Keystone Passport Ultralite GT bad news

[ardensille]

My 2012 Passport 2510 RB Grand Touring has developed bubbles all over the front cap. I read this is not delamination since it is made of filon, whatever that is. My warranty of course, is up. I contacted Keystone & they won't pay. I have read so many blogs from other Keystone owners that have the same problem within a 3 yr. period. Not what I would call good quality workmanship. This trailer has a long list of repairs right from buying new. Here are just a few. 2 months after buying. Shower base leak, kitchen faucet leak, slide cables slipping, slide wipes fell off twice, headboard fell off the wall, cupboard door fell off because screws were stripped from new, same with bathroom door, slide repair again 6 months later & again 2nd yr. 50 amp breaker for slide went out, bathroom light fixture stopped working. Electric awning repair, Resealed front & back roof where screws are. Camping World said they were not sealed properly. In my book, this is a lemon. Keystone needs to stop using poor quality materials & workers.

[Drbolasky]

westend wrote:
.....and are forced by management to achieve nearly 100% correct completion of their task. There is no incentive to do it any other way. Where problems start to arise is usually with supervision requiring completion of tasks quicker and not allowing sufficient time.

And therein, IMHO, lies the problem. The "bean counters" have already determined how many units need to be produced in a given time frame to result in a given target for production, sales and (here's the biggie) profit. Management is given the task of achieving those goals, no matter how outlandish or artificial they may be. What is wrong is the "corporate mentality" that is focused only on the short-term outcome. My humble opinion only.

[TacoPuller]

Quality is a huge issue to me, and Ardensille's $20,000 trailer experience hit home yesterday as I was fixing my own trailer. I have had my used Nomad for a few months now. On my last trip, I went on (1) dirt road, and when I got to the site, the kitchen drawers had all broken off their frames. Also, when it rains, there was a leak somewhere in the body that pools up gallons of water in the Coroplast underlayment that needs to be fixed; the smell of mold was starting to become noticeable. Yesterday I decided to work on the trailer instead of taking it on the road, and encountered all kinds of shoddy workmanship in the trailer in places you don't normally look. 6 feet of stripped, but unattached electrical wires disposed of in the underlayment, covered with aluminum and wood chips. The curves of the front of the trailer were not sealed properly, open holes were letting in rain that ran down inside the front of the trailer. White polyurethane hopefully fixes the leak, and a mold bomb hopefully 'solves' the growing mold problem; we'll see. The support for the back of the frames for the drawers was 1/2" too far away for the 'rails support', and didn't attach properly to the 2"x1"x18" piece of rough pine. Rebuilt the frame. Same thing happened to my brother's Outback trailer. The Nomad's internal luan was shaped badly around the frame members, and multiple router-cuts had to be made for it to clear the wheel-wells. Not a big problem, but is indicative of the overall mess. Aluminum chips on the floor running under and next to the power system inverter. Vibration turns that into a shorting hazard. Same thing behind the hot water heater. You can fault me all you want on my comments about workers, but what is wrong with this picture? Shouldn't everyone know that metal chips around 120VAC is probably not a good idea? And it's not just me; see the following link:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/housing/skyline_corp.html
Anyone that thinks this is acceptable is part of the problem.

[westend]

Sfla2 wrote:
hey guys getting little off topic

Sorry for the derailment. I'll keep my opinions about workers to myself in the future.

[Bird_Freak]

Sfla2 wrote:
hey guys getting little off topic

I agree but I think Tacopuller was way out of line with his comments about workers.

[Sfla2]

hey guys getting little off topic

[TacoPuller]

westend wrote:

TacoPuller wrote:
That's just horrible. Yea, we don't want migrants coming in and taking jobs from THOSE workers. From the standpoint that the manufacturers are to blame, yes. They need to a) learn what quality is, b) teach it to their workers, and the ones that won't learn it need to be fired, and c) for the ones the DO learn it, care about them, reward them with a decent wage and don't let them go. Properly assembled, even cheap can last a long time- but you can't expect a donkey to assemble it.

Your post is about the fourth or fifth one I've read that blames the poor quality of RV's on the production workers that assemble them. One poster even stated that the problems were due to the "piece work" process that allegedly is used at the RV plants. I don't know what you did for a living to arrive at these assumptions but they are far from accurate.

Any quality issues start from the top and are directed or filtered downward. In my experience, nearly all workers that assemble or produce goods with their hands want to do a good job and are forced by management to achieve nearly 100% correct completion of their task. There is no incentive to do it any other way. Where problems start to arise is usually with supervision requiring completion of tasks quicker and not allowing sufficient time. Another problem could be the design of production process being ill thought out. If the production environment starts to closely resemble an anthill with workers at odds with each other, you can also expect problems. There can be other issues as well but none of them lie at the feet of the worker.

