New Winnebago Purchase - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I've been following this thread with interest, as I am a huge proponent of good quality control, being a General Contractor I am quite familiar with home/commercial construction, and the need for good workmanship. I've never been able to build the perfect product, nor do I suspect that any production motor home manufacturer will ever build the perfect motor home. In our business, Customer Service and Call-Backs are a part of of daily routine, as it is with Winnebago. With that said, I do believe that companies such as Winnebago could do more at a nominal increase in their overall costs.

I currently am having an issue with our A/V System that I have posted in another thread (Winnebago Aspect 30J), but at the same time I am pretty impressed with the overall fit and finish of the product. I also know what lies under the trim and finish, it is a hodgepodge of wires, tubing, insulation, etc., etc., etc. that is installed as quickly and as efficiently as humanly possible without any time to go backwards to make incidental fixes. For example, in my A/C filter cover there was one stripped screw, and it was an obvious and quick fix that Winnebago allowed to pass their Q.C. Department. My dealer took care of it in quick fashion, no harm, no foul. Those things can and should be expected.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being totally unsatisfied and 10 being ecstatically satisfied, I am a solid 8.5-9.0 in overall satisfaction with my Winnebago and dealer (Findlay RV). I never expected a perfect product, I bought my motor home from a local dealer who has a stake in the community, unlike a national dealer like CW who only has share holder responsibilities, and I trust the manufacturer and dealer to make things right through the warranty period, in a timely fashion.

That's my $0.02 worth 

It seems to me that this situation can be fixed very easily. RodgerE should purchase Camping World and Winnebago, apply his experience and expertise to these new endeavors and we will all have perfect motorhomes and dealers to work with??
Moral of the Story..... Do your homework, check, double check, and triple check everything before laying out a load of money for anything. Assume nothing!

I'm having a hard time figuring out where this thread is going and I haven't figured out what we can do to assist RodgerE with his issues or what he wants.

John Canfield said:

I'm having a hard time figuring out where this thread is going and I haven't figured out what we can do to assist RodgerE with his issues or what he wants.

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Hi John.  I appreciate your concern.  I am not looking for anything at this point.  I just wanted to start a discussion about our experiences in the hope that others might benefit from knowing what we had to deal with.

CFSUNRISE said:

It seems to me that this situation can be fixed very easily. RodgerE should purchase Camping World and Winnebago, apply his experience and expertise to these new endeavors and we will all have perfect motorhomes and dealers to work with??
Moral of the Story..... Do your homework, check, double check, and triple check everything before laying out a load of money for anything. Assume nothing!

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I'm pretty much retired, and don't have the time or energy or money to do as you suggested.  I do wish that more companies would recognize that they can save money, be more profitable, and have more satisfied customers by working on continuously improving quality.  The RV industry is mired in yesterday's thinking.

I"m glad you posted your experience, just very sorry is was such a negative one when it should have been anything but.

The above quote about "....building vehicles with obvious problems and shipping them off to the dealers to fix" hit the nail right on the head in my opinion.  The lack of QC out the door, plus the lack of experienced RV techs across the country, is a disastrous combination and it's becoming all too common, no matter what brand you pick.

At these prices, there is no excuse for so many things being broken and/or not working on a new rig.

As consumers, all the research we do is only marginally helpful, as all the major brands do tend to have big things that aren't operational. Any of the RV-related forums on the net are littered with stories such as these. It's frustrating because no matter how much you plan, do your homework, check all your systems on the new rig, stuff still happens. Big stuff. Things that should absolutely work and not delay your purchase for weeks and months at a time. I don't think we just excuse all this as "well, this is just how it is when you buy new".  But, I'm not sure how we can use positive influence to really make this current state change for the better.

Other than online airing of these issues (or even legal action in extreme cases), I really wish we could somehow have some power to positively effect change so that these instances become drastically fewer and far between. The RV industry does meet as an industry a few times a year. There has to be some way to positively channel all our collective experiences to the RV industry at large for both to benefit -- We'd be happy with our product; they'd be happy with a business model that works better than it does now.

