Sad Development At Cedar Creek!

[MPI_Mallard]

Ya' know when something's going good you can always rely on some idiot to screw things up which is now the case at Cedar Creek's fiver'
division! About a month ago I called (repeatedly) cedar Creek's fifth wheel tech department and after about a week and a half they finally called me back. I wanted to inquire about buying new day-night blinds for my Daydreamer and was told that Cedar Creek will NO LONGER be selling parts or doing any OUT-OF Warranty repairs and from now on we CC owners will have to go through the dealership! The last time I dealt with the "stealership" the in warranty repairs (The extended warranty wasn't worth the paper it was printed on)cost me over $600(one of the sales people were at a car show and wondered why I didn't want to buy a new fiver off them, right!). So now I have a leaky water supply line on my fridge and again I called CC's tech department from last Tuesday until today with,, wait for it,, NO RESPONSE! I left several messages that I just wanted to know how to pull the Amana Residential fridge out of the cabinet properly to repair the supply line myself, luckily my local RV shop back in Canada (Tisdell RV in Tilbury Ont. Great shop,,) told me how to do the whole she-bang (thanks Larry) so for the last long while I was one of those "Creekers" bragging about how great the outstanding after-the-sale customer service is that probably sold many fiver's (three of which I know of) has come to a unfortunate end, thanks for nothing Warren!

Red Green: We now come to the part of the show
called "If it ain't broke, you're not trying!"

[MPI_Mallard]

garyp4951 wrote:
No offense to the op, but I could never see myself complaining about the factory not telling me how to remove a refrigerator on a 12 year old unit, or not selling me things that are sold elsewhere.
As others have stated, you need to find a good mobile rv tech, or dealer, if you can't make the repairs yourself.

Actually Gary I do most repairs/maintenance myself and here in Florida finding a good "on-site" RV tech is impossible period! One of the great things about owning a Cedar Creek was the after-the-sale support I got which translates into dollars and grief saved in the long run, my buddy next door has an electrical issue with his coach and can't find anyone here that can do diagnostics just replacement artists! My fiver' costed over $90+K which isn't chicken feed and asking the proper way to remove a heavy refrigerator out of a cabinet 18" above the floor against a wall was not a big ask but warren and the big-wigs figured out that we customers don't need that support when we can simply buy a new rig,,,

Red Green: Be generous with the duct tape, you
know; spare the duct tape, spoil the job.

[topjimmy]

Yep it's a Shame My 3 Montana's have always come with Sony or Samsung Tv's and Surround sound My 2015 Monty is Really good quality Sony stuff same with the standard rear cap and Mor-ryde-re4000 susp Pin Box etc.. I use to give my buddy With a Grand Design Guff for not having this good stuff.. Not Any More now Montana and everybody else all have the same lame stuff trying to save Cash ,I will just keep my 2015 Monty Thanx

Ralph Cramden wrote:

97FLHTCUI wrote:
was at the frog rally in Aug 2018 and during the factory tour all the rep talked about is price point and said they were going more and more with chinese goods. i told them i want quality and will pay more for it. they stopped putting fiberglass rear caps on cedar creek and cardinal. look at the electronics they use now. no longer giving service at rally unless 2 yrs or less. as far as dealership servicing your rig, they couldnt punch there way out of a paperbag.

As if they were not crammed full of imported garbage previously? I have never seen electronics in an RV that could be considered Audiophile grade or win best of show? Maybe in a Prevost or something. For at least the last 10 years or so you were going to get Concertone, ASA/Jensen, and more recently IRV or the new total junk award winner Furrion, a partner of Lippert. One thing for sure, and that is if it it says or is associated with Lippert and has a wire, its going to fail at some point and replacing or repairing it is going to cost dearly. It's their MO.


I bet the Forest River Kool Aid drinkers at the Frog Rally were upping the Arsenic content in the punchbowl when they announced that 2 year policy? Good for Forest River. At the one we attended a few years back there were so many freeloaders expecting their 10 year old rigs to be repaired gratis, in a lot of cases due to damage they caused themselves, that it was enough to almost make one want to stick their finger down their throat and blow chunks. It was loads of fun watching them load their plates to overflowing at the sponsored dinners, then get on the forum afterwards and B&M about the food LOL.

[garyp4951]

Dang, wish I hadn't read this before breakfast.

[Ralph_Cramden]

97FLHTCUI wrote:
was at the frog rally in Aug 2018 and during the factory tour all the rep talked about is price point and said they were going more and more with chinese goods. i told them i want quality and will pay more for it. they stopped putting fiberglass rear caps on cedar creek and cardinal. look at the electronics they use now. no longer giving service at rally unless 2 yrs or less. as far as dealership servicing your rig, they couldnt punch there way out of a paperbag.

As if they were not crammed full of imported garbage previously? I have never seen electronics in an RV that could be considered Audiophile grade or win best of show? Maybe in a Prevost or something. For at least the last 10 years or so you were going to get Concertone, ASA/Jensen, and more recently IRV or the new total junk award winner Furrion, a partner of Lippert. One thing for sure, and that is if it it says or is associated with Lippert and has a wire, its going to fail at some point and replacing or repairing it is going to cost dearly. It's their MO.


