...we can upgrade later

[BRains]

Hello all. I'm glad to be here.
My husband is retiring next year. We decided that the same old rut, in the same old place, might get a little old, so, somebody said, "hey, why don't we buy a used RV just to see if we like it. If we do, we can upgrade later." That was 3 months, 300 miles, 3 rv parks and 3 loads of laundry ago. That's all we needed to convince ourselves that upgrading NOW would be a good idea. The 4 year old Thor Hurricane that we began this short journey in was a good buy and had a lot of great features but, unfortunately, it had more rattles, shakes and repair requirements than 2 newbies wanted to deal with. To make a short story long, we're picking up our new Georgetown 36B5 on Monday. It's like FR designed this model just for us. It has everything on our must-have list and some must-haves that we didn't know we must have. Can't wait to put some miles on it.
Thanks for this active forum. I've already picked up some great info and tips. You all seem so pleasant and patient with newcomers. Thank goodness. I'm sure that I'll be dropping a dumb question or 2 on you.
Happy Trails.

[Mrprovy]

Welcome from NY

[Gohawks]

from north central Illinois. Our Georgetown has treated us well.
Enjoy.

[Chris Pastuzyn]

That's a nice rig ! Congratulations and Welcome to the forum from New Jersey

[dblr]

Very nice and welcome from Delaware!!!

[Larry0071]

BRains,


Your about to make a new and potentially unpleasant discovery about the RV world.


When you get your new unit, you should fully expect issues. You will likely have at the minimum fit and finish issues. You may have major appliance issues and/or water system issues. I believe that most people have the new rig back at the dealer for a measurable portion of year one. Typically after you fight through this, you get to a more comfortable place in RV life where you have a trickle of issues that you self repair.


Buying new means that you are about to begin the new RV QC process. Good luck in your adventures! May you be one of the folks who never sees a dealership after delivery!

[aceinspp]

Welcome to the forum and the world of RVing. One thing you need to do when picking up your new RV is do a good PDI. There is a PDI check list available here on the forum. Go to the green bar on top and clck on Libra y and the skoal down to find PDI check list.



Good Luck purchase and welcome to the Frog group.(Forest River Owners Group) Be sure to register it cost nothing and paper work should be in your Manuals bag. Maybe we will see you at a Frog Rally. Later RJD

[Bill and Gail]

Welcome from the Jersey Shore! Best of luck in your travels!

[BRains]

Originally Posted by Larry0071

BRains,


Your about to make a new and potentially unpleasant discovery about the RV world.


When you get your new unit, you should fully expect issues. You will likely have at the minimum fit and finish issues. You may have major appliance issues and/or water system issues. I believe that most people have the new rig back at the dealer for a measurable portion of year one. Typically after you fight through this, you get to a more comfortable place in RV life where you have a trickle of issues that you self repair.


Buying new means that you are about to begin the new RV QC process. Good luck in your adventures! May you be one of the folks who never sees a dealership after delivery!

(sound of deflating balloon) Reality might be ugly, huh? I was trying to ignore that part. Thnx for the eye opener. I'll try to prepare my husband and pray that it's all fixable and ready to roll by July 15, 2020.

[BRains]

Originally Posted by aceinspp

Welcome to the forum and the world of RVing. One thing you need to do when picking up your new RV is do a good PDI. There is a PDI check list available here on the forum. Go to the green bar on top and clck on Libra y and the skoal down to find PDI check list.



Good Luck purchase and welcome to the Frog group.(Forest River Owners Group) Be sure to register it cost nothing and paper work should be in your Manuals bag. Maybe we will see you at a Frog Rally. Later RJD

Thank you! Great info. My husband's nickname is "Toad" so a Frog Rally might be mandatory.

[aceinspp]

Originally Posted by BRains

Thank you! Great info. My husband's nickname is "Toad" so a Frog Rally might be mandatory.

