Very Disappointed with New Keystone Alpine

Again, this is not a speed issue. Quality is a culture. A bad worker doesn’t automatically get better when they do it slower.

I agree with the above statement. Quality is a culture and it comes from the very top of the company. I am an electronics engineer and I have worked for 13 companies over 40 years. In the later years, I was a contractor and I worked short-duration jobs for many different companies. As I was moving around a lot, I could quickly sense the differences in attitudes about quality versus time and cost. It only took a week or two to get a feel for how things were run. Companies that specialized in military and aerospace products always focused on quality while consumer product companies generally focused on cost and time to market.

While I understand that RVs are price sensitive, that there are boom and bust periods in the industry, and that money is only made during the boom times, I simply do not understand or condone the total disregard for basic principles of workmanship. Case in point is the debris under the TPO membrane on my brand new Keystone Alpine. It is obvious that the decking was not cleaned off before the membrane was laid down. There are so many staples, screws, and wood chips under it that I was shocked when I discovered it.

I feel fairly certain that this total disregard for quality comes from the top of Keystone as this is a quote from their owners manual:

"Because of the manufacturing process, air pickets and/or visible spots may be seen in the roof material. These visible spots can be caused by debris (wood, staples, screws, etc.) that are between the roof material and decking or by imperfections occurring during the roof material manufacture. In most cases, these are considered cosmetic in nature and seldom require any corrective action."

It is their "manufacturing process" to leave word, staples, and screws on the decking. How long does it take to sweep or vacuum the decking of a trailer? Is the roof not one of the most critical areas of an RV's life expectancy? If you were building RVs, wouldn't you want to ensure that the roof was well manufactured and that it would not develop leaks after the owner walked on it?

This is the same company that manufactures the Montana brand that is touted as the most popular brand of 5th wheel on the market. I am told that Alpines are manufactured on the same assembly line as Montana. It makes sense as they are the two luxury brands from Keystone and they have similar floor plans. So luxury to Keystone does not in any way imply quality. I *assumed* it did. My mistake.

In summary, the notion that lazy workers are the problem with the poor quality of RVs is not my view of things. I firmly believe that quality is driven from the top of any company and that lack of quality, while not a deliberate outcome, is a conscious decision by a company to save on manufacturing costs. The RV industry is in a boom time and Keystone is making as much money as it can while it can. Does it go as high as the parent company Thor? I suspect so but obviously have no way of knowing.