Am I Being Unreasonable ?

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Kenneth,

I have had more than walkthrough with a customer who refused to sign any papers until they were completely satisfied with the unit. I'd say it's a good policy! Not all dealerships will want to do that. Walking away is always an option.
 
UK-RV said:
does anyone else suffer this kind of repeated bad luck or is it just me ?? :'(

??? You obviously haven't read through My Website ?:D Seeing as this discussion has turned into a debate about Dealer's and service? I will state my own views on them. I have, when I first started in RV's. Bought and paid top dollar (pound) in the UK for an RV. The trouble started virtually straight away. Took it to a Specialist ( ??? ) for repairs and diagnostics. Three days later I was Mobile again and much the poorer. Problems continued. I then took the RV to another Specialist ( ???) who stated that the Brakes were worn 30% Front, 10% rear and none on the emergency brake. Within a month they had failed completey and I had to replace the Rotor's and Disc Pads all round and the Emergency Brake shoes that I had to use in that emergency situatiion. It also made a black mark against my previous accident free history. ?:mad: To cut a very LONG story short. We decided that in future we would do all our OWN repairs and servicing. I know it's not for everyone. But if you have negotiated a top discount on the purchase of your RV? It must go a long way to pay for any problems that arise. I am now on my fourth RV in 6 years and there has not been one that has not required something fixing. At least when we fix it ourselves, we know it will be done when required and how good the remedie will be. JAT. ?;)
 
Kenneth:

A walkthrough BEFORE money changes hands is indeed critical.

I not only did this, I insisted on scheduling two days with my dealer.  The first day I conducted my own pre-delivery inspection.  I used a 10 page checklist that I obtained by borrowing from many other inspection checklists I found on this forum and on other forums.  I had several hundred items on the list.  It including time on the roof and time under the coach.  Every electronic instrument and appliance was tested.

I also insisted that MY inspection be done before any dealer handled walkthrough.  This was to insure that MY agenda was not rushed.

The second day they did their walkthrough, which only took 2 hours to my 10 hours, and then addressed the few issues I found on my inspection.  I was fortunate that my coach was ordered from the factory, thus hundreds of people did not tramp through it.  the factory did a great job so no major problems were found.  Had there been any major problems, I would have quickly found them before shelling out any money.
 
Smoky,

What you did was probably the next best thing to factory delivery. You sure did your homework on that one.

But you also got to take a peek at the coach while it was being built, something that few folks get to do. The photos of your factory visit are viewable by clicking the Photos button above, then selecting the album labelled The birth of Smoky and the Admiral's coach. That was fun "living through" the experience online with you.
 
Tom:

I am very sincere when I attest that the most important help I got in selecting my coach and determining what we would need was from all the forum members here on this forum.  If used wisely, this forum is a tremendous tool for any kind of RV situation or problem.
 
Thanks Smoky and I know you are sincere in your comment.
 
Well, Matt, we should probably start a separate message thread for this subject, but I'll give a bried answer here.

I shop for price, but I expect the unit  I buy will be delivered to me with no visible defects.  Not necessarily zero defects over the life of the product or even the throughout the warranty period, but I do expect to receive the unit with everything in working condition and no blemishes inside or out.  And when the salesman tells me my new coach is ready for delivery, I expect to find it fully inspected and all visible flaws already taken care of.  Sure, I understand there will be a few things that escape.  For example, my wife will complain about a few things that won't even register on my radar, but those are rarely big deals.  But that's not the sort of probelms being discussed here.

I'm willing to  buy from a dealer who doesn't have much post-sale service capability. For one thing, I'm often physically distant when I need service and will have to go somewhere else anyway.  So to me, the sale experience and the service experience are separate entites and the service experience doesn't start until after a successful (zero defect) delivery. And I don't want to do business with a dealer who thinks its OK to tell me to bring my new rig back to fix what should have been right initially.
 
Once again Gary you've managed to succinctly state what I think and what I'm sure a number of others think.
 
Excellent points Gary We are in agreement again. 

I don't want ANY BS if I am told something will be done then it had better be done and done by the time promised. NO repeat NO excuses.  If The dealer does run into a valid problem and cannot complete ALL the promised tasked by the promised date and time and
asks me to return then they had better stand up to the plate and be prepared to pay all my costs involved getting back so the can complete what ever was promised to be done.

 
Guys

We've now been at Lazydays for 2 days and things are happening.

The service co-ordinator we have, Tobias Baskind [sp], has proved to be excellent at getting things done for us. If we need service/warranty issues sorted in the future, I will insist he acts for us.

He had been informed by the service dept that the chip in the windshield had been repaired already, but we found it hadnt been touched (the blue tape indicating the fault was even on the glass). We had a similar thing on another item.

As soon as he saw the chip he apologised and explained nobody would be available at Lazydays to repair the chip this weekend. He explained that we should notify Lazydays of our next campground and Lazydays would arrange for a local contractor to visit us at our site to make the repair.

We met Ken Schielka [sp], the Service Manager, who apologised for the inconvenience we had experienced. He insisted we contact his assistant should any further problems surface.

