Manf. Date of Apr 2005

[David Salzman]

I have a 3685FL that was built the week of April 12, 2005. Is there anyone else that had a unit built during this week? The reason I'd like to know is because I have had over 36 differant things wrong and I'm still finding more. I want to find out if They had a bad week and others are having as many problems or did I just get a LEMON?

[HamRad]

David,

36 things are a lot. Of course it is important to know what items were wrong. If they are major items that is one thing but if most of them are minor then that would make a big difference. My rig was built in Mid year '02 and since we got it in OCT. of that year I'm sure we've had at least a total of 36 or more items. Thankfully most of them have been rather minor. But we have had several major problems. Thankfully Keystone has stepped up and fixed the major items.

We either simply "live" with some of the minor things or we've taken care of them ourselves. But it will be interesting to see if there is some sort of date correlation.

Travel safely.

HamRad

[David Salzman]

Thanks for the reply. There were minor things but there was alot of major. One was a gas leak so bad that if someone lite a match near the front of unit it would have blown up. Other things were convertor went bad, nail shot into plumb pipe, slider door was wrong, to short, vent pipe from waste tank disconnected in wall, tank flush leaked, ceiling comming unattached from rafters, frig wouldn't cool, insulation over it fell and blocked the rear of unit and many more. The most deal with manuf issues.

[HamRad]

Salzman,

There have been a couple of folks that reported similar problems. I hope they'll stop by and share with you. I don't remember the dates involved.

Good luck,

HamRad

[richfaa]

36 problems large and small is not a lot. We have had many more than than that on our 06 3400. This was one list we took to the service center.

1) Wiring from melt down, Details attached
2) Running lights on top of front cap do not work as a result of the rewire
3) A Large amount of Hydraulic fluid leaked into the underbelly as a result of the meltdown and has soaked everything in that area.
4) Red “fuse blown” lights do not work when fuse is defective in the Iota panel


5) Stripped screws in the Iota fuse panel, it is loose on the wall
6) Groove in black material under the bedroom slide. The material is also pulling loose from the slide.
7) There are wrinkles in the roof first reported at the Goshen Rally in Sept06
8) Slides will pause/stop when moving in or out
9) There is a waste smell in the camper,
10) There is a small leak in the waste pipe in the right front compartment at the first joint
11) There is interference on chan 2, 3 and 4 when on the TV antenna. Any city any place
12) Kink in hose under the sink restricts water flow, poor design, also the faucet continually comes loose.
13) Galley tank gauge reads 2/3 full all the time
14) Right side of main awning will not lock down, does not line up properly
15) Top wood strip at top of step that door slides on is about to fall off
16) Flashing around main slide is pulling away from the wall(right side)
17) Emergency exit window in bedroom has a big air leak, right side
18) Main slide appears to sag, seal does not fit correctly
19) Furnace,A/C goes into ‘