Doom for the RV industry???

JimK-NY wrote:
If we want a comparison to the auto industry, remember how bad those 1970 cars were. Remember the sabotage that often occurred due to the union-management battles. The door was open for Toyota, VW, Datsun and a host of other foreign manufacturers. Many of us gladly and quickly jumped ship for the newer choices and some of us will never return to buying American cars. The RV industry is in need of foreign competition. Maybe the Chinese....or we can at least hope...

Did you run out and purchase a I-Camp trailer (Chinese built travel trailer)? Neither did anyone else. Most of the components in your RV are already built by Lippert in China.

jseyfert3 wrote:

down home wrote:

Look at what has happened to the auto industry in the US since the Seventies. how many choices do you now have? How many did we have in 1970?

Not sure what you're getting at here. You seem to be implying the natural course of things is towards fewer choices and monopolies. Being a young guy (born in '91) I certainly wasn't around in the 70's, but from what I read there is way more choice now that in the 70's, and all of it much higher quality than the 70's. Which seems opposite your point, unless I misunderstand you?

I'm not down home but your assessment of fewer choices and monopolies is correct. Their were way more manufacturers (especially the quality high end brands) that went out of business (a lot of them during the 2008 downturn). A lot more independent brands were purchased by Thor (Keystone) or Forest River.

If you get a chance look at some of the old high end brands and actually see what quality looks like. Teton, Travel Supreme, Carriage, Excel, NuWa, Continental by Forks, Newmar, Holiday Rambler, just to name a few that no longer exists. Only two custom builders remain New Horizon and Spacecraft. Don't just look at the glitz crawl under and look at the frames and welds and construction. Now their are two big companies and a handful of independent mfgs.

Today it's more about price then quality. There are a lot more Walmarts then Neiman Marcus stores.

If we want a comparison to the auto industry, remember how bad those 1970 cars were. Remember the sabotage that often occurred due to the union-management battles. The door was open for Toyota, VW, Datsun and a host of other foreign manufacturers. Many of us gladly and quickly jumped ship for the newer choices and some of us will never return to buying American cars. The RV industry is in need of foreign competition. Maybe the Chinese....or we can at least hope...

down home wrote:

Look at what has happened to the auto industry in the US since the Seventies. how many choices do you now have? How many did we have in 1970?

Not sure what you're getting at here. You seem to be implying the natural course of things is towards fewer choices and monopolies. Being a young guy (born in '91) I certainly wasn't around in the 70's, but from what I read there is way more choice now that in the 70's, and all of it much higher quality than the 70's. Which seems opposite your point, unless I misunderstand you?

Crowe wrote:
“We find this language plain and … subsection (1)(b) (of the UCC) does not require that a buyer give the seller an opportunity to cure.”

This is BAD news for everyone. Every Tom, Dick and Harriet will be demanding their money back for simple issues that can be fixed. This could quite conceivably just push manufacturers of ANY product out of business as the precedent has been set, not to mention they will have to build the cost of litigation into their pricing.

Or the manufacturers could make sure their products are built well in the first place.
Why is that so hard to do?

valhalla360 wrote:
Sounds like they were yanked around and it literally took an excessive amount of time to address.

Similar to automobiles, if they fix things in a timely manner, it's not covered by lemon laws but if it gets crazy, it is.

Lemon laws vary state to state, but in general, factory representatives (dealers) are given a certain number of attempts to repair an issue. Also there is a limited number of days that the vehicle can be away from the customer. If either are exceeded, it is a "lemon" and must be re-purchased from the customer at full price.

I am sure, every major auto manufacturer has had to "buy back" vehicles. In all case they are repaired and resold, typically with full disclosure and with the full factory warranty "clock" reset to zero.

IMHO, it about time this gets applied to RVs !

drsteve wrote:
No, they aren't doomed. They will, however, have to train their workers better and do QC on site instead of just shipping everything and leaving it to the dealers to find and repair defects before selling the unit.

In the end, they'll find (like the auto manufacturers) that doing it right the first time is more profitable than throwing product together and hoping for the best.

Problem is not necessarily poorly trained or poorly qualified Employees.
To make the mandated profit margins of Hedge Funds and Global Investors, that demand ten times the return we thrived on in the early seventies, they demand quick and sloppy. Let the numerous problems be dealt with at the end of the line by Trainees who will go on to work at Dealerships ect. They get to the Dealers and they examine units and send back a list of deficiencies, missing parts etc and the factory sends them a check or credit to fix them.
Rather than use that money to repair the unit, they add it to the bottom line. Customer finds it is fixed they don't and it isn't.
Getting it fixed may take months even years of trips to the Dealer.
Back to the root of the problem greed. The Hedge Funds and Investors are not in the business of building quality RVs. They are in the business of making money. Quality, and service and and warranty are not profit makers in the new world of Consumerism. Buy it, it breaks, buy two more or in something with the price tags and financial obligation incurred in the purchase spend thousands more for correction and repairs. Get it out the door as cheap as possible and the check in the Investors' accounts. Eventually these business practices will lead to unprofitability, or the levels of ,the Investors demand, and brand will be sold and prices go even higher,and qualityreduced even more since fewer brands, fewer choices has given us monopolies. a monopoly does not have to occupy the whole market to be a monopoly. Fewer Choices is now a competitive monopoly. (my words)
Eventually these practices lead to only one Survivor,in theory.
Look at what has happened to the auto industry in the US since the Seventies. how many choices do you now have? How many did we have in 1970?
However there are some RV mfgs who are in the business of Building RVs.
Country Coach, the Old Country Coach makes the new Country Coach blush in shame.

Hooray! Maybe less scotch locks for wiring splices in the ceilings??

x2 you said it all.

Anyone with experience knows that RVs are poorly made. Many are very poorly made to the point where a punch list of problems is likely to require warranty repairs.

Holding the builders more accountable could be very beneficial to the industry. It could help put more emphasis on quality and could help build some customer confidence in the products.