Matt has also been spending time in the service dept to chase our outstanding concerns.

So, with fingers crossed for a couple of outstanding items tomorrow morning, it looks like we have the coach we fell in love with.

It is quite clear to me from our purchase experience, that the Lazydays team are being badly let down by the actual staff in the service bays (and definatley our first delivery co-ordinator, she with the broom stick).

Regards
Paul



 
Paul,

Glad to hear things are going better now and thanks for the update.  Please continue to give us updates.  Sure hope we get to meet somewhere.

 
These individual "issues" at LD are the symptoms of a root cause. Many of these businesses lack dynamic leaders to communicate expectations of excellence to their employees.? Senior Management should require documented systems be in place to ensure that the interfaces between departments are seamless and well coordinated.? There should be no bumbling. There should be metrics around maximum times for various service deliveries.? There should be accountability and consequences for employees not holding to the published expectations of the business, which should be drafted with the customer's needs in mind.? The systems should include:? scope, objectives, processes, procedures, accountable and responsible parties, verification & measurements to ensure that objectives are being adequately accomplished, etc.? For instance, it appears that Lazy Days does not have a system for Sharing Lessons Learned. That would be valuable for them.? There should be a system for Management of Change that covers how to deal with delivery anomalies in a prudent and efficient manner.? I could go on and on but it just amazes me at how many businesses are ran off the cuff with their focus ONLY on money.? J. Paul Getty once said that if you take good care of your pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves.? I believe that, likewise, if you take good care of your customers, the income will take care of itself.? They should take a lesson from Tiffin. 
 
Clarabelle,

If you visit Lazydays as often as we have over the past 5 weeks, you notice that they ARE very strong on training - whether it is absorbed is obviously another matter.

They seem to have several set procedures in place for everything - once one person has done their bit of your transaction they sign a log and pass you to the next person in-line (even the reception staff log all calls and visitors prior to passing them forward to a Sales Rep).

Of course, these "set" procedures are likely to have contributed to our distress in the first place - no common sense approach, everything by procedure.

The problem (from my experience), is that when someone tells them something has been done, they take it as correct and move on. I think they need to perform random checks on their service employees.

Shortly after starting my first Retail Management job, my Regional Manager shared his training wisdom with me :-

His saying was "people do what you inspect, not what you expect" - I thought it rather childish at the time, but? can see the logic in this case.

Paul
 
It is quite clear to me from our purchase experience, that the Lazydays team are being badly let down by the actual staff in the service bays

Or the sales & customer service (delivery) reps are glibly promising things they have no way to deliver.
 
RV Roamer said:
Or the sales & customer service (delivery) reps are glibly promising things they have no way to deliver.

Agree again Gary.  Whoever made the promise to get what ever done is just as much to blame as the service department.  It is easy to blame the other departments or other guy but if problems exist then I am sure everybody would be aware from the CEO down including salesman. But IMHO if all are Honest and straight forward from the sales contact on these situations would not occur.
 
Jim Dick said:
Hi Paul,

Water leaks from plumbing on new rigs is very common. I sometimes do PDI work at a dealership and it is one of the most common faults we find. All leaks should be found during the PDI but, occasionally, one is missed for one reason or another. Hopefully this is the source of all three occurances you have seen.

When we bought our Travel Supreme, the first time I used the washing machine the bathroom flooded.  Neither the hot or cold connection had been tightened.  Most irritating.
 

Hi Peggy,

That proves the PDI wasn't completed. They should be running the washer/dryer to be sure it works. The problem is once the washer is started there is no way to stop it. Some techs might just skip it and go on to other stuff. Whatever a tech skips ALWAYS comes back to bite them. :)
 
Hi Guys

We've just left Lazydays following our 3rd day of repairs to the missed PDI items.

Unfortunately, we still have 3 items on the list.

Windshield still has a chip in it - Lazydays have advised us to call a local repairer at our next stop and they will cover the bill. I think they are expecting us to pay it and then claim it back from them. This is a no-no as we don't have a way to cash their cheque. So, I plan to notify Lazydays that we will be at 'x' campground on 'y' date and they can source the glazing company for us. They have glazing staff on-site during the week, so I can't understand why this wasn't done on Thursday or Friday - it is after all, one of only two safety related items on our list and should have had priority.

Hole to Bathroom Ceiling - we will just have to do some forward planning to locate a dealer somewhere on our travels.

Damaged Tape to Outside of Bedroom Slide - as above.

To give them some credit, they did find a couple of extra items we hadn't noticed.

If it wasn't Sunday tomorrow (service dept closed) I would wait here until these 3 things were done.

Cheers
Paul

PS I still appreciate the work Tobias did to get things moving - the 3 items listed above were all things the service staff had reported back to him as completed.



 
Paul

If you have the dealer snd you a "Cashier's cheque", you can walk into any bank and cash it without having an account.
 
Sounds like they got most of it done although I am not sure I would leave LazyDays until it was 100% complete.  The will have more incentives to complete the job than some dealer down the road that didn't benefit from the sale.

Thanks for the update.
 
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