Australian Dealer entering US Market

From the website:

Want to know the fine print, there is none. Three (3) year warranty on every component is included, even batteries and tires. The only fine print is obvious, it doesn't cover accidental damage, but that is just common sense

Agree Lyle. Hey, the pay system in place for these workers is ridiculous and has been proven to not work. ESPECIALLY in manufacturing. They could take some of the downtime and TRAIN their workers in 5S and lean manufacturing and especially quality and manufacturing processes. Bummer is, from all I’ve seen, the idiot manufacturers don’t even have Manufacturing Engineers or good Quality Engineers to train their people with!!! I hate to say it , but I truly believe that the manufacturers don’t care about quality build into their product.....

Jim

NC Hauler wrote:
I really wished they’d address customer issues, ask for recommendations.. It could get ugly, but a sobering discussion of what NEEDS to be done with these RV manufacturers poor quality, should be a wake up call to the “Quality” process and to Engineers to do their job and get workers engaged and trained in doing the job right the first time! Shouldn’t have major issues or a bunch of nickel dime issues that should have never got past quality control prosesses in the manufacture of the product. It’s a sad state of affairs to pay what one does for a 5er, TT, whatever and most almost immediately have to address some issue, be it minor or major. This should not be acceptable, but we, the consumer have gotten used to mediocrity and just say, all of them have issues and accept it as a norm!! Not good. They need to be held to a higher standard, but it’s been accepted as common practice for DECADES! IF the manufacture figures we don’t expect quality and an attempt at perfection with each RV manufacturer, we’ll continue to accept these RV’s and let these chumps get away with murder, they really don’t seem to answer to anyone. It’s there fault and we’ll even make excuses for them and praise them for their failed quality practices. Sad

Jim

Jim, the =first= thing they need to do is get off the pay-per-piece b.s. wage scale. Set a =reasonable= quota per day, then pay them for 8 hours' work. If you need more units, then add some OT or even a shift. Let the workers have the time they need to do a quality job and MAKE THEM USE IT! This whole idea of "you need to make 10 units today" and if they get it done in 4 hours, they go home, is just =stupid=. IMO, if =everyone= who had a warranty issue flooded the dealers and factories and adamantly insisted on getting issues fixed, instead of just doing DIY fixes, the execs would just sh!t themselves when the units were lined up, waiting for repair. They wouldn't just be numbers on a ledger. Sorta like casinos using chips instead of cash. They're not "real". I =really= hope at least a few of these lawsuits against the mfrs are judged for the customers; might wake up the mfrs a bit. Be even better if some judge declared this whole issue to be a class-action. THAT would get the mfrs attention, PDQ!

Lyle

I really wished they’d address customer issues, ask for recommendations.. It could get ugly, but a sobering discussion of what NEEDS to be done with these RV manufacturers poor quality, should be a wake up call to the “Quality” process and to Engineers to do their job and get workers engaged and trained in doing the job right the first time! Shouldn’t have major issues or a bunch of nickel dime issues that should have never got past quality control prosesses in the manufacture of the product. It’s a sad state of affairs to pay what one does for a 5er, TT, whatever and most almost immediately have to address some issue, be it minor or major. This should not be acceptable, but we, the consumer have gotten used to mediocrity and just say, all of them have issues and accept it as a norm!! Not good. They need to be held to a higher standard, but it’s been accepted as common practice for DECADES! IF the manufacture figures we don’t expect quality and an attempt at perfection with each RV manufacturer, we’ll continue to accept these RV’s and let these chumps get away with murder, they really don’t seem to answer to anyone. It’s there fault and we’ll even make excuses for them and praise them for their failed quality practices. Sad

Jim

NC Hauler wrote:
Lyle, funny thing, there have been issues with the auto leveling system of LCI failing due to front rams failing due to cheap High Pressure Seals.. To keep it short, a very well known LCI service techs that travels stated that DRV ordered these rams and that they’re robust enough to handle the heavy front end weight of the 5ers. So Lippert replaces the two failed front rams with more robust rams and DRV covers it. You would think that some stupid Engineer with DRV would have figured this out by now because even Lippert stated the OEM rams DRV Order can’t handle the weight. Maybe one day these two idiot manufacturers will actually hire real engineers that talk to each other and compare specs.

In the RV market, I see no real quality controls in place and wonder if they have any REAL engineers working for them.. If love to talk to their engineering and quality departments

Jim

They'd probably run like a little girl if they ever caught sight of a customer. :B

Lyle

Lyle, funny thing, there have been issues with the auto leveling system of LCI failing due to front rams failing due to cheap High Pressure Seals.. To keep it short, a very well known LCI service techs that travels stated that DRV ordered these rams and that they’re robust enough to handle the heavy front end weight of the 5ers. So Lippert replaces the two failed front rams with more robust rams and DRV covers it. You would think that some stupid Engineer with DRV would have figured this out by now because even Lippert stated the OEM rams DRV Order can’t handle the weight. Maybe one day these two idiot manufacturers will actually hire real engineers that talk to each other and compare specs.

