Carefree Electric Awning Failure

[william_davey]

I have a 14 month old 5th wheel trailer with a Carefree Travel'r power awning installed. Below is my correspondence with Carefree and their response. Judge for yourself.

CUSTOMER INQUIRY:
52 days after the 1 year warranty expired, my awning arms became bent severely because the gas strut froze in the fully extended position. The awning arms stuck about 4 feet out so I could not travel to a servicing center. I had a mobile RV tech replace the awning arms with adjustable pitch arms (both ends) because the tech was informed that the fixed pitch arms were no longer available. I am requesting some good faith reimbursement for the cost of the new arms ($948.00) since the awning was less than 2 months beyond the warranty and because it's failure left me stranded for a week in a RV park until the arms could be replaced. receipts and photos available.

CAREFREE RESPONSE:
Dear Mr. Davey,
Good afternoon and thank you for your email. It is unfortunately this has occurred, but you are outside your Carefree warranty period. I have attached a copy of the Retail Warranty Procedure/Policy for you to review. I did notice that the part number listed below, OV2553-MP is the Fixed Steep Pitch Travel'R arms which are still available It is the Fixed Flat Pitch version that was discontinued. We are unable to offer any reimbursement.
Kim McEachern
Customer Care Representative
Carefree of Colorado
2145 W 6th Ave
Broomfield, CO 80020

MY RESPONSE TO CAREFREE
Kimberly,
I knew I was outside the warranty period, as stated in my email. FYI,
my 5th wheel trailer has 3 Carefree Slide toppers - 2 of which began to fail after only 8-9 months of ownership. Then my Carefree power awning failed exactly 52 days beyond the first year of ownership. By the way, the LED light strip installed in this awning began to fail almost immediately upon purchase of the trailer and now only about one-quarter of the LED's work. To say I'm disappointed with the durability and quality of Carefree products is putting it mildly. I did NOT ask for my entire out of pocket expenses ($1,250 ); and I did NOT ask for reimbursement for the added expense for the delay in my trip. As far as the availability of the correct replacement arms, please consider that this occurred when I was on a trip 1500 miles from home. The repair tech dealt with Arrow RV in Clearwater Florida and ordered parts based on their recommendation and a conversation with "Tony" who answered the Carefree tech support phone.
Your company obviously has no regard for customer satisfaction or repeat business. I will never own or recommend a Carefree product again, and I will tell my story on as many RV owners forums as possible (iRV2; RV.net; KZ Family forum; KZ Owners Group and Escapees.net). I will also contact the KZ factory and explain the poor performance of your products and recommend that they change suppliers.
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Central New York; 2013 KZ Stoneridge Sportster (TH)
2012 Ram 3500 Big Horn, Dually, Max-tow; 2002 Harley Heritage Classic

[Big_Katuna]

Hindsight is always 20/20. Lousy response from Carefree IMHO.
They could AT LEAST offered a partial reimbursement or even help on a future repair.

[8iron]

You have my sympathies. When a company knowingly and continually produce an inferior product and hide behind a warranty with no accountability they have no incentive to change. We as RV'ers are unfortunately stuck with these products for as long as people like the above responders are ok with the current state of the industry.

Keep poking the bear!

[pugslyyy]

OP had an out of warranty product failure. OP asked manufacturer to cover it anyways. manufacturer said no but responded with appropriate info on how to obtain repair parts. OP rants and raves.

obviously they didn't know what a big important person OP was. Now that he has set them straight I'm sure they will change their minds. 🙂

Seriously, things wear out. If you don't like the warranty / quality then by all means try and find a product that better meets your needs the next time around - but don't cry because someone actually did what they told you they were going to do.

btw, I'm not delighted with my Carefree but that just means I'm not going to buy another.

[Francesca_Knowl]

Frankly, I think demanding a thousand dollars from Carefree for a reimbursement on a clearly out-of-warranty repair is way over the top.

Sounds to me like you might have a legitimate beef with the guy who told you that the correct parts weren't available anymore, though- especially if the cost turned out to be more than replacement-in-kind would have.

Late edit:

Wow- just looked up the part you needed- at PPL's website, a PAIR of replacement arms would have cost a little more than half of what that RV tech nailed you for...and you only needed one arm, right?

Sounds to me like you got taken, all right- but not by Carefree!