After owning my new Winnebago Era 70A for a few weeks, I decided to take it to a local Winnebago dealer to have some warranty work done. Nothing major, really, some adjustments/repairs, and a couple of items need to be replaced (a non-functioning tail light, etc.).... In other words, typical warranty items. I went over my list with the service department yesterday and they said it would take a week or so since there were a few parts to order. Today, I get a phone call from the Service Department stating their GM instructed them to do NO Warranty work on my Era since I did not buy it from them!! Bear in mind, this dealer is an authorized Winnebago Dealer and is on Winnebago's official list. I have never heard of an authorized dealer refusing to do warrantly work before. Is this typical of Winnebago dealers? I have contacted Winnebago on this and they are "Looking into the matter".. meanwhile, my RV sits in that dealers lot waiting for me to pick it up. Any sugggestions? Do I have any recourse? Unfortunately, I don't know of any other Winnebago authorized dealers in our metro area and I really don't want to drive 700 miles (rountrip to the dealer where I purchased the RV) to get these issues taken care of. Suggestions?

I've always found Winnebago to be responsive to customer service. I would make a lot of noise (squeaky wheel) with a senior person at Winnebago. If the authorized dealer is having a problem perhaps Winnebago will authorize a local repair shop to complete the service. As for the dealer, I would pick up my RV as soon as possible and get in writing, perhaps on the service order, their refusal to perform the service. JMHO and best of luck.

This is typical of the entire and not specific to one manufacturer. What most of us do is find a local independent RV repair shop who is not a dealer and that is authorized to make warranty repairs and have them do the repairs..

Why did you drive the 700 miles to buy it instead of buying from the local dealer? Just curious.I would go get the RV as soon as possible and ask to meet with the GM and the Owner if they are not one in the same.

Trust me, this is not unusual at all. If you think about it from the dealer's perspective it makes a lot of sense, not so much from the Manufacturers viewpoint. The dealer has invested in that service department and a customer who goes somewhere else and buys cheaper and then wants his good service is not very welcome.Part of the problem is that the manufacturer often does not pay enough to cover actual costs on "minor" warranty repairs.I spent 40 plus years working for automotive and truck manufacturers and working with dealers. This is not an unusual situation. Car manufacturers have a little bigger stick to force dealers to honor all warranty work. Often a dealer will take a unit in and just let it sit until they have time to "get around to it", after they finish their work for all of THIER customers.Why did you not purchase from the local dealer? Hope you saved enough money to take it to the guy you did buy from and he has a capable service department.

Great question, Wildtoad. I tried to buy my RV from my local dealer for over a year and 1/2. I wanted to look at (and drive) an Era 70A. They never had one in stock when I visited (at least three different occasions), and they never called me to let me know if they ever got one in some other time. I finally drove up to the factory in Forest City so I could actually feel, drive and taste a 70A. I liked what I saw and the dealer up there made me an offer I could not refuse. When I did this, my first concern was warranty support and I was repeatedly assured that any authorized dealer will gladly perform any required warranty work.

Dealer refusing to do Warranty work? | Good Sam Community

Bumpyroad
Explorer
Apr 18, 2014
debandi wrote:
Iowa may be snow free this time of year.

I wouldn't bet on it. :)
bumpy
debandi
Explorer
Apr 18, 2014
Take it back to Winnebago, I believe they will do the warranty work. Iowa may be snow free this time of year.
GeoBoy
Explorer
Apr 18, 2014
After reading these 7 pages, and the fact that the OP is new to RVing, the OP saved substancial money buying their Winnebago from another dealer, I think that the OP should call the selling dealer and arrange a date when that dealer can fix the warranty items at their facility. The money the OP saved should pay for the trip, and make a vacation out it.
FernandoSanders
Explorer
Apr 15, 2014
I do agree that if once you have get done any work from from out side or local shop then dealers refuse to do work on the same because of some rule they already mentioned in rule book,i also faced the same case and had get get done all the work from local shop.
kendall69
Explorer
Apr 15, 2014
For all the people WHINING about the dealer not making " money " on warranty work, number one THEY SIGNED UP FOR THE DEALERSHIP , no one held a gun to their head. THEY NEGOTIATED all compensation deals with whomever they are dealers for, no one held a gun to their head during those negotiations.

