Your Fun Has Only Begun

Some free advice on what to expect when buying a motorcoach (this advice came on one of my social media feeds along with lots of people providing their own perspective):

1. All are “crap”
2. Lousy quality is forever
3. Better be a decent handyman or it gets expensive real quick
4. An older coach with low miles can be trouble
5. A used coach usually has issues sorted out

As person after person listed their issues, one person made this observation:

You would think for the price of a bricks and sticks home, there would be better quality control.

To which another person replied:

Your fun has only begun.

A few other quotes:

We purchased a 2019 Dutch Star in June. It’s basically been in service a total of two solid months! We’ve used it only five nights. Does anyone think Newmar will extend the one year warranty since we’ve not had a chance to really test it out?

Er, no. Newmar does provide good customer support and, basically, you own the problem(s). After one year, plan on forgetting about any warranty help from your dealer. Probably best to forget about most Newmar dealers anyway. The factory is your best bet.

They are all garbage. The test is how they service and solve your problems. This is my third Newmar and they all have had many problems.

Sad but true.

This is the biggest piece of garbage on wheels we have ever owned!!!

I take it this person was not enjoying their customer experience.

Both Newmar and Tiffin also seem to subscribe to the QC by customer in MANY stories that I have heard.

Quality control by customer. Probably factored into the selling price of the coach.

And, finally, as I suspect you get the point by now, an excerpt from this editorial found at RV Travel:

ONE BIG DIFFERENCE TODAY is that RVing is suddenly very trendy. Millennials are standing in line to buy one. Most buy cheap ones that will fall apart in five to ten years, if not sooner. Truth be told, some of those entry-level RVs are seriously defective right off the sales lot but need significant work that can take weeks or months. The RV industry announced just this week that the average repair at an RV dealership takes 21 days. That’s just the average.

The overall dependability of new RVs has never been worse. In a reader poll we conducted in 2017, 22 percent of our readers rated the workmanship on their RVs as poor or terrible. That’s one out of five. If that same percentage held true for manufacturers of cars, TVs, bicycles or furniture, the companies would go bust.

The companies do not go bust. Except during severe economic downturns.

And, with the coronavirus and the stock market going kaboom, we might just see the RV industry facing a severe downturn with layoffs and cutbacks. Quality would likely go down.

Our experience with our coach has been mixed. Every time we start a drive, I pray that everything will work: slideouts, jacks, electrical, mechanical. Pretty much everything on the coach.

I never worry about my car not working.

I’ve spoken with other RVers that have the same apprehension: will the coach work this time?