You definitely will enjoy the rally's that are put on across the county. You should fit right in. Later RJD

[DaGrinch]

Welcome from Western Maryland!
Nope, not gonna let DW read this thread about moving up!
[emoji275]

[BostonRVer]

Originally Posted by BRains

Hello all. I'm glad to be here.
My husband is retiring next year. We decided that the same old rut, in the same old place, might get a little old, so, somebody said, "hey, why don't we buy a used RV just to see if we like it. If we do, we can upgrade later." That was 3 months, 300 miles, 3 rv parks and 3 loads of laundry ago. That's all we needed to convince ourselves that upgrading NOW would be a good idea. The 4 year old Thor Hurricane that we began this short journey in was a good buy and had a lot of great features but, unfortunately, it had more rattles, shakes and repair requirements than 2 newbies wanted to deal with. To make a short story long, we're picking up our new Georgetown 36B5 on Monday. It's like FR designed this model just for us. It has everything on our must-have list and some must-haves that we didn't know we must have. Can't wait to put some miles on it.
Thanks for this active forum. I've already picked up some great info and tips. You all seem so pleasant and patient with newcomers. Thank goodness. I'm sure that I'll be dropping a dumb question or 2 on you.
Happy Trails.

It's beautiful congratulations!

[omahagirl]

Welcome to the FROG [emoji196] life. Leesburg VA. We travel this lovely country part time in a Berkshire and are adding a second baby Boston to our clan. Sure they’ll be problems. Due a though complete PDI. Have fun making it yours. Add color rugs throws pics placemats. Enjoy the help out of it. Please do check out a rally sure it won’t be your last..stay safe out there

[Mudbug]

Congratulations on a very nice RV. I am also in the Austin area. Been camping all my life. I look forward to retiring and doing what you two are doing now. Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

[BRains]

Originally Posted by Larry0071

BRains,


Your about to make a new and potentially unpleasant discovery about the RV world.


When you get your new unit, you should fully expect issues. You will likely have at the minimum fit and finish issues. You may have major appliance issues and/or water system issues. I believe that most people have the new rig back at the dealer for a measurable portion of year one. Typically after you fight through this, you get to a more comfortable place in RV life where you have a trickle of issues that you self repair.


Buying new means that you are about to begin the new RV QC process. Good luck in your adventures! May you be one of the folks who never sees a dealership after delivery!

Thanks to Larry0071's warning, I'd like to say that we were prepared - but we weren't.
Our introduction to the new RV was just a test of our determination to do retirement in an RV. Mad but wiser; excited to jaded; frustrated to c'est la vie; we've been through the highs and lows and every manager at the dealership.
We bought the Georgetown 36B5 on 9/5 and were scheduled to pick it up about a week later. The day before delivery the dealership called to say that the windshield was cracked and would be replaced. They wanted us to come in as scheduled to turn in our trade-in but we said, "no thank you. We'll be there in a couple of hours to see the cracked windshield and decide if we want to proceed with the purchase." The crack was real and looked like it had just spontaneously, crookedly, cracked. We scheduled delivery for a week later. On the morning of delivery we got a call from a service tech, who must have drawn the short straw, and had to tell us that the shipper broke the new windshield. After another trip to the dealership to discuss our options with the service manager, the sales manager and the general manager, we were promised expedited everything; shipping, service and delivery in 5 days. Too bad they can't count - it took 7 days. Finally, the windshield's fixed and everything's ready....to...go? Not even close. The PDI guy isn't there and the guy that's doing the walk-thru with us was very nice - but he didn't know anything about this brand or this unit or that he was standing next to a nice old couple who were on the verge of detonating. Fortunately, we work well as a team and my husband distracted the tech with all kinds of questions that required more techs and I took my PDI form that I had downloaded from this forum and did my own PDI. I was able to check most things but unfortunately they hadn't turned the fridge on and there was no way to know if it had any problems. - It did. And we returned the RV to the dealership 2 days later. And waited and waited and left countless messages for the FR rep. Finally, 5 days ago, we got our RV. Two months since purchase and we've had possession for a total of 7 days. I've applied some hacks that I found on the forum, installed new bunk curtains and curtain rods, added a new, bigger table between the captains chairs to serve as an office area, added storage space to the living/kitchen area and I really do love this RV. The pain was worth it.

