Rv dealer will simply close its doors.

Let me give you some break downs.

Honda requires each dealer to look the same. We have a building that was taken off our Honda charter to use for a different brand that failed. I’m order to put it back on the chart we need to do a couple million dollar face lift to the building. Because this will not happen, we can not sell any certified or new cars from this building , no warranty, pdi, or any service work can be done from the shop in this building, even if customers never step foot in it.

We have a full time warranty clerk who does nothin but fight with Honda to get them to pay us for the warranty work that we do.

If we find a problem with a car anytime from the point
It is dropped off the transporter to the time it is delivered to the customer we cannot fix it without a lengthy process
Of Honda approving it. We eat most of these repairs internally.

Honda pays below area standards for labor rates. Technicians get paid 33% less for warranty repairs than what customer labor times are. If they put out a service bulletin or warranty Extension the warranty will be reduced again but as much as half.

Honda dictates what service work we can schedule and how we schedule it.

Documentation on a repair order is insane, a claim will get kicked for: If the customer didn’t sign the repair order in the correct location, RO lines not written in complete sentences, add on line not signed individually by customer and manager individually, no battery test slip on RO, or if the time and date in the battery tester is not set correctly, no in and out mileage written on RO. Technician documentation written in any color but blue or black ink., not having time flags for each individual labor op Being billed. ( if you have a brake vibration we have to have a flag for a test drive, a flag for resurfacing rotors and a flag for a test drive, the test drive flags have a 18 minute minimum time requirement or they will reduce the claim) I could go on and on with this for hours.

Honda does not pay to diag issues. If a ten has 3 hours into a drivability problem that is caused by a sparatic problem with a egr valve the tech and the dealership are getting paid to replace the map sensor for 0.2 hours.

If we have a car with a paint defect at 18 miles we have to have pictures of the damage, the vin , the odometer, paint thickness measurements, body shop estimates, ect. And when it’s all said and done they won’t pay for all the little pieces the body shop needs and we will have to eat that cost.



Again I could go on and on with this for hours.

The point is a car dealer warranty process is anything but painless. From a customer point of view it may seem that way but that’s down to the dealer that you go to. Some dealers will not do any work to a car that was not
Purchased from Them with out prior authorization of the warrant claim. Had this with my ford while out of town. Took 2 days to get approval to repair a turbo coolant line leak. I agreed to pay it if it wasn’t covered to get it done faster.

If RV dealers had to deal with this with the 7 different manufactures that each one carries , each manufacture having different rules and hoops to go through, they would just close their doors as they would never make any money.


With that all said I live south of St. Louis and bought my
Trailer from Wana Rv in northern Indiana the day after Easter. November of that year I took it back to them for warranty work. I had a punch list of items I didn’t feel like dealing with so I grabbed my dog a drive back with it. Left it with them, telling them I wouldn’t be back for 2 months as we had a planned trip north of Indianapolis anyway. Got a call 3 days later saying my trailer was ready to be picked up. And when I showed up they even had my battery disconnect turned off with fully charged batteries ready to go.

The dealers around me told me on the middle of winter that it would be 4 months before they could even look at my trailer. The one independent shop in the area had just been bought by an Rv dealer to use as their service department and didn’t have the new shop setup to the point to pull my super slide to do one of the repairs. The drive was still worth it. Saved me $7500 on a trailer that I paid $19500 for vs what I could get it locally.

[AbdRahim]

With that all said I live south of St. Louis and bought my

Trailer from Wana Rv in northern Indiana the day after Easter.

Please enter a review on rvservicereviews.com. It is always good to know who the good places are. I always consult this when traveling.

[Rob F]

How about some good news.

Bought my TT from a high volume dealer in SW Ohio in August. I live in SW PA, the TT had a leak and I contacted the dealer and FR warranty department. The Rep. from FR asked if I would mind if they could transport my TT back to the factory in IN., for repairs. Sent a transporter to my home in September. This is the downside, got an email on Friday, they have finished the repairs and are ready to ship it back (94 days) .

That being said, I couldn't be happier that FR, while we all hope that it should have never happened, took responsibility and made it right. The complete front of the TT was replaced. Window, wall exterior and interior, insulation, graphics, bed base, bed spread & mattress. Replaced the cushions that were damage from the water intrusion. And they also replaced the license plate bracket, that I broke but I did tell them I broke it. All covered under the manufacturer's warranty.

I have been a little crazy, not a patient person and FR has had the TT longer than I have. But all's well that ends well. I don't think a local facility or mobile repair would have gone to the extent FR did to remedy the issue. My lesson learned about TT, if you can, contact the manufacturer. They seem to be willing to make things right.