Lazydays to perform our final Warranty work

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Just have to toss in my two cents here. Shayne, don't take this personally because you're not the only one, but if I hear the term "Entry Level Unit" one more time, I'm going to up-chuck! To an owner of a Prevost or some other million plus dollar unit, every other rig is an "Entry Level Unit". I don't care what you paid for your rig, you have every right and expectation that it will work, and work properly. Just because your faucet isn't gold plated doesn't mean it shouldn't work as well as one that is. A generator should generate, lights should light, and holding tanks should hold. The list is endless, but you get the picture. Yes, maybe Paul should have spent more time in the beginning, but I liken that to going to Germany to buy a Porsche. You don't necessarily have the time or opportunity to run on the Nurburgring to see if it really will hit 200mph, or to test every fit, feature, function, and fluid to make sure everything works. What you want to do is hit the road and see the country, and that's what Paul did. Only after a period of time will you find everything that's wrong, and then you have every expectation that the selling dealer will make it right.
 
I think that Shayne wants the customer to do the work the manufacturer or dealer should have done but hasn't.

This now appears to be the way of the world  :(

Throw it together advertise it on the forecourt, sucker I mean customer comes along, pays $$$$$$$$$$$$ .

Drives off forecourt to find the faults and hope that the dealer will correct them.
 
Many of you have probably noticed that I have a love/hate affair with LD - they have done many fine things for us in our two purchases and several service/parts visits, only to throw all the good will away with some egregious failure to follow through on some simple promise. I chalk it up to mediocre management in the service area, cause sales does a much better job of it. But sales is always looking for your business while service has customers waiting in line for months for an appointment. I have learned that I have to closely manage the process, at LD and at most other RV service establishments. For that matter, at just about all large and small dealers and repair shops these days, regardless of the industry. I shouldn't have to, but if I don't I get even more frustrated and don't get the results I want either.

As Karl says, buying an "entry level unit" does not excuse crappy service or non-working components. High end customers should get additional services and personal attention commensurate with their much greater expenditure, but there should be no qualitative difference in the repair work performed or the follow-through on any promises made.  If a promise is made, keep it.  If you can't reliably predict when work will be finished, don't tell the customer it will be done the same day. Better to be up front about scheduling than to p___  people off with delays and mess up their lives with schedule changes.

I remain convinced that LD means well but sometimes [too often?]  fails to follow through. That's where your part in helping to manage the process comes in. But they have also gone the extra mile for us in more than one case, finding an obscure part and twice taking us in on an emergency basis to fix water leaks.  And I know when my emergency problems got handled immediately, some other customer was being delayed. No way around it - there are no techs just sitting around waiting to jump on to emergencies.

We all lament the deterioration in customer service in nearly all modern businesses.  :'(
 
Sorry   Mick you missed the point completely.  Paul took off on a nationwide journey without knowing anything about the RV.  He didn't know if anything worked nor how to use it.   If you think what you stated, you are totally unable to read the messages stated.  I would neve NEVER do what Paul did and leave without a at least a test run to check things out.
 
Aw yes Karl  there should be no diference between the 100K and million $ vehicle.  Also as you stated the Selling dealer is to take care of things.  Selling dealer period.  If it's warranty  total different subject, but adjustments and dealer defects are not warranty, but SELLING  Dealer only.  Also I stated that Time spent near the dealer to feel out the RV would have saved many of the heart aches and problems that later developed.  I've been on both sides of this issue on having a new unit, and I still contend that anyone that takes off like Paul did, is foolish to say the least.  This is a house, a truck, and an assembled peice of workmanship that all parts and materials don';t always function properly.  If anyone thinks they will is badly mistaken.  That's my take on it and I live by it.
 
coolrun_n said:
Hello Tom: We at Lazydays have weekly classes on the subject of customer service. I wish you could personally experience the level of care and professionalism we strive to deliver. I do not consider myself to be biased and I base my statements on my many years at dealers from California,Ohio,Indiana and Florida. I have found a home at lazydays and I am one of the best techs you will ever meet. Just my honest opinion.

First, I'm glad to see this response in the thread, It appears that someone at LazyDays is reading this so it may get back to management.

Second classes are great. But you need to have enough technicians and personnel to do the work. I do not know the employment status at LD but I do know many, many companies have cut staff not only to the bone, but have gouged out great chuncks of bone as well. 

From this thread it is clear your right hand has issues with your left hand (With folks not even knowing you have an IT department)

And the stories about Lazydays customer service are many and I can not recall reading a good report

I will temper that by stating that folks who are happy are not nearly as likely to vent online, thus I'm not as likely to read a good report as a bad one.. but I've read a lot of stories like this one.

