Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post

richfaa · 09-13-2008, 10:57 AM

"RVs are a few steps below temporary housing." Good description.... I do not have a real big problem with the quality of materials that go into a RV. There are many things to consider. The foremost is weight.These big fiver's have to be light enough to be pulled by a 3/4 or 1 ton truck yet not fall apart as they are yanked down the road, in order to be most cost effective. The weight on every item must be closely monitored and weight can effect quality. We could have better cabinets, carpet, pads, furniture, frames, etc but that would effect weight.These rv's also are not designed for the kind of use many of us(us included) put them to.As a weekend campers with our SOB's we never had many problems..did not use them hard enough. Home work and research before purchasing would have made that evident. However..there is no excuse for shoddy and sub standard workmanship and that is what we get in the RV industry. Screws falling out of our cabinets and doors falling off was due to over torquing at the factory not the quality of the cabinets. Our meltdown was caused by improper placement of wiring,hydraulic lines and no quality control.Pipes leaking are caused by improper installation at the factory and no quality control..it goes on and on. A good quality control program at the factory would eliminate the vast majority of these nickle dime issues but would also impact the cost margin of the manufacturer and it will not happen as long as the consumer accepts the product. A graph of use VS failures would be very interesting.
We are not unhappy with our 3400..We knew exactly what to expect when we purchased the Montana or any other brand in the price range..so we are disappointed but not surprised. What Dean and I know is that these issues can be easily solved and it is primarily the consumers fault that they are not.

09-13-2008, 10:57 AM	#22
richfaa Montana Master Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: North Ridgeville Posts: 20,229 M.O.C. #2839	"RVs are a few steps below temporary housing." Good description.... I do not have a real big problem with the quality of materials that go into a RV. There are many things to consider. The foremost is weight.These big fiver's have to be light enough to be pulled by a 3/4 or 1 ton truck yet not fall apart as they are yanked down the road, in order to be most cost effective. The weight on every item must be closely monitored and weight can effect quality. We could have better cabinets, carpet, pads, furniture, frames, etc but that would effect weight.These rv's also are not designed for the kind of use many of us(us included) put them to.As a weekend campers with our SOB's we never had many problems..did not use them hard enough. Home work and research before purchasing would have made that evident. However..there is no excuse for shoddy and sub standard workmanship and that is what we get in the RV industry. Screws falling out of our cabinets and doors falling off was due to over torquing at the factory not the quality of the cabinets. Our meltdown was caused by improper placement of wiring,hydraulic lines and no quality control.Pipes leaking are caused by improper installation at the factory and no quality control..it goes on and on. A good quality control program at the factory would eliminate the vast majority of these nickle dime issues but would also impact the cost margin of the manufacturer and it will not happen as long as the consumer accepts the product. A graph of use VS failures would be very interesting. We are not unhappy with our 3400..We knew exactly what to expect when we purchased the Montana or any other brand in the price range..so we are disappointed but not surprised. What Dean and I know is that these issues can be easily solved and it is primarily the consumers fault that they are not.