Kia, Hyundai: Please come to the rescue "Pathetic Quality"

[vtraudt]

I think the market is ripe for a 'disrupter'. Maybe foreign builders need to enter the market to wake up the "Indiana RV Maffia"

"One West Coast dealer echoed those thoughts. “My greatest fear now is watching the motorized RV industry get toppled,” he said. “They just don’t have the expertise to complete a motorhome in Northern Indiana anymore. Their labor force has no eye for quality and they have no way of teaching it. The industry is ripe for someone else to step in and start producing quality products, but it will likely have to be someplace other than Indiana. Right now, if the workers there get
upset by something, they just walk off because it’s easy to get a job in Elkhart right now.”

https://www.rvtravel.com/pathetic-quality-rv-dealers-fed-manufacturers-producing-1017b/?fbclid=IwAR2teVjEoUA7FN2L5rJzIU89iYB3WXm9dyZ8Wu309q_2BSBiX0UVYKrj7cw

[rjstractor]

I'm not sure why Kia and Hyundai were mentioned in the OPs post- they are fine vehicles (I own one) but as mentioned cars are not built like RVs are. Also, the quality of a product has much more to do with the process by which it's manufactured, not the skill of the workers or the amount of inspections done during the manufacturing process. Way back in college I learned that "you can't inspect quality into a product". The Japanese were among the first to figure out that if you carefully engineer, monitor and control every aspect of the manufacturing process, you end up with much better results than just inspecting every product after it's been completed. Inspection is part of the process, but there's a lot more to it than just that.

[vtraudt]

The current situation:
- high demand (so companies get away with PATHETIC quality "proudly made in USA" (big sticker on my Forest River trailer)
- workforce shortage (so workers get away with "I don't give a ****" attitued towards quality and craftsmanship)
- qualified, skilled, good attitude workforce shortage (so works stay on the job that would normally be fired on the spot)
- managment that makes tons of profit for the shareholders (very high demand)
- NO outside (of Indiana) competition so EVERYONE is having a good time/profit by providing the same pathetic quality since no one gets penalized

[toedtoes]

Lantley wrote:

philh wrote:
RV's are essentially hand built with no continuity. It costs money to build with quality, and consumers have not been willing to spend the money.

I don't think that is quite true. Japan took the automotive industry by storm way back when. Japanese imports were not necessarily cheaper than American made they were just better quality.
Americans made their purchases based on quality not price.

The American industry was also being called out by Ralph Nader and such. So there was a large importation threat and a public shaming of the American made lack of quality and safety.

Also, autos are really a necessity for most people. So buying a poor quality vehicle can affect your entire life. A vehicle that spends 4 months in the shop getting warranty work done may mean losing your job, not being able to get your kids to school, etc. An RV in the shop for 4 months just means no trips.

So for most people, paying for a better quality vehicle is a no brainer. But for an RV, many folks will forego quality to get a better price, or get the floorplan or size they want.

[toedtoes]

wildtoad wrote:
Don’t blame the line workers, blame the management for not doing a proper job of inspecting the work product at each step of the process. Most RV’s are built by hand unlike the modern automotive industry which uses a lot of robots and other automated processes. Ours was built missing a rear window, was missing floor heat register, the Dura Shield on the front had to be replaced twice as it came from the factory looking like bubble wrap. Yes the workers may have made an error, but obvious stuff should have been caught. What really frost my buttocks though is the crappy furniture and appliances that go into these things.

I agree. Workers may make mistakes or be careless. They may miss a screw or forget to glue something, etc, but when an RV goes out missing an actual window? That is the company as a whole not giving a cr@p. That is not because the workers are incompetent or not paid enough. That is because management and above don't care.

[Lantley]

philh wrote:
RV's are essentially hand built with no continuity. It costs money to build with quality, and consumers have not been willing to spend the money.

I don't think that is quite true. Japan took the automotive industry by storm way back when. Japanese imports were not necessarily cheaper than American made they were just better quality.
Americans made their purchases based on quality not price.

[philh]

RV's are essentially hand built with no continuity. It costs money to build with quality, and consumers have not been willing to spend the money.

[wildtoad]

Don’t blame the line workers, blame the management for not doing a proper job of inspecting the work product at each step of the process. Most RV’s are built by hand unlike the modern automotive industry which uses a lot of robots and other automated processes. Ours was built missing a rear window, was missing floor heat register, the Dura Shield on the front had to be replaced twice as it came from the factory looking like bubble wrap. Yes the workers may have made an error, but obvious stuff should have been caught. What really frost my buttocks though is the crappy furniture and appliances that go into these things.

[propchef]

Market forces will take care of everything. Patience must be exercised.

[Lynnmor]

Here is my sniveling and whining. I bought a new Kubota tractor with loader and backhoe on May 3. The basic tractor is made in Japan, the remainder is made in Georgia, guess which parts are made wrong and assembled wrong. This is Sept. 19th and the thing is still not right and Kubota has no clue on how it should be fixed. They refuse to refund the money and I may need to get some assistance in the matter. It certainly appears that we have lost so much and many do not deserve a job. My point is that it ain't just the RV industry, even higher end products are having issues.

[Skibane]

RV build quality isn't just a worker issue.

In boom times (like we're currently experiencing), most RV manufacturers aren't particularly concerned about the quality of their products. There are plenty of first-time RV buyers who aren't knowledgeable or experienced about what makes a quality product, and they're more likely to accept shoddy quality when inventory is scarce.

As the automotive industry already knows, there are ways of designing products that make their assembled quality largely independent of the quality of the people doing the assembling.

However, doing so usually requires a heavy investment in R&D, specialized tooling, etc. - Things your typical RV manufacturer isn't interested in paying for.

Right now, for most of them, cheap and shoddy is good enough.

[Gdetrailer]

:R

Oh great, yet another sniveling, whining post over poor quality of RVs due to lack of or cheaply paid employees on this forum..

There is already a thread established with the same link I believe HERE

[Lwiddis]

I wasn't taught to blame workers or soldiers...mostly kids. I was taught that not completing successfully a task was a lack of leadership.