In the RV market, I see no real quality controls in place and wonder if they have any REAL engineers working for them.. If love to talk to their engineering and quality departments

Jim

NC Hauler wrote:

larry barnhart wrote:
NC hauler. Jim I have wondered about this story. We bought a 2018 chev Equinox. In the later months from the date our car was made a bad part was supplied for 2018 equinox's and could break so the recall was ordered for the fix. The question is were the parts not made using the spec requirements as you know about? chevman

Larry, if it was a part supplied by a distributor other than Ford, they receive the failed part and run field test and studies on it to find out if it was a suppliers failure or a failure in installation. We had gotten raw brake caliper bodies from a foundry, where we machine them in their first step to becoming a caliper.. In one instance, after Machining was done they’re sent to assembly to be finished.. test are run on them during the manufacturing process.. we kept failing 200 bar leak, but couldn’t figure out why.. took them to our Quality test lab and found porosity in the housings... stopped production, all housings had to be contained. This particular foundry almost went out of business due to their quality control processes not catching the issue. Our quality process caught the issue before caliper left the plant. Ford will look at the part/ component and figure, bottom line, if it was their fault or the distributors fault and the warranty repair will be handled through Ford. You may never know if it was Ford or the distributor.. unless there is a recall.. then you’ll be told. Hoped that helped buddy.

ON EDIT: Didn’t answer all your question .Specs are set by the auto manufacturer for ANY supplied part, before production, if distributor thinks they’ll be an issue, it’ll get hashed out with design engineers on BOTH sides. So at the point the part gets to the manufacturer from the distributor.. if it fails, the manufacturing process of the part has failed, either due to manufacturing tooling or material used. Could be a pile of things Larry depending on the process going into the manufacturing of the component.

Jim

Too bad the RV industry can't operate this way. Lippert =has= to know that they often get specs that simply won't handle the loads for specific uses, yet they build and ship them anyway because they'll simply deny any issues and hand the claim back to the mfr, who will then blame the customer for actually =using= their product. Even if the spec is good, the build is mediocre at best and the mfrs seem to do no random QC on acceptance. Another point I've said for several years is that if the mfrs would flat reject some of the junk Lippert sends them, then Lippert just might start to get the message that they really need to step up their QC.

Hell, I'd love for Thor or FR to get into a pissing match with Lippert over something. I'd have to buy popcorn stocks... :B

Lyle

laknox wrote:


At the same time, there are us weekend warriors who want to =be= weekend warriors for a long time. Just because we don't get to go camping frequently, doesn't mean that we don't want to do it, and use the same rig, for many years.

Lyle

The problem is with just a modest amount of maintenance, the "cheapo" units will be fine for 20+ years. By then the kids are usually gone and the rig designed for them doesn't make much sense. If you wait until your 50-60's, 20 yrs and you are usually not driving anymore.

You are buying something that likely will never result in an advantage in terms of financials.

Thanks Jim.

chevman

larry barnhart wrote:
NC hauler. Jim I have wondered about this story. We bought a 2018 chev Equinox. In the later months from the date our car was made a bad part was supplied for 2018 equinox's and could break so the recall was ordered for the fix. The question is were the parts not made using the spec requirements as you know about? chevman

Larry, if it was a part supplied by a distributor other than Ford, they receive the failed part and run field test and studies on it to find out if it was a suppliers failure or a failure in installation. We had gotten raw brake caliper bodies from a foundry, where we machine them in their first step to becoming a caliper.. In one instance, after Machining was done they’re sent to assembly to be finished.. test are run on them during the manufacturing process.. we kept failing 200 bar leak, but couldn’t figure out why.. took them to our Quality test lab and found porosity in the housings... stopped production, all housings had to be contained. This particular foundry almost went out of business due to their quality control processes not catching the issue. Our quality process caught the issue before caliper left the plant. Ford will look at the part/ component and figure, bottom line, if it was their fault or the distributors fault and the warranty repair will be handled through Ford. You may never know if it was Ford or the distributor.. unless there is a recall.. then you’ll be told. Hoped that helped buddy.

ON EDIT: Didn’t answer all your question .Specs are set by the auto manufacturer for ANY supplied part, before production, if distributor thinks they’ll be an issue, it’ll get hashed out with design engineers on BOTH sides. So at the point the part gets to the manufacturer from the distributor.. if it fails, the manufacturing process of the part has failed, either due to manufacturing tooling or material used. Could be a pile of things Larry depending on the process going into the manufacturing of the component.

Jim