aguablanco wrote:
gmw photos wrote:
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: making these trailers of a much higher quality would add a "significant" number of dollars to the purchase price. It just might price them beyond what a lot of folks ( especially those with young families ) could afford to spend on what is a non-essential purchase.
I'd rather have a less expensive buy in price, and have to fix a few things myself.
I've fixed drawers, cabinet doors and some of the support pieces under the dinette seat, etc on my trailer. None of my fixes have cost me more than the cost of a few screws, some glue and a few hours of my labor. I'll take that tradeoff, and use the saved dollars to go on more camping trips.
As I always say: some assembly required, best owned by those with a love for tinkering.
Having been a Millwright for 20 years I too love tinkering. However, tinkering should be for improvements and repairs. It should not take the place of quality control. The way I see this issue is the manufacturers are already buying and assembling all of the components for our coaches, how much more can it cost to do it correctly? I am not asking that my trailer be the equivalent of an Airstream in quality of materials, I am asking for quality workmanship and competent QC. If, as you state, it only takes a few fasteners and a few hours to bring the coach up to standard, how little would it cost the factory to do the same at the time of construction? We are way too easy on the manufacturers and retailers, and until we quit accepting inferior workmanship they will continue with business as usual.
RichH
Unfortunately that does not seem to be the trend.
Sunline,Travel Supreme,Carriage and recently DRV are all manufacturers that built stellar reputations based on building quality units that were a little better than the rest.
They are all defunct and out of business now due to poor sales.
We all want quality,we just don't want to pay for it.
The average built units continue to sell business as usual and the quality makers file bankruptcy.
