New owner with some concerns

[aceinspp]

Originally Posted by bikendan

I would be more concerned with Camping World doing warranty work.[emoji32]

X 2 Later RJD

[5picker]

And if your R/V has an enclosed underbelly, you don't even want to see what mess is in there, you'll puke.

Fast and cheap are the only two words spoken on a R/V assembly line.
Quality isn't a foreign language, it is a totally unheard of language!

[Ibew684]

I am concerned about camping world.

[Ibew684]

Originally Posted by 5picker

And if your R/V has an enclosed underbelly, you don't even want to see what mess is in there, you'll puke.

Fast and cheap are the only two words spoken on a R/V assembly line.
Quality isn't a foreign language, it is a totally unheard of language!

I thought about looking under there before, but was afraid of what I might find. I will definitely have to look now.

[Mr. Dan]

Many members here recommend independent RV service companies to do warranty work. They have be preapproved by Forest River but in many cases, that beats taking the unit to a dealership.

[Chuck_S]

There seems to be no pride in what you’re building anymore not even to pick up the scrap pieces of wood that they cut or pick up lose screws.

Who is this addressed to? This isn't Forest River, just guys like you. Forest River doesn't read this forum to my knowledge.

-- Chuck

[Ibew684]

Chuck
It wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular. If my post offended you in any way I apologize.

I’m simply sharing my frustration with the problems and horrible work quality on my trailer and reaching out to see if other people had similar issues and how they dealt with them. And by the responses I’ve gotten it’s obviously an industry wide problem and not a new one at that yet forest river and east to west continue to claim their great build quality.
Mr. Dan thanks for the info I wasn’t aware I could go to an independent RV Shop.
Thanks everyone for the info

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by Ibew684

yet forest river and east to west continue to claim their great build quality.

The entire RV Industry makes that same claim, no matter the manufacturer.

[Chuck_S]

Your post seemed to indicate you think this forum somehow belongs to Forest River or they have anything to do with this. Just making sure you note the reference won't get to them.

Finding screws, wire pieces, saw dust and wood chips is how this industry operates. It's up to the dealer to clean up the mess so they're who your complaint should be directed to. They're the final stage of the assembly.

-- Chuck

[Ken-m]

Thanks Chuck , I wasn't aware the dealer was in charge of the final assembly . LoL , So it's their fault for the lack of craftsmanship . I understand now . Geesh.

[Oaklevel]

Originally Posted by Ibew684

Chuck
It wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular. If my post offended you in any way I apologize.

I’m simply sharing my frustration with the problems and horrible work quality on my trailer and reaching out to see if other people had similar issues and how they dealt with them. And by the responses I’ve gotten it’s obviously an industry wide problem and not a new one at that yet forest river and east to west continue to claim their great build quality.
Mr. Dan thanks for the info I wasn’t aware I could go to an independent RV Shop.
Thanks everyone for the info

My 2017 is much better made than my 1988 was. Different RV manufacturer also

[Ibew684]

I know forest river or any other manufacturer has nothing to do with his forum and you are 100% right Chuck as far as the dealer also having to own up to the responsibilities of the rv and should inspect everything in that RV from electrical plumbing hydraulics etc. etc. because if they did that they would catch a lot of these problems before the customer buys it. But I also think that the manufacturer should be accountable for the building of their product when you see welds on the frame that are so bad that they made holes in it, water lines unsupported, electrical wires on the floor and the list goes on. All it takes is one screw to Damage one of those electrical wires that are sitting on the floor The last thing you want is to get to one of those waterlines to leak and get to the electrical. It’s just frustrating that these manufactures are not being held accountable for their products

[Oaklevel]

Originally Posted by Ibew684

I know forest river or any other manufacturer has nothing to do with his forum and you are 100% right Chuck as far as the dealer also having to own up to the responsibilities of the rv and should inspect everything in that RV from electrical plumbing hydraulics etc. etc. because if they did that they would catch a lot of these problems before the customer buys it. But I also think that the manufacturer should be accountable for the building of their product when you see welds on the frame that are so bad that they made holes in it, water lines unsupported, electrical wires on the floor and the list goes on. All it takes is one screw to Damage one of those electrical wires that are sitting on the floor The last thing you want is to get to one of those waterlines to leak and get to the electrical. It’s just frustrating that these manufactures are not being held accountable for their products

You are correct but RVs are made with the same quality or lack of it, as they were 40 years ago . It is unfortunate but it is nothing new either.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by Ibew684

It’s just frustrating that these manufacturers are not being held accountable for their products

Well, actually they are being held accountable. Every time you have one of these items fixed under warranty it costs them a bundle. Remember the Rule of 10 in manufacturing?
Suppose it costs X to assemble one wire or piping.
It you catch it an error at intermediate inspection, it costs 10X to fix it.
If you catch it at final inspection, it costs 100X to fix it.
If the dealer catches it before it's shown to customers it costs 1000X to fix it.
If the customer finds it and has it fixed under warranty, it costs 10000X to fix it.