Your comment about migrant workers assumes a caste system or hierarchy of workers. I hope you have the opportunity to work with someone born outside our borders so that you can eliminate that type of judgemental thinking. Off hand, I'd speculate that 95% of anybody born South of Texas could work rings around you.

First of all, I am an research engineer, working in the automotive industry. I spend 35 hours a week writing test scripts for product testing, and 10 hours a week working with QA in postmortems on products that came off the line, and went into destructive testing to see how our quality holds up on a daily basis. We destroy perfectly good products to see where they might be production problems. We also torture test incoming parts to see if they meet spec. Samples of every part, not just some. Sometimes those products were brought to the attention of engineering from the line, and line personal are always welcome in our door, and everyone has my cell number for off hours. If a problem arises, it's off to China /Japan / with QA to discuss with offshore engineering teams and management. Every worker in my company can press a button to stop production, and there are millions of products going out per year. And guess what happens if they're right? They get a bonus. Enough times, and they get promoted. You said "there is no incentive to do it any other way.." That's absolute ****. 30% of the people that try to work here won't make the cut. Quality is something that is a part of one's character, not something you can write down in a resume.

My comment about migrant workers didn't assume anything. In high school, I worked along migrant workers where I grew up in California picking oranges and strawberries. Most of my friends were Latino, and were the hardest working people on the planet; unbelievable work ethic compared to many of the people I come across now. That ethic wasn't a joke; it was weaved into their culture and generations of hard working people brought that ethic with them when they came, and passed it down to their kids. That is the kind of people I look for in our team.

"Off hand, I'd speculate that 95% of anybody born South of Texas could work rings around you."

Nice. Find someone that can take my job. Oh, they have to know CTE of most polymers and machinable metals, and can help setup FEAs on FR-4 PCBS and polymer parts. They would also have to be able to write optics analysis scripts in Matlab, design 2.4GHz multilayer PCBs with embedded microstrip technology, and do critical evaluation with the electronics design and PCB layout personel (I have 30 years experience in high frequency electronics/PCB design). Plus they would have to be able to do electronic EMI/ESD analysis, and be completely versed in multiple programming languages. Plus handhold foreign design teams, be versed in political tact when it comes to telling them their testing methods are inadequate, and train them in best practices. I'm sure you can do all that, but if you know anyone else that can, send them my way. I would hire them in a second.

[westend]

TacoPuller wrote:
That's just horrible. Yea, we don't want migrants coming in and taking jobs from THOSE workers. From the standpoint that the manufacturers are to blame, yes. They need to a) learn what quality is, b) teach it to their workers, and the ones that won't learn it need to be fired, and c) for the ones the DO learn it, care about them, reward them with a decent wage and don't let them go. Properly assembled, even cheap can last a long time- but you can't expect a donkey to assemble it.

Your post is about the fourth or fifth one I've read that blames the poor quality of RV's on the production workers that assemble them. One poster even stated that the problems were due to the "piece work" process that allegedly is used at the RV plants. I don't know what you did for a living to arrive at these assumptions but they are far from accurate.

Any quality issues start from the top and are directed or filtered downward. In my experience, nearly all workers that assemble or produce goods with their hands want to do a good job and are forced by management to achieve nearly 100% correct completion of their task. There is no incentive to do it any other way. Where problems start to arise is usually with supervision requiring completion of tasks quicker and not allowing sufficient time. Another problem could be the design of production process being ill thought out. If the production environment starts to closely resemble an anthill with workers at odds with each other, you can also expect problems. There can be other issues as well but none of them lie at the feet of the worker.

Your comment about migrant workers assumes a caste system or hierarchy of workers. I hope you have the opportunity to work with someone born outside our borders so that you can eliminate that type of judgemental thinking. Off hand, I'd speculate that 95% of anybody born South of Texas could work rings around you.

[ReferDog]

RV manufactures Don't care, highest price for lowest quality products, best to buy used (1-3yrs) old now ;you can see what's wrong, save money.

[TacoPuller]

That's just horrible. Yea, we don't want migrants coming in and taking jobs from THOSE workers. From the standpoint that the manufacturers are to blame, yes. They need to a) learn what quality is, b) teach it to their workers, and the ones that won't learn it need to be fired, and c) for the ones the DO learn it, care about them, reward them with a decent wage and don't let them go. Properly assembled, even cheap can last a long time- but you can't expect a donkey to assemble it.

[Sfla2]

sorry to say this is delam filon is glued to luann wood {real real thin plyw} go to home depot to see what it is