Terrible workmanship in our new trailer

[NanciL]

We are at the end of our first month of our brand new 2016 Forest River Wildwood and I am here to tell you that the interior workmanship is the worst I have ever experienced.
We bought the trailer based on it being the exact floor plan that we were looking for.
We caught some of the things on the "walk through", but it is the hidden things that popup every other day that have been caused by shoddy workmanship that are one big pain.
The shelves are 1/8th inch paneling so little by little I have been removing them and replacing them.
Today when I was doing the ones in our bedroom wardrobe and adding more, when I went to measure up from the one at the bottom, I noticed that the back rear was sagging quite badly. I pushed down on it and realized there was absolutely no supports on the left side or the back side, so I went into the rear storage compartment and there was a screwed on panel stopping me from getting under it. I took the panel off, and it was the compartment that the electric cable gets stored in and yes there was absolutely no supports where there should have been for the upper shelf.
I finished working on that and when I went to do the shelves on the opposite side the bottom one was the exact same way, except it was a completely sealed compartment, with the electrical breaker panel in it. I had two choices; take the entire panel out from inside the trailer along with all the other electrics or break through the panel from the rear compartment. I did the latter, and it was the exact same way (missing two supports).

I am not writing this for people to tell me to take it back to the dealers, under the warrantee but to warn anyone who is not handy
-Don't buy Forest River Trailers!

If I made a list of all that we repaired, you would be amazed

Jack L

[galexander]

I have had my Forest River Surveyor for two years now and have had only one problem, the ignitor for the water heater was misaligned and would not light. A slight movement of the ignitor and problem solved.
Have had no other issues. I then look at my pickup, it has had five safety recalls for repairs, two computor chips replaced, the radio replaced. Goes to show you, no matter what you buy, be ready to fix it sooner or later. It doesn't matter what it costs.

[arkieguide]

I have bought and used trailers since 1961, all sizes and makes.
5th wheel and tag along's. never buy a new one anymore, i buy used travel trailers 24 foot + or _ a foot. I all ways expect to work on what ever i get, after many trips in and out of mexico and Alaska,as wagon master and travel alone. We expect to have trouble as all highways are not equal in quality, so learn as much as you can about your rig before using it. Be sure you understand the heater need's 12 volts for igniter so will the refrigerator,and HW heater. Know and check your spring;'s and spring hangers, inspect your own wheel bearing's and brakes.Do not expect to buy one new are used,jump in take off,with no chance of troubles, not going to happen.Buy them use them enjoy them and just fix what ever happens.

[Community Alumni]

Lantley wrote:

mikakuja wrote:
Having been through the internals of many RV's I can assure you that these problems you are finding are not specific to a single manufacturer.
Good luck with yours and hopefully these are the worst issues you will find.

Happy Camping.

Exactly what the OP should have suggested is do a very thorough PDI.
What you fail to find will become your problem later.
One should slowly examine the RV and test every ,latch, switch, outlet, catch valve,hinge slide, roof, undercarriage, faucets etc. Test it all.
Finding it later makes it your problem not theirs.
I agree it should not be that way. But the reality is some final assembly is required. This true with all brands, all types of RV's and all price points.
The sooner the buyer understands the pitfalls and shortcomings of the RV industry the better off they will be.

X2. Even companies well known for building quality trailers have quality issues with some of their units. One thing us consumers can do to protect ourselves is to do an exhaustive PDI before purchasing. Doing so will catch most items and if you require that those items be fixed before you sign, you'll get quicker service pre sale than post sale. On our current trailer our PDI took well over 2 hours. Our unit was well made as we were only able to find two very small minor problems.

Doing a good PDI will not find all issues though. A lot of times components needs to be used and the trailer needs to be towed for a while before some issues show up. In our case, we had all of our brakes (Lippert components) fail on the trailer. This issue took several thousands of miles to develop. The cause for the failures would not have been caught during the initial PDI. We just needed time for the failure to show up.

[mbopp]

And now you know why the RVIA fights so hard against RV's being included under any Lemon Laws.

[rbpru]

The market makes what will sell. Sad but true.

[mikakuja]

hohenwald48 wrote:
I've always told folks that if you aren't handy you should skip the RV and just rent a room.

