wowens79 wrote:
It's going to take a company coming out with a better product with a longer warranty and taking business away from FR and Thor. Seems like there have been a few that started to, but they were bought by them.
Airstream is a step above in quality, but also in price. Also a product with no slides appeals to a limited audience.
The US auto makers were producing sketchy products, and then Honda and Toyota started putting a hurt on them, and they have improved tremendously. We've got a Honda Pilot, and a Chevy Truck that both have over 200k on them, and the amount of repairs have been minimal on both.
Up until last June Forest River was offering an additional year of the factory warranty on most towable brands for between $150 and $300 depending on the brand, Some F.R. lines such as Coachmen did not offer it but most did. Forest River stopped it June 1 and the "official" reason was "Due to some states enacting legislation that made offering the warranty extension illegal".
Let me translate that. What they were actually saying was "Due to the massive financial outlay we incur warranting our hastily assembled junk longer than we can get away with, we can no longer offer it as it takes too much away from the bottom line".
Even F.R.'s basic one year warranty is a piece of work. The entire system from approval, to parts acquisition and shipping, to dealer network requirements, is all designed to run out the clock. As much as possible is pawned back to the component suppliers, and that usually runs out more time. Thats why there is so much to be found regarding owners losing use of there unit for weeks and months while it's in for warranty repairs. They announced with much fanfare in the trade publications and websites around the same time, that they were now allowing dealers to use parts from other sources for warranty repairs in a feeble attempt to deflect attention from the extended warranty cancellation announcement.
mowingman wrote:
It really does not matter how long the warranty is for. As a rule of thumb, most RV warrantys are not worth the paper they are written on.
HALLELUJAH