The problem seems to be that the manufacturers don't do Cost Accounting. They have no idea how much money they are losing by letting these faults escape the manufacturing plant. So they just keep plodding along.

Sooner or later some Asian manufacturer who implements Six-Sigma or Baldridge will come along and eat their lunch, just as they did to the passenger car industry in the 1970s.

As long as we are bashing them--I mean analyzing them--we shouldn't forget Supply Chain issues. This means making sure components coming in from vendors are inspected and tested, and field failure rates are logged and monitored. We frequently hear of trailers assembled with screws too long, driven part way in, because they ran out of short screws. And wood screws forced into threaded metal parts because they ran out of machine screws. And slowdowns at the factory because they simply ran out of parts. Right now, every division at FR has its own parts supply chain. A centralized system would solve a bunch of issues. No one has done a Cost Analysis to see how much the Supply Chain bungle costs them.

Tim Cook was lured away from IBM by Apple's offer of a Big Bunch of money to be the CEO. Do you know what Tim's job was at IBM? He was the head of Supply Chain. The skill is that valuable.

[Ibew684]

Originally Posted by 5picker

And if your R/V has an enclosed underbelly, you don't even want to see what mess is in there, you'll puke.

Fast and cheap are the only two words spoken on a R/V assembly line.
Quality isn't a foreign language, it is a totally unheard of language!

Originally Posted by Larry-NC

Well, actually they are being held accountable. Every time you have one of these items fixed under warranty it costs them a bundle. Remember the Rule of 10 in manufacturing?
Suppose it costs X to assemble one wire or piping.
It you catch it an error at intermediate inspection, it costs 10X to fix it.
If you catch it at final inspection, it costs 100X to fix it.
If the dealer catches it before it's shown to customers it costs 1000X to fix it.
If the customer finds it and has it fixed under warranty, it costs 10000X to fix it.

The problem seems to be that the manufacturers don't do Cost Accounting. They have no idea how much money they are losing by letting these faults escape the manufacturing plant. So they just keep plodding along.

Sooner or later some Asian manufacturer who implements Six-Sigma or Baldridge will come along and eat their lunch, just as they did to the passenger car industry in the 1970s.

As long as we are bashing them--I mean analyzing them--we shouldn't forget Supply Chain issues. This means making sure components coming in from vendors are inspected and tested, and field failure rates are logged and monitored. We frequently hear of trailers assembled with screws too long, driven part way in, because they ran out of short screws. And wood screws forced into threaded metal parts because they ran out of machine screws. And slowdowns at the factory because they simply ran out of parts. Right now, every division at FR has its own parts supply chain. A centralized system would solve a bunch of issues. No one has done a Cost Analysis to see how much the Supply Chain bungle costs them.

Tim Cook was lured away from IBM by Apple's offer of a Big Bunch of money to be the CEO. Do you know what Tim's job was at IBM? He was the head of Supply Chain. The skill is that valuable.

You make a valid point in regards to them losing money on warranty fixes, but it must not be a big lost because if it was they would have addressed this matter long ago. Not including outside vendors 80% of their warranty problems are from the assembly line and installation of the various systems. If it was really a big money loss they would have fixed it. It also seems that if you can fix it yourself and avoid the manufacture you’ll do it. I also think that we as consumers and RV goers are partial to blame by allowing this to happen myself included

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by Larry-NC

Sooner or later some Asian manufacturer who implements Six-Sigma or Baldridge will come along and eat their lunch, just as they did to the passenger car industry in the 1970s.

Larry, I'd be interested about how you would envision this happening.
Shipping RVs from Asia would cut deeply into their profit margin since an average RV could take up the same shipping space as 3-6 import cars.
Then there's the fact that they have no knowledge of RVs nor RV culture.
Modernization of RV factories would have to reduce the variety of brands and types and floorplans that the NA public is used to and wants.
Bottom line is that I don't see any Asian manufacturer having any interest in being competitive in the RV Industry. Too many negatives, compared to manufacturing small cars which they were already familiar with and geared up for.