Not sure I solved anything here, just happy that I can continue to read about buyers experiences, even when they're not that great. It helps me, as a consumer, make my future decisions.

I sure hope the OP has some much-needed better luck and overall experiences with this new rig!

I guess there are some people that will stand there and push the non working soap dispenser down and then write up a complaint about,
and there are other people that would open the door up and look to see if the bottle fell off ?

as soon as you put a motorhome into "Drive" it becomes a house in an continuous earthquake,  I think you need to brush up on your handyman skills or just sell it and start booking motels for your travels.



And even Toyota got caught with and inner office memo telling management to always deny responsibility ?

We attempted to overnight at Camping World Fort Myers (my birth place) and the overnight guard at the storage place next door started playing a music system extremely loud and got very nasty when we asked him to turn it down. This was at the store location, not the RV center on the East side of I-75. We have overnighted  at many Camping Worlds around the country and never had any problems. We have spent a lot of money there. The one in Salt Lake City even had water and electric.

TonyDtorch said:

..as soon as you put a motorhome into "Drive" it becomes a house in an continuous earthquake,..

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There you go...

John Canfield said:

There you go...

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and typically the first quake causes the most damage.

it's a motorhome not a Toyota, very few Toyotas even have soap dispensers.

Ok, I'm sorry, I get tired of everyone bashing American products.
It's never mentioned in the automotive world that a Ford Crown Vic will be abused as a police car for 200k miles and then be used as a taxi for another 100k.

John Canfield said:

I'm having a hard time figuring out where this thread is going and I haven't figured out what we can do to assist RodgerE with his issues or what he wants.

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I think RogerE has accomplished what he wanted to do. That is, document his experience from ordering through final acceptance of the motor home.  If someone living on the lot has this many set backs, think of how long it would take if just dropped off.

Wow, there sure are a lot of people who will accept poor quality and make excuses for the manufacturers.  That seems to be a general theme on this board.  I've worked in heavy truck manufacturing and absolutely do not accept any excuse for poor quality control.  If the engineers are going to design it, and the manufacturers are going to build it, GET IT RIGHT!    Maybe RogerE should adjust his work focus to exploit this general acceptance of poor quality RV's, instead of trying to improve an industry that obviously places little importance on getting a working product to the consumer 

Wow does this thread bring back memories.  I too bought our MH at Camping world.  Marcus Lamonis is a reasonable person.  Our MH took 3 months to be fixed..sort of.  We had 55 write-ups.  We had to go to the factory to get some of them repaired.  The GM is no longer at that Camping World at which we bought the coach.  Winnebago quality is another story.  We are making our second visit to the factory for repairs in July.  RogerE is spot on.  Six Sigma processes are not volume related.  Winnie could be the leader in the industry.  Hire engineering and manufacturing VP's that have what it takes to implement proven quality programs and they will own the market.

I guess that I am missing something. The OP listed a bunch of things that needed repair. The repairs were made. It took 2 months to accomplish over the winter. Many of us have spent 12 - 18 months going back and forth with dealers and the manufacturer to get our punch list resolved. Two months doesn't look too bad to me.

Having said the above, I agree that the manufacturer needs better quality control checking before delivery. I also agree that most Camping World service centers have poor records.  The reality is that we cannot afford to have everything checked out like we would like to have it done. Also, the manufacturer of the chassis buys parts from various vendors and has no real control over their quality.

I am still impressed by the above story and the way the manufacturer and the dealer resolved every issue. The owner now needs to take a chill pill and enjoy his new RV.

