Dealer refusing to do Warranty work?

trukeeper...I understand your point about the dealer...however none of us know his business. If you were one of a handful that inquired about a certain model or floorplan most dealers are not going to add a unit to their floorplan costs for a sale they may never make. As for not following up...you are right. poor communication on his part. We bought a new unit in 09...it was a left over 07 that because of complicated circumstances the dealer had a large number of units he was disposing for the factory at low prices. I got a MSRP 42,000 trailer for just over 17,000 with full warranty. A year later had a major issue which the dealer took care of and the factory made delam repairs and a complete new roof all at no charge. Hence when we decided to buy a new rig last year we not only stuck with the brand but also the same dealer which is 2 hours from me...1.5 hours further then the local guy. It was all about service and treatment from that dealer....not saying the local guy is not a good guy buy to me I reward the guy that did me right....even if its not as closet for service. Then again I would not expect the closer dealer to do my warranty work as if it was close enough to buy its close enough for repair....JMHO

spadoctor wrote:
The RV industry is NOT like the auto industry. Auto dealers are required under federal law to do warranty work on the vehicle no matter where it was purchased. You may have to wait but they have to do it. Not so with an RV. My first 2 trailers came from a family members dealership. As has been stated here items like adjustments and paint touchups are covered under the PDI fee paid to the selling dealer and NOT paid for later. Only repairs are covered and at that it like pulling teeth to get paid. Some manufacturers even charge freight on warranty parts ordered. I know of 2 dealers that dropped all Forest River products because the could not get paid....even when they had prerepair authorization. One did a repair as a favor to the factory on a different brand FR product then he sold....was given written go ahead and did the repair only to never get paid by FR. My current dealer told me he puts a small amount of money into a warranty slush fund to cover things he cant get paid or...yet has to pay the help and parts. I think if I was in their position I too would be leary of doing another dealers work....IF it was a local residents unit but not for someone traveling. They are in business to make mony not lose. The only fault I find with the OP....he should have called that local dealer with the number he gave to the Iowa dealer and given him the chance to sell or not. Then he would have a better case.

I can certainly appreciate any dealer's need to make money.. if they don't they will be out of business. I understand your point regarding bouncing the offer I got from the Iowa dealer off the local guys.. I fully intended to do just that.. what I didn't plan on, however, was the Iowa dealer accepting my initial offer right off the bat.. no negotiations, nothing.. strangest vehicle sale I've ever experienced. Even though I felt I got a very good deal, when a sale goes like that you can't help but think you left some money on the table. I mean, the whole negotiation took about 5 minutes. Regardless, in my own defense, if my local dealer would have taken even the SLIGHTEST bit of initiative over the prior year and 1/2 to follow up with me, arrange for me to see a 70A, or even make a simple phone call or send a single email checking up with me regarding my interest in buying a Winnebago, I probably would have purchased from them 6-10 months ago. Bottom line, I do feel a little bad I didn't buy from my local dealer this time, but I absolutely do not feel guilty about it in the least.

Observation:
We hear all the crying and moaning about BAD dealers. I bet it would be really interesting to hear the other side of the story!

Gee I went across 3 states to buy mine. But, I only cared about chassis warranty, the rv part I just wanted information, which was easy to get by phone or email. Fortunately, I didn't need any chassis work and very little information. The docs that came with the van were lousy.

Just how much business does the KC dealer lose by treating any customer like that? Hard to say, but the way it was handled was stupid. I've been in sales my whole life and if I were going to tell a customer I couldn't cover repairs, i would not say it's because you didn't buy it from me, I would show him the refusal by Winnebago to authorize the repairs and let them take the heat. If that is the reason, if it's just the GM being a jerk, then I'd say that too. A loyal customer is worth more than a couple hundred dollars, just in referrals and local good will. I guarantee you that the possibility of making that money back is easy when you treat people well, and by treating them poorly, you lose 10x that amount. Maybe more.
I've never worked in the rv world, but I've never lost money by taking care of a customer.

The RV industry is NOT like the auto industry. Auto dealers are required under federal law to do warranty work on the vehicle no matter where it was purchased. You may have to wait but they have to do it. Not so with an RV. My first 2 trailers came from a family members dealership. As has been stated here items like adjustments and paint touchups are covered under the PDI fee paid to the selling dealer and NOT paid for later. Only repairs are covered and at that it like pulling teeth to get paid. Some manufacturers even charge freight on warranty parts ordered. I know of 2 dealers that dropped all Forest River products because the could not get paid....even when they had prerepair authorization. One did a repair as a favor to the factory on a different brand FR product then he sold....was given written go ahead and did the repair only to never get paid by FR. My current dealer told me he puts a small amount of money into a warranty slush fund to cover things he cant get paid or...yet has to pay the help and parts. I think if I was in their position I too would be leary of doing another dealers work....IF it was a local residents unit but not for someone traveling. They are in business to make mony not lose. The only fault I find with the OP....he should have called that local dealer with the number he gave to the Iowa dealer and given him the chance to sell or not. Then he would have a better case.