[dmctlc]

I disagree that the manufacturer isn't aware of their problems. Any large companies these days does a risk analysis to determine the overall cost impact against profit. If they didn't they wouldn't be in business very long. Can RV manufacturers build a higher quality into their process? Of course they can. The car industry did it when Japan came to the shores of the US. It changed USA auto industry for better. Now most foreign autos are built in the US. It's a proven quality process that even the American Auto industry embraced. IMHO the RV feels that Zero Defects is too costly, its cheaper in the long run to deal with a small % of issues and complaints. There's no "foreign" competition to force the RV industry to build quality into the product from the start. Do they have quality programs, I'm sure they do. Is it 100%, meaning they check everything at every stage of production, I doubt it very much. Do they do source inspection at the suppliers to assure they're meeting print, certain quality goals, basically zero defects before they ship their products to the RV Company installing it? Does the RV mfg. have a quality control process to do a sample test and quality check at incoming inspection. I doubt it, as well. I've never visited a RV manufacturing company or their suppliers but if I did I'm sure it would not meet many goals in the hi-tech industry of today. To me profit and output or throughput especially with records sales is more important to them, IMHO. The dealers also share this quality issue since they make a fraction of their hourly shop rate doing warranty work they are "fitting" that warranty work in when they can and its being rushed. Hence the multiple times it takes to fix the simplest of problems. Heck I recall Forest River, a few years back sent out to their dealers warning them they won't pay repeat repairs. To me this was a smart move and cheaper for FR, if the followed up with that direction to the dealers. Who audits the work the dealers do when performing a warranty repair. Example, dealer repairs a broken cabinet door... Mfg. has 1.5 hrs to do the repair. Dealer/service tech rushes it and gets it done in .3hrs but dealer can charge 1.5 hrs. Instead of dealer charging his normal $160/hr. to non-warranty repair he can only charge $60/hr. Figure out his gain. Does a mfg. Check these dealers? Not that I know of, according to a few friends in this business. If they did theymight be able build in some quality at the dealer if they don't want to build it in during production. I mean right it should be at the beginning, as mentioned,, its cheaper but it means proper quality programs, proper training, proper incentives, etc.. etc... Once quality is built into a product, and the employee mindset is in tune, then in the long run the manufacturer gains by less scrap, less on repairs, more satisfied customer and the list goes on. Though I was a FF for 36 years I also worked in hi-tech for 46 yrs as well. I not only watched, I helped shape the large company quality programs over the years as I moved up the ranks from a tech, supervisor, engineer, engineer manager to program manager. Sorry for the long disitation but quality is achievable but it has to be at all levels. The employees need to also be allowed to stop production if there's quality issues without consequences and someone needs to listen and make changes. Does everyone who buys an RV have quality issues I can't say. But from what I read in multiple forums, conversations with people I've meet and talk to, lends me to believe its pretty high. A lot put up with the issues and "fix" them themselves, others go elsewhere to get them fixed and others just put up with it. I'll get off my soapbox and hopefully I make sense but IMHO the RV industry is ripe for a repeat of what happened in the 70s and 80s car industry. So or later Japan or another foreign company will smart up and come to the shores of America and start put quality into the RV industry. In the meantime enjoy your RV and make sure your either rich or can fix things yourself. Oh and yes we are to blame, as well. By paying for these RVs and accepting this subpar work. We, might complain, we might send letters, make calls to the Mfr. heck some may sue the dealer or try to. But in the end we buy them, me included because a lot of us love camping, being in the outdoors. Im sure some will agree what I wrote, some won't, some have more to say. When I buy an RV i always think of Clint Eastwood's saying "do I feel lucky" Thanks ��

[Ibew684]

dmctlc,

I agreed with you 100%.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by Ibew684

You make a valid point in regards to them losing money on warranty fixes, but it must not be a big lost because if it was they would have addressed this matter long ago. Not including outside vendors 80% of their warranty problems are from the assembly line and installation of the various systems. If it was really a big money loss they would have fixed it. It also seems that if you can fix it yourself and avoid the manufacture you’ll do it. I also think that we as consumers and RV goers are partial to blame by allowing this to happen myself included

No. You somehow overlooked the main point of my argument.

Because they are not doing proper Cost Accounting, they don't realize how much poor quality is costing them. They don't see the opportunity to spend a little more at the front end to save a bundle at the back end.

A good part of this is because of the way they grew. Forest River is not a consolidated industry. It's a holding company. They bought up a bunch of small RV companies, but each one is still run independently.

[Ibew684]

Originally Posted by Larry-NC

No. You somehow overlooked the main point of my argument.

Because they are not doing proper Cost Accounting, they don't realize how much poor quality is costing them. They don't see the opportunity to spend a little more at the front end to save a bundle at the back end.

A good part of this is because of the way they grew. Forest River is not a consolidated industry. It's a holding company. They bought up a bunch of small RV companies, but each one is still run independently.

I completely understand and agree with you Larry,
Spending $10 in the beginning of the process to save $100 in the end would the smart and profitable thing to do. The point that I’m making is that they must not be losing a lot of money because if they were they would’ve addressed this issue long ago.