Possible frame weld broken on new Montana

laknox wrote:

The people who most criticize Greg's article are those IN the industry, and whose oxen are being gored. The louder they're squalling simply means that Greg's statements are hitting close to home.

If the RV industry were =serious= about quality, they're release warranty claim numbers in both # of units needing warranty service and $$ spent on warranty claims. I've never seen even ONE mfr release these numbers. Even if you do a forensic accounting analysis of their financials, you'd be hard-put to dig those numbers out, if at all. IMO, this is one of RV mfrs most closely guarded secrets, on the order of the original Coke recipe.

The fact that not one RV mfr requires their dealers to service any of the brands they sell on a first-come basis, the fact that mfrs have no dealer-to-dealer network that allows dealers to cross-sell inventory, the fact that dealers consistently dump warranty work off onto component manufacturers and the fact that RV mfrs refuse to get off the pay-by-piece salary structure which leads to shoddy build quality, are just 4 of the most common and egregious flaws in the RV industry as a whole.

Lyle

Yes sir, he is not well liked among the Elkhart / Goshen in crowd, because the truth must really get their panties all knotted up. When he mentioned the number of recalls sent out by Forest River awhile ago, they had their legal department instantly start harassing him and the publication. If they spent as much time worrying about their build quality and quality control as they do trying to maintain their farce of an image, they may not have had that amount of recalls to begin with.

Thats always been the nice feature of RV daily report, they were not afraid to throw it out there no matter what it is. Unlike that other site RVBusiness.com, which paints this rosey picture on everything and caters to the Manufacturers and suppliers, along with the RVIA and RVDA, to the point you want to heave your breakfast.