X2.... Couldn't agree more, unless you have a deep wallet and don't mind you rv taking it's own frequent vacations at the dealership.

[hohenwald48]

Light weight and low price should be red flags that indicate poor quality. It's not always the case and there are exceptions. However, making quality costs money.

I've always told folks that if you aren't handy you should skip the RV and just rent a room.

[Bob_Vaughn]

We took a personal tour of a Heartland factory where they produce Land Marks etc. and I am surprised that any of them make it out the door with all things in place. QC inspectors need to be in place during the construction not after the construction. That makes them actually cosmetic inspectors. We found our bed had ONE screw attaching it to the wall of the slide out. The rest were in useless wall board. We were 50 miles from the nearest town in Alaska when the slide went out and left the bed sitting in the middle of the floor. What a disaster.....How hard is it to make an attempt to hit a couple of studs.....

[ken56]

I think its all a roll of the dice on any brand you look at. Firstly, you have to understand that in order to make them light weight (yes, I think a 40ft. 15k lb. rolling palace on wheels is light weight) things have to be a little thinner, a little less beefy, to achieve being able to pull it without a semi tractor. Not to mention its trying to shake itself apart when you do pull it anywhere.

You had better be able to fix most things on your own or you will have it at the dealer more than you will camp in it. Quality control is probably the most lacking thing there is in the building process, or its a matter of production numbers to fill orders that they just ship things out knowing they are defective and let the warranty process fix it. Thats more the issue to me than them not knowing its a bad build. Just get it out the door and we(manufacturers) get paid.

How does a buyer protect himself from that? Especially new buyers. I didn't know what I was looking at when I bought my first trailer. Even though I had no issues with it I was fortunate to get a good unit. Same with my 2nd. trailer. I have fixed things in my current unit and have never taken it back to the dealer and that let me use it alot, not wait on a service dept. to "fit you in". There is only so much that is visible to inspect, even the most experienced RVer is susceptable to getting a lemon.

[ppine]

All RVs are poorly constructed compared to a permanent residence. It is discouraging to see the crappy workmanship. It does not take much to train people to pay a little more attention.

I like to focus on the best used brands I can find. A lightly used premium brand is way ahead of a new average brand. Forest River is a decent brand and has some good designs. It is important to chose a dealer that is going to be there for you once you take delivery and put together a punch list.

[Lantley]

Dog Trainer wrote:
I think The Biggest problems with RV's is that people buy them no matter what the quality. Me included. The way to a better product is when the company has to figure out why their product is not selling.
With that said my FR Flagstaff has had few problems and in general it has been good. I spend much more time on the road than most so this TT gets a lot of use.

The veteran owners wise up and hopefully become more selective and more knowledgeable. Truthfully some do and some are just as dumbfounded on the 2nd purchase as they were on the 1st ....LOL.
Some fail to understand that quality control does not exist and that they build things well enough to just get the RV out the door.
Eventually the buyers are shocked when they realize their 30K, 40K 50K,-100K RV was not assembled very well. They then want to proclaim to the world that RV's are junk. Experience successful RV owners have already figured out the game and managed to keep there rigs going by filling in the gaps that the industry leaves for us.
Lastly we have the newbies that come along,naive to the industry, trusting that they are getting a well built unit for their money.
A steady stream of newbies ultimately keeps the industry going.
Eventually the newbies become seasoned, but the learning curve can be long, slow, and steep. It seems to take owning at least 2 RV to figure out the real shadiness and dark secrets of the RV industry.

[Dog_Trainer]

I think The Biggest problems with RV's is that people buy them no matter what the quality. Me included. The way to a better product is when the company has to figure out why their product is not selling.
With that said my FR Flagstaff has had few problems and in general it has been good. I spend much more time on the road than most so this TT gets a lot of use.

[_1nobby]

I bought a 5 year old TT....I expected to work on it and was not disappointed.

But new? No excuse.... but it seems these are not RARE occurrences but rather the norm now.

[RGar974417]

Friends of our have a Forest River and they have had some problems too. We had 2 Sunlines and they were very well built but went out of business after 40 plus years. We now have a keystone Cougar.Luckily,no major problems but we did have to replace cabinet doors that fell off and replace shelf brackets that broke. So I guess most RV's have issues,some more than others.