[geeman53]

Welcome from SW Ohio .

[Larry0071]

Originally Posted by BRains

Thanks to Larry0071's warning, I'd like to say that we were prepared - but we weren't.

Our introduction to the new RV was just a test of our determination to do retirement in an RV. Mad but wiser; excited to jaded; frustrated to c'est la vie; we've been through the highs and lows and every manager at the dealership.

We bought the Georgetown 36B5 on 9/5 and were scheduled to pick it up about a week later. The day before delivery the dealership called to say that the windshield was cracked and would be replaced. They wanted us to come in as scheduled to turn in our trade-in but we said, "no thank you. We'll be there in a couple of hours to see the cracked windshield and decide if we want to proceed with the purchase." The crack was real and looked like it had just spontaneously, crookedly, cracked. We scheduled delivery for a week later. On the morning of delivery we got a call from a service tech, who must have drawn the short straw, and had to tell us that the shipper broke the new windshield. After another trip to the dealership to discuss our options with the service manager, the sales manager and the general manager, we were promised expedited everything; shipping, service and delivery in 5 days. Too bad they can't count - it took 7 days. Finally, the windshield's fixed and everything's ready....to...go? Not even close. The PDI guy isn't there and the guy that's doing the walk-thru with us was very nice - but he didn't know anything about this brand or this unit or that he was standing next to a nice old couple who were on the verge of detonating. Fortunately, we work well as a team and my husband distracted the tech with all kinds of questions that required more techs and I took my PDI form that I had downloaded from this forum and did my own PDI. I was able to check most things but unfortunately they hadn't turned the fridge on and there was no way to know if it had any problems. - It did. And we returned the RV to the dealership 2 days later. And waited and waited and left countless messages for the FR rep. Finally, 5 days ago, we got our RV. Two months since purchase and we've had possession for a total of 7 days. I've applied some hacks that I found on the forum, installed new bunk curtains and curtain rods, added a new, bigger table between the captains chairs to serve as an office area, added storage space to the living/kitchen area and I really do love this RV. The pain was worth it.

Thanks for the kind words. I wrote that because my wife and are also new owners of a 2020 unit, and I learned about the teething issues with a new unit first hand. My wife and I are looking much like most of you, upper middle class who typically buy shiny new and high quality products. We expect the camper to be similar in quality and service/support as anything else that we buy from electronics to automobiles. We discovered really quickly that this was whole new and different ball game.

After a few thousand dollars worth of warranty work, we moved into much smoother sailing. One thing we did was skipped the poor dealer support and low quality repairs by going to a marine and RV repair center. They helped us acquire pre approval by Coachmen for all repairs and essentially middle manned the correspondence. This has us in, approved, repaired, paid by me and picked up in under 14 days from the initial phone call.

Coachmen then had me send the itemized paid in full receipt (scanned and emailed) to them, and in under 30 days a check arrived at my mailbox. I feel that this was and still is the best way to go.

I'm glad I was able to share my thoughts and sort of get you prepared.... Your not buying a new Lincoln quality and reliability, and your not getting VIP service from your dealer. But you'll hopefully get through the early pain and find great joy.

[Leticia]

Well, goes without saying Larry0071, we purchased a new 2019 GT5 34h5 and it was not a very pleasant experience either
Broke slide track(botched up with pieces of wood) to help run it in & out?[emoji848]
Broken water connections under shower.
Blower for heater/air conditioning up front burns the heck out of me (wife) no cover over blower to adjust?
And rig was none presentable!
Two weeks later finally a great RV repair place got us fixed for us to take showers [emoji371]
The rest will have to be tooth and nail pulling for repairs.
Trying to enjoy the thing but it’s a hard pill [emoji381] to swallow!

[ACJCF2]

Welcome to the forum from SC. Hoping your dealer got you squared away to enjoy your new class A.