Bugford, The dirty little (not so much a) secret is that most manufactures don't put a high priority on Quality Control. Maybe a little bit when your starting to approach 6 figures for the RV but for the $50k and under crowd, the forums are littered with evidence.
That said, I recently bought a new camper and as I expected, there were a few things wrong with it. Mine happens to be a Forest River but my previous Keystone had issues too.
I had two doors to the bathroom that would not stay shut. I took the striker plates off the wall, took a chisel to adjust the height of the hole slightly and reinstalled the striker plates and done.
My fresh water fill will not accept water unless I stick about 6"-8" of hose inside the fill port. I've come to figure out that it's poor routing of the hose that is attached to the fill port and it actually rises from that connection prior to dropping towards the fresh water tank. Have not re-routed yet but will be an easy fix.
The toilet didn't hold water after about an hour. Figured out that the dealership had installed silicone around the trap door and it had not cured prior to me picking up the trailer. I bought it about 2 days after it arrived at the dealership. Once I emptied the bowl, removed the old silicone and reapplied, problem solved.
So my point is, there will be things that need correcting on almost every RV that is purchased. Some big, some small. I prefer to handle the small ones myself because I know I fixed them correctly. Luckily, I've never had a BIG item that I had to take back to the dealership.
I wouldn't spend too much time looking for the manufacture that doesn't have issues because I don't think you will find one. I would be asking what manufacture and more importantly, what DEALERSHIP has good reviews from customers that when something BIG did go wrong, it was taken care of. That my friend is the MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION!