It is not unusual for a dealer to say that they only service under warranty what they sell. When we were shopping for our Roadtrek, one dealer that we were pricing at told us that if we purchased from someone else, he would not service it under warranty. Pretty much some dealers do whatever they want.

bobojay5 wrote:
I tried to deal with the local dealer also, the one trukeeper is speaking of, with almost the same results. They didn't initially refuse to do any warranty work, but it sat on the lot out there for almost 6 weeks before they touched it. I can say they did fix the small issues their were with no other problems. This was on our previous RV.
I tried to get a good price quote from them on the new ERA we bought last year, and they were about 10k higher than Lichtsinn's up in Iowa, and didn't seem to be interested in pursuing our business any further.
Unfortunately, the next closest ERA dealer to us is about 130 miles away, and they are even worse to deal with....

You know, the irony here is that that new Camper's World superstore that opened up recently in Grain Valley told me they would LOVE to do warranty work on my Winnebago, but they can't because there is already an authorized warranty provider in the KC Metro area (yup, the one I am having problems with) and Winnebago won't authorize them (even though their "sister" center in Columbia WILL provide warranty service.

bigdogger wrote:
Things like adjustments, bad light bulbs, fit and finish are covered by the amount the selling dealer is paid for PDI. The dealer you want to cover those items probably is looking at getting paid ZERO for their effort. And now you have drug the local dealer thru the mud on this forum. Any hope for some goodwill by climbing the dealer's management ladder is probably long gone.

When the Service Adviser called me this morning and told me to come get my RV as they were ordered to provide NO warranty support by their GM, I was really left with no option but to call Winnebago. It wasn't like they were going to put me at the back of the line and get to me when they had nothing else to do.. they explicitly stated that since I did not buy my coach from them they would provide no, zero, nada, warranty support. As to dragging these guys through the mud on these forums... I have not even started on that one... as you can see, I have not mentioned this dealer's name.. primarily because I am trying NOT to drag their names through the mud at this point. The factory has been in contact with the GM, and it appears he has re-thought his position on providing warranty support... we will see what the next few days bring to see if progress has really been made.

John & Angela wrote:
Having sat in the service managers chair in an RV dealer I'll give you an idea what could or might have happened. Any warranty work must be authorized by the manufacturer, the dealer has no say in it. If the manufacturer considers the items to be "adjustments" (and yes that is the word used) the dealer is expected to cover that on their own dime. Really its part of the PDI expense of the dealer. If you bring the unit to a dealer where you did not buy it, any tech time (read money) that that dealer puts into it is plain and simply lost revenue, eg direct bleeding of cash...eg burning money...whatever you want to call it. You have a couple of options which I had reasonable success with if indeed this is what happened.

1. Ask the service manager if it was not authorized by Winnebago. If that is the case, contact Winnebago and ask them if they would consider compensating the dealer for his time as your dealer is a long ways away.

2. Call your dealer and ask them if they would consider compensating the dealer where you are for their time. This happens frequently.

3. Take it back to your dealer.

Hope this helps. My experience has been that usually there is a way to make it work as long as it doesn't come out of the pocket of the non selling dealer. If its straight out warranty stuff they won't do it is probably because they are busy and they make more money on retail than on warranty for a unit they didn't sell.

Either way, I wish you good luck and happy trails.

Thanks for the helpful insight. When I took my coach in yesterday and went over my list, I had a good conversation with the service adviser. We talked about how little they are paid for warranty work by the factory, and I told him then that I would work with him on things. For instance, there are a handful of paint blemishes on the exterior that I simply asked that if they could get the factory to send them a small vial of touchup paint, I would be glad to take care of those items myself. What I really wanted the dealer to handle was validating things that needed replacement parts and procuring those parts. I told him I was more than happy to install any parts they did not feel they could make any money installing themselves. I also told the service folks that if there are any items that the factory would not cover, I would take those issues up with the dealer where I purchased. I NEVER expected this dealer to eat the costs of any repairs I needed, and I made that very clear from the start. When the service adviser called me this morning to tell me the GM ordered him to not do any work on my coach, it was crystal clear he was as shocked as I was over all this.
At any rate, your other suggestions are good. I have already contacted the dealer where I purchased my Era, and they expressed willingness to work with this dealer as well to get all the items taken care of...

I have bought 4 RVs over the years (all towables). The first one was more of an impulse buy than a carefully considered purchase. It was a popup But, it worked out, because they were great ad standing by their project. We bought our next one from them, too. Then they closed up shop in the recession. We wanted to buy a new popup. It took us a while because we wanted a good brand and a dealer we felt comfortable with, who was close by. We succeeded.

We also have a full sized trailer we store about 3 hours from here, and it spotted on and off a site at an RV park. Then again, we considered a local, well regarded dealer as important as the brand we bought.