I bet the Forest River Kool Aid drinkers at the Frog Rally were upping the Arsenic content in the punchbowl when they announced that 2 year policy? Good for Forest River. At the one we attended a few years back there were so many freeloaders expecting their 10 year old rigs to be repaired gratis, in a lot of cases due to damage they caused themselves, that it was enough to almost make one want to stick their finger down their throat and blow chunks. It was loads of fun watching them load their plates to overflowing at the sponsored dinners, then get on the forum afterwards and B&M about the food LOL.

[97FLHTCUI]

was at the frog rally in Aug 2018 and during the factory tour all the rep talked about is price point and said they were going more and more with chinese goods. i told them i want quality and will pay more for it. they stopped putting fiberglass rear caps on cedar creek and cardinal. look at the electronics they use now. no longer giving service at rally unless 2 yrs or less. as far as dealership servicing your rig, they couldnt punch there way out of a paperbag.

[philh]

ACZL wrote:
Here is a saying that someone wrote and on our fridge which goes along with your quote:

"Good enough isn't good enough if it can be better and better isn't good enough if it can be best".

How many times have people asked, "what is the best quality RV?", which is immediately followed by, "That brand costs too much".

IMO, Cedar Creek is a pseudo premium brand, and got more money for their product. It happened to be on my short list. Just looked at them last night at the Novi MI show, and the visual quality is way down, it is very obvious. My guesstimate, they are 10k in higher cost then their competitors... for what appears to be the same apparent quality.

[ACZL]

philh wrote:
There's an adage in program management, it needs to be good enough.

Make it too good, and lose business.

Make it not good enough, and lose business.

Confounding business today is the ultra low interest rates leading to customers just buying.

This saddens me with CC, because they were at the top of my list. Co-Worker recently looked at their product, and said there was an obvious cheapening of the brand.

Here is a saying that someone wrote and on our fridge which goes along with your quote:

"Good enough isn't good enough if it can be better and better isn't good enough if it can be best".

[philh]

There's an adage in program management, it needs to be good enough.

Make it too good, and lose business.

Make it not good enough, and lose business.

Confounding business today is the ultra low interest rates leading to customers just buying.

This saddens me with CC, because they were at the top of my list. Co-Worker recently looked at their product, and said there was an obvious cheapening of the brand.

[ACZL]

Quantity before quality.

[garyp4951]

Its not only the RV industry, because when I was a home builder, I would go behind many sub contractors, and fix what they messed up before it got covered up.

[goducks10]

In order to stay within a price point some things have to be cut out. Remember when Montana had a fiberglass rear cap as standard? Remember when a bag of chips was fuller?
I'm assuming that MFG's are under pressure to keep costs down and with the price of everything increasing it just makes sense to eliminate some finer touches to keep RV's affordable to more buyers.

[laknox]

Super_Dave wrote:
Here's a twisted thought, maybe it is the fact that workers don't give a chit anymore and expect a paycheck for doing as little work as possible? talk to business owners in a variety of industries and hear the stories about the difficulty finding qualified help that wants to work.

Not at all. Be willing to bet that a goodly percentage of the guys on the floor would =like= to take more time, but since they're paid by the piece, the more they turn out, the more they get paid. I've been saying for the past several years that, IMO, that's the #1 reason for the cr@ppy quality that we see. Mgt says build X units today and, when you're done, go home. So, X units get built in 6 hours and they go home or, in a lot of cases, maybe a 2nd job. Stupid. I'd still like to see valid numbers on how much each mfr spends on warranty claims and how much they =deny=!

Hell, my family grows citrus in CA and the guys picking are unbelievably fast, but if they start turning in fruit that's not picked correctly, or is damaged, they're gone, and I mean paid off and off the crew on the spot. The packing house, who our crews actually work for, simply can't afford junk fruit wasting space and time.

Lyle

[Super_Dave]

Here's a twisted thought, maybe it is the fact that workers don't give a chit anymore and expect a paycheck for doing as little work as possible? talk to business owners in a variety of industries and hear the stories about the difficulty finding qualified help that wants to work.

[JTrac]

We went to our local boat/travel show last week. For the past several years my wife has enjoyed looking at the few Cedar Creek models there as she thought she might like one someday. We went in a couple of them and she asked what happened. Her impression was they did not have the quality look and feel of the past models. It was hard for me to tell the difference between them and some on the floor at half the price. In their defense that was just an eye test so they may be great for all I know.

Having needed only one minor slide adjustment on our orphaned Excel in 7 seasons of use it will probably get 7 more, if I'm lucky. We've put over 50K miles on it and had it over some the nastiest roads this country has to offer and so far it has held up well. I did invest in the MorRyde IS a year ago to hopefully help it hold together on the rough stuff.

We love the floorplans on some of the new models but that is only part of the equation. I want something that holds up. It it seems most manufacturers know quality means higher costs for their products which starts limiting their market. I think that is what happened to Excel and few others that tried to produce a decent product. They just could not compete with other manufacturers who could dress up their units and sell them for half the price.