Doug, I hate to beat a dead horse but I feel that I must comment on your post.  The manufacturer has total control of the quality of the parts from a supplier.  After 45 years of manufacturing management I have to say that the suppliers are selected, or should be, by engineering and manufacturing engineering through a series of qualification testing, supplier process control audits and sample inspections.  After all of the issues I have had, I do love my MH.  If all of you expect that it is the nature of the beast, it will continue to be.  Do you ever think that an airplane takes any abuse?  They cannot afford to have many quality issues can they.  Many can learn a lot from Boeing and Airbus.  If you supply to them, you will have a quality product.

Motorhomes don't fall out of the sky when they malfunction. And, not to bash Boeing but, Dreamliner? Couple of inflight fires?

The common thread is CW and their totally unprofessional service. Lack of communication between sales, service and parts depts. All seem to be operating independently, evidenced by pre delivery punch list not taken care of, parts not actually ordered for weeks, with no follow up by technician. Switching techs in the middle of a job. Nobody wants someone else's basket case. I picture that particular shop as one where everybody walks with their head down, and avoids the boss when done with a task. It's a disease in the workforce, there is no loyalty anymore. This disease started when business stopped growing young employees into dedicated employees. Everybody became replacable, stay long enough now, and you'll train your own replacement. You make too much and the new guy starts at 2/3rds of your wage. Now savvy employees are turning it around, every job is replacable. Now you have a work force that only does what it needs to avoid getting fired. I live on Cape Cod, the employee pool here is shallow and muddy. Employers are stuck in their buildings, paying low wages to the working stiffs that remain. Go getters are moving away. Cape Cod is losing young singles and young families. I'm neither young nor single, my kids are grown and launched. We can't get out of here fast enough.

Bill

RogerE said:

  The RV industry is mired in yesterday's thinking.

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On this point I will respectfully disagree.  Since 1965 I have owned about 12 or 13 RVs (lost count) starting with a 15 ft travel trailer.  In addition I was a silent partner in a small custom RV business while serving in the military and my master's degree thesis was written on the marketing mix for an RV business.  That said, I am very familiar with 'yesterday's thinking' in the RV industry and today's RV industry is light years ahead of where it began.  Today the emphasis is even more on customer satisfaction than it was when the product being put out was little more than a house made of match sticks ready to be blown off the highway.  Dealerships were usually just small repair shops who could gather a dealership for one or two small manufacturers.  Many of these grew with the popularity of the brands they handled.  But the major advances in today's RVs lie mainly in the technical field - electronics, dual and triple powered appliances, refrigerators that actually work (not iceboxes) and ever increasing sizes of the RVs themselves.  I could go on and on but I just could not let that comment slide that today's RV business is yesterdays thinking.  Far from it.

Bill N said:

.  I could go on and on but I just could not let that comment slide that today's RV business is yesterdays thinking.  Far from it.

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How about yesterday's thinking on manufacturing quality control.

But that said, it really isn't easy because of the number on models and floorplans built on the same line. Harley Davidson tried to introduce their quality control system at Holiday Rambler back in the early 90's and failed. Navistar tried to setup their truck QC system at Monaco and failed. I think both attempts might have improved QC a little, but failed to reach the goal line.

Part of the issue is us (the consumer). Manufacturers are trying to bring out motorhomes with a lot of "wow" - four slides etc. To do this they are continually trying to lower costs by sourcing cheaper suppliers. Maybe those new suppliers are quite as good. Also its another vendor for your RV tech to learn about. 

ken

This thread has drifted to a general discussion about manufacturing quality (or lack of.)  Lets keep the thread related to the original topic about Winnebago and his experiences getting his unit repaired. 

TonyDtorch said:

I guess there are some people that will stand there and push the non working soap dispenser down and then write up a complaint about,
and there are other people that would open the door up and look to see if the bottle fell off ?

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My mistake was obvious, as you pointed out.  I assumed that there would be a bottle under the counter to hold the soap when I put it in.  I am sure that a man of your wisdom would have looked under the counter first before filling the dispenser.  Stupid me - I didn't look until after I determined that the dispenser wasn't working.