However it is good that you are reading this thread.  I have seen several improvements in service come about when a company rep (or in one case the company owner) joined in a thread like this one.

I've also printed out a few horror stories (In regard to other companies) and handed them to company reps.  This is not as good as one joining the thread, but it can also help. (in those cases I always felt the service I got from the company was great, yet others had complaints... To be honest, I can understand (assuming half the story is true) why the other was unhappy.  but then he was dealing with a different store than the one I visit and thus a different manager.

I have run into technicians who... Well, let's just say they should go back to selling newspapers. (One worked on my car) in fact after finding error after error he'd made I spoke with his former boss and said "I'd say you should fire him if you had not already done so",  The boss (Clearly) agreed.
 
John,

Unfortunately, the responder is unlikely to be in a position to influence changes.

Gary's response and a few others remind me that it's only a year (or two) ago that I read about a shortage of RV techs industry wide. Dealers just couldn't hire or train enough of them. RV sales had been booming for several years, which translates into more demand for techs. Add to this the tendency for service departments to over-schedule their resources and it's not really surprising that things don't get done when promised.

I'm not convinced that this is unique to LD. Since they are so large, the issue may appear exacerabated.

FWIW when we bought our coach (at a different dealer) I went through some of the same experiences. At the first rest stop on our maiden trip someone knocked on the door and said "I saw the dealer license plate frames and wondered how your experience was with them". When I gave him the brief version of the story and said I wouldn't buy another RV from them, he replied "I've bought two coaches from them and had the same problems; I won't be buying another from them either."
 
Paul took off on a nationwide journey without knowing anything about the RV.  He didn't know if anything worked nor how to use it.

Also I stated that Time spent near the dealer to feel out the RV would have saved many of the heart aches and problems that later developed.

Shayne,

I purchased a new vehicle from Lazydays.

Lazydays should have done a thorough PDI on the vehicle before it was sold - the Fleetwood manual states they have a contract to do so. They clearly broke that contract.

It is THAT failure which resulted in the initial problems we had at Lazydays.

You claim we should have spent time near the dealer to iron out problems - how much time is enough ?

Don't forget, we spent 3 WEEKS at the dealer - living in the RV (including a couple of days we managed to head out for 200 miles or so).

In that time, we quickly found a large number of issues with it (mostly small stuff and mostly PDI stuff).

Given that we highlighted the initial PDI issues on January 14th and we left February 23rd, you could say we spent 5 weeks getting to know the RV. Just because Lazydays didn't even look at any PDI items until February 1st, wasn't our fault.

By the time we left Lazydays, they had sorted 99% of the items we had reported - but it took them all that time to do what should have been done before they accepted our money - THAT is why I started my original thread last year.

Once we left Lazydays, problem items were covered by a US-wide network of dealers. That is one of the benefits of owning a Fleetwood (and all others Im sure) which is stated in their Owners Manual.

Fleetwood don't state any requirement to remain at the selling dealer for "x weeks" following purchase, do they?

I would love to know how you think spending extra time at Lazydays would have prevented ANY of the subsequent warranty issues we encountered thru 2006? - NONE of them could have been foreseen and NONE of them could have been avoided by knowing a little more about the workings of our RV.

We had (to my immediate knowledge) 2 problems with the RV which were self-inflicted stupid things - NEITHER of which would have been avoided had we stayed nr Lazydays longer.

Paul
 
Tom, I agree with you it is not unique to LD.  However I've dealt with two dealers. Now one sold me the rig and one did not.

I can not really complain about the dealer who sold me the rig, some things could have been better but I can not complain too loudly as much of what could have been better is, in fact, my fault.

Wheelers RV in Las Vegas however did a great job when I needed some warranty work AND THEY DID NOT SELL THE RIG.

What's more their glass man (Dave Simpson also of Las Vegas) really knew his business, made Guaridan glass here in Detroit look like a bunch of idiots. (Which in my opinion they are)

But with some dealers I hear a lot of complaints and not many complements

I should add with General RV here in S.E. Michigan....... There were other issues where they did very very good indeed. so my review of them is overall positive (And I can't blame them for Guardian glass. it's the only company in S.E. michigan that does RV size windhsields)
 
Paul,

I think that what Shayne is suggesting is that folks buying a new RV should limit the first few weeks of their first trip to be within driving distance of the dealer. That way, things get shaken about on the road and latent issues come to light before setting off on a longer journey. From time to time you'll see us recommend that new buyers do this.

Folks who take factory delivery often do the same thing - they set up two appointments, one to take delivery (with all the associated tech support) and a second appointment four weeks later to take care of the latent issues.

....it took them all that time to do what should have been done before they accepted our money ...

I recall specifically warning you not to part with all your money unless/until you were completely satisfied. Unfortunately, things don't always work that way. Dealers want their money before they hand over the coach, while the emotional aspect of the sale takes over and we want the beautiful new coach so badly that we easily part with our money.

I'm not sure how your situation could have been avoided, but there has to be a lesson there somewhere for all of us.
 
John In Detroit said:
But with some dealers I hear a lot of complaints and not many complements

Unfortunately, human nature is such that we make most noise when we're unhappy; We rarely give much public praise when things work out the way we expect.
 
Tom said:
Unfortunately, human nature is such that we make most noise when we're unhappy; We rarely give much public praise when things work out the way we expect.

Which is why Mike and I remain gainfully employed doing Customer Service Evaluations.
 
Tom said:
Unfortunately, human nature is such that we make most noise when we're unhappy; We rarely give much public praise when things work out the way we expect.

Although we had a good experience dealing with Lazy Days I cannot say it was exceptional.  No Tom they did not qualify for recognition from us.
 
Tom is right.  We had a similar issue when we built our house in NJ.  They took our money, and took their time to fix problems.... next time, we wouldn't close until they had fixed everything first.  He who controls the money, controls everything.
 
I thought I said this before but let me be more explicit,: I can recall at least 4 times when LD provided us with really excellent service: twice involving water leak emergencies and twice in obtaining hard to find accessory parts I wanted. They worked hard to get my problems fixed and to obtain and install the things I wanted, even though the items I wanted were not in any parts catalog.  Example: I wanted an additional window awning on the coach. It needed to be champagne hardware with black fabric to match the others. Service adviser ordered it for us and checked the colors when it came in. Wrong color fabric, so he returned it and re-ordered. Next one had right fabric and wrong  color hardware, so he called Carefree and found they don't offer that color combination (despite the fact that it is original equipment on my coach). So he ordered a second awning with the right color hardware and then mixed the two sets to get the right color combination for us and returned the rest for credit. All of this without my involvement in any way and without even a suggestion on my part. He even apologized for the delay while he re-ordered parts. I think that is outstanding service and the fact that it took 3 weeks to get the right awning was certainly not any failure or lack of effort on LD's part.

And I did not have any more (or less) problems with their service work & scheduling than I did at the National RV factory service center  in Perris, CA. That's not exactly a pat of the back, but it puts them in squarely in the herd rather than off the bottom of the chart.
 
See what I mean that happy folks tend not to post..

Now that I said it, you come out of the woodwork  Where were you before I commented?

I think it was Sparky Anderson who said any ball club, no matter how good, can be expected to loose 1/3 of their games, and any club no matter how bad can be expected to win 1/3 of their games (he is wrong by the way) it is the remaing 1/3 that makes the difference between world champions and the basement.

I've seen temas that when they win a game.... Well fans are passing out in the stands (i'm not kidding) (I was there, not on the field though as I was never a student there, daughter was, and she was on the field.. at halftime, I understand it has been YEARS since that team won a home game)

Change the numbers a bit and you can describe most any business.  There will be some who drive away happy, And some who will NEVER drive away happy.  (There was a saying I liked in a TV show once "He'd complain if yo uhung him with a new rope" that applies to some folks)

Of course if you can back up your bad feeling with cause (As was done in this thread) more power to you (Else shut up) but the fact is that whereas perhaps 2/3 of the folks who are ticked will post, 1/3 of the happy ones will (or more or less depending on many things)

I have heard a lot of complaints against LD, but then they have a lot of customers

I can't ever recall hearing a complaint against Joe's RV in Podunk (is there a Joe's RV in Podunk) well you get the idea. (If there is he sells perhaps 2 rigs per year)

Though I made up Joe's  There are many RV dealers who average less than one rig sold per month, and take great care of that customer cause they know they won't see another customer for at least a month, and like the Maytag Repairman (Who happens to be very busy just now) of the ads, they are lonely and like the company.
 
Quick Update :-

I emailed them about the "Expedition" graphic late Sunday so they would have it Monday.

Someone called me Monday morning and arranged for it to be sent overnight. It arrived today.

It took 2 attempts, but thankfully it is now here.

Dare I unroll it to see if it's the correct one? - probably find its a "Bounder" or something  ;D

Paul

 
LOL Karl, you'd better clarify that you're looking for Bounder decals  ;D
 

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