rv death spriral

[wolfdog]

I can speak from the  experience of twenty years working at a factory aircraft service center on twenty some million dollars medium-sized businesses jets, that everything is not ready to go from the factory, part of it from people that worked at McDonald's yesterday and now build aircraft, sometimes New parts that are bad.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

I suspect airplane dealers do a somewhat better PDI than most RV dealers. And get paid quite well for it. The training and certification for an FAA aircraft A&P (aka A&E) technician license is a bit stricter than an RV tech's training as well. And then there are the FAA-mandated inspections, periodic teardowns, parts certifications, etc.

 

[John From Detroit]

Since you guys are talking about Aircraft inspections.. Still there is one part the inspectors never seem to inspect.. And RV's have this same part on occasion..... The loose nut behind the wheel (Control stick)

True story (I was indeed there)
I think it's Piper (The company in Michigan) ferried a brand new 4-seater from their plant in Western MI to Poitiac Airport in Eastern MI. That was the only flite time on the plane when a new pilot (Got his license that day's mail) took a few frends out for some celebratory drinks then checked the plane out of the clubhanger and flew into heavy fog as I recall, Missed the airport by several miles and spranged it all over a park (4 Dead)  Come daylight people were coming up and trying to convince me they had flown that plane (They thought it was a Cesna ) Seemed most dissappointed when I ask 'em what they flew (Cesna) and I told 'em it was a Piper.. "How do you knwo it's a Piper?" ... Walked up, looked at the stick, it said PIPER on it... Sadly 4 Dead.. IT was new year's eve.

 

[deltam]

"How do you knwo it's a Piper?" ... Walked up, looked at the stick, it said PIPER on it... Sadly 4 Dead.. IT was new year's eve.

Also Pipers are low wing, Cessnas, except for a few models of the very latest that are "plastic" are high wing.  A quick search of the "N" number is also a give away.

 

[Utclmjmpr]

  Not true!! , More than half of Cessna productions are low wing twins, only one high wing Cessna twin,337 Skysmasher..>>>Dan (owned one for 10 years) (33 year A&P/IA

 

[SenseiDave]

PBG was spot on in his July post on this topic.  I am in this exact position with my 2015 Winnebago Via.  I have traveled to Forest City, Iowa for factory service only to have the same problem pop up before I crossed the state line.  I really want an RV that works.  Is that too much to ask?  Winnebago's poor quality control makes then hard to love.

 

[TonyDtorch]

Just out of curiosity,  what was the recurring problem on the Winnebago. ?

 

[deltam]

  Not true!! , More than half of Cessna productions are low wing twins, only one high wing Cessna twin,337 Skysmasher..>>>Dan (owned one for 10 years) (33 year A&P/IA

I didn't want to get into the minutia of the story, after all this is an RV forum not an airplane forum, but wasn't figuring on getting stomped on so here is my side. 

The story as described above was about 4-place airplanes.  I assumed piston powered as I'm not aware of any turbine powered production 4 places airplanes available on the commercial market.  Honda is working on one but has yet to come to market. 

The above story eliminated home built airplanes. 

Disregard the other questionable details about getting the certification in the mail, the joy ride etc.  I'm not aware of ANY 4 PLACE twins or jets made by Cessna (most of which are multi-engine and are in fact low wing except for the push-pull Skymaster/O-2).  There may be a few oddballs out there but I don't recall ever seeing any. 

Cessna has been the premier small, single engine airplane builder (single engine piston propeller) manufacture for over 70 years.  99+percent have been mostly 4-place C170s/C172s and 2-place C120s, C150s/152s with a goodly number of 4 place C180/182s, and a very small percentage of carbon fibre aiplanes after their aquisition of the Lancair 400 a few years ago.  Cessna has made a few 6-place and 8-place single engine piston airplanes but this number is quite small and these are high-wing as well.

 

[RobReab]

After looking through this thread, I'm please with my recent purchase of a 2006 31' C with 17,000 miles on it. Most of the bugs should have been worked out by now...

Bought it from CW and they actually took good care of me once I got past the salepeople.

Did some cleaning, repairs and upgrades and am pleased with my purchase. About 4,000 miles so far and am looking forward to retiring in February and spending a lot more time on the road.

No real issues (aside from overloading a 'basement' storage and having it partially collapse), so far.

 

[joester]

Great thread - all I can add after 19 years of being the second owners of a 1991 Tioga class C, is it seems to me that buying a used RV, say a couple years old with miles appropriate for whatever year it is, is about the best way to buy an RV with "most" of the kinks worked out. Ours had 27k miles when we bought it in 1997 - we purchased a 4 year extended warranty to cover us while we paid ourselves back - only needed the warranty one time for an electric OD switch to be replaced. Still happy with it (getting a new fuel pump installed this weekend), but still searching for next RV - most likely a used class A gasser, 2012-2015. The beat goes on......
happy trails folks!

 

[Notlad]

The best thing that could happen would be for an Asian company to buy an RV manufacturer and in a short period of time have manufacturing practices in place that would make that company vastly superior to any other RV's on the road when it comes to quality. That pressure would force the other manufacturers to adopt similar practices and everybody's quality would get better. i observed this happen in automobile manufacturing. The quality of Japanese cars forced American car manufacturers to build a much better product.

The only other thing I can think of is consumers pushing for strong state laws forcing dealers to perform warranty work within a certain time frame and also better lemon laws. The first would create pressure from dealers back to the factory to deliver to them better products as they would be overshelmed and the second would be such a pain in the butt for both dealers and manufacturers both would do better I hate any option involving the government and more rules and regulations but it is clear the RV industry is not going to do anything proactive on it's own.

 

[TonyDtorch]

the Asian builders are wonderful making an existing product better, faster and cheaper......not so much with innovation and custom order handcrafted stuff like motorhomes. 

but,  the Asians did buy an American RV company.

 

[Lou Schneider]

but,  the Asians did buy an American RV company.

If you're talking about Rexhall, a Chinese electric vehicle company did buy their factory in Lancaster, CA and turned it into an electric bus production plant.  They didn't buy the motorhome company, which continues to operate in a much smaller form out of their old service center.

 

[TonyDtorch]

I thought I heard Bill Rex was working for them ?

here is what I pulled up....

?Rexhall has been working for years to develop a truly green motorhome,? said Rex. ?We believe BYD?s battery technology could be the long-term answer for the affordable, electric motorhome of the future. We will spend 2013 developing a new motorhome with an expected launch date and dealer showing of March 2014.?

William Rex has also accepted the position of general manager for BYD Coach & Bus LLC, the new company formed to build BYD electric buses here in America.

?I am very excited about this opportunity, as are several of our current Rexhall employees who will be working with me at BYD Coach & Bus,? said Rex. ?We look forward to working hand-in-hand with our international partners to bring investment, resources and jobs to California.?

 

[Lou Schneider]

That's true, but note the dates - 2013/2014.  Nothing has happened since then, so all it means is Bill Rex has given up on the motorhome business to concentrate on making Chinese buses.

 

[TonyDtorch]

yep,
It kinda sounds like the Asians bought Bill and the factory..  :'(