Now for the cry babies trying to blame the OP for buying an RV on the cheap from an out of state dealer - ARE YOU SERIOUS ??????

Let me explain this very slowly for you all. When I buy from dealer "A" from out of state and don't buy from my local dealer "B" GUESS WHAT, another guy bought an RV from Dealer "B" and gets it service from Dealer "A".

Most RV's get service by other than their buying dealership because...WAIT FOR IT........RV'S are on the road all the time and hardly ever are at HOME BASE. So having another dealer service your rig is NOT unusual and should not be a foreign concept to all RV dealers. Furthermore none of us should be PUNISHED for having someone other than the purchasing dealer service our rigs,

What the OP is going through is unconscionable and the offending dealer should be poster here and we should all contact him as a group and give him a piece of out mined.

We should all vote with our wallets.

As an industry we the people should put out foot down and let dealers, manufacturers and the government know we will not stand for this abuse.

The manufacturer has teh power to pull the franchise from the offending dealer and should.

Lastly if it was me, both Winnebago and the dealership would be in a law suite for making me waste my time at no fault of my own.

Sorry but sometimes that what it takes for dealers and manufacturers to wake up and stop treating us buyers like a red headed cousin.

They wine and dine us till we buy then forget we're alive once we sign the contract.
bob_nestor
Explorer III
Apr 14, 2014
1775 wrote:
It is not unusual for a dealer to say that they only service under warranty what they sell. When we were shopping for our Roadtrek, one dealer that we were pricing at told us that if we purchased from someone else, he would not service it under warranty. Pretty much some dealers do whatever they want.

Being an authorized dealer for a manufacturer though means that refusing to do warranty work on a unit sold by another dealer reflects badly on the manufacturer. Some manufacturers are sensitive to that and Roadtrek is one. I purchased my Roadtrek from a local dealer who no longer carries Roadtrek and they understandably were hesitant to do warranty work for me, but they did tell me who the new Roadtrek dealer was. When I contacted them I did get the response of "well if we didn't sell it we won't do the warranty work on it". I contacted Roadtrek, they asked for details and I got a call from the dealer asking me to bring it in. They've since lost their Roadtrek dealership and it has gone to another local dealer who seems to have a much more positive attitude.
mlts22
Explorer
Apr 14, 2014
I've talked to CW reps who have said that one CW will do warranty work on another CW's sold product. Not sure if that is helpful or not, but it did earn a point in my book.
Johnworth914
Explorer
Apr 13, 2014
wildtoad wrote:
Why did you drive the 700 miles to buy it instead of buying from the local dealer? Just curious.

I would go get the RV as soon as possible and ask to meet with the GM and the Owner if they are not one in the same.

RV dealers are not Car dealers. They are not required to perform warranty work on RVs bought elsewhere. Why DID you drive 1400 miles (RT) to buy when you had a local dealer? How much did you "save?"

Did you know that warranty work is often a LOSS for dealers due to low reimbursement rates? It's not surprising that they don't want to support someone who does not work with them.
tgreening
Explorer
Feb 17, 2014
I had a sales rep at my local camping world tell me they generally wouldn't do warranty work on units they didn't sell. I needed work done and went to service anyway. When I told them this story the service rep just laughed. He said Sales have their sales goals..and so do I. Bring it in.

In the long run I did find myself a local rv service center that does warranty work, and I've been happy with them.
tbred
Explorer II
Feb 16, 2014
NMace wrote:
I have never had a problem with Camping World honoring my warranty no matter where I purchased it. In fact where I purchased it has never even came up.

Same here.