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travel4family's avatar
Oct 20, 2013

Are "lemons" still made?

Our 1 1/2 year old trailer has several odd things we've fixed, we're having another one this week and today found a third one. Outlined below, does it seem exceedingly strange that this many things are factory wrong --not broken, but put together wrong --on a brand new trailer?

1) furnace did not work on first trip out. Turned out it wasn't hooked to the thermostat (I chalked it up to mistakes happen last spring).

2) on the way home from a 4800 mile trip this July we nearly blew a tire. When going to replace them discovered that the tires and rims were the wrong size for what was spec'd by weight - these are what came from that factory! Shorting us by over a 1000 pounds. They concede it's wrong and are fixing all this next week.

3) today we finished our last trip for the year, dumped and winterized everything and in rinsing things out I realized I thought the tanks weren't draining the way I thought they should. After some screwing around I've figured out that the gray and black tanks are both stickered wrong and the outlets out of them are hooked up wrong -- the 2" pipe is coming out of the black and the 4" out of the gray!

Add to that the caulk was comign out of the shower before we ever used it and we're getting some peeling on the edges of two cupboards and I'm pretty frustrated. We used it a couple of weeks last year and about 25 nights this year. And we're really not hard on things. Do they still get the occasional lemon? THis seems like shoddy workmanship to me. Am I over-reacting?
Thanks
  • Those would be normal "initial quality" problems for RVs, yes they are still common from many manufacturers. Shoddy workmanship is common, inadequate engineering is common, it is all about containing cost to make a profit at the price a buyer is willing to pay.

    "Lemon" has a specific meaning, defined by statute in each state, and "lemon law" is about procedures to provide replacements for vehicles that cannot be fixed under warranty. The law usually what conditions constitute "not repairable" and is about unservicability, time out of service, and failure of multiple attempt to make a repair.

    True "lemons" are pretty rare in the RV world, but unfortunately when a new RV turns out not to be repairable, the state's "lemon law" often doesn't apply, and you are left dealing with the manufacturer by yourself.
  • After four pages of discussion, I’m still left with the unanswered question:
    WHICH MANUFACTURER is the culprit this time, travel4family?
  • Just thought I'd post a quick update, I realize it's been a couple months.

    We had all of our issues fixed in one warranty claim. The fridge, which was not cooling properly on propane on hot days on the road turned out to be missing a shield that goes inside the vent, and there was no insulation around it to keep the cold in, either. The rims and tires were replaced with the proper size for originally stickered for by weight. The sewer tanks did prove to be plumbed backwards and that has also been re-done. For all those who were asking, it was all handled very well by Gulfstream. While of course I would have preferred to have it all correct to begin with, this thread sounds as though these things are pretty common, and I think they did a good job of handling it and following up on everything. Thanks for everyone's advice and comments - very helpful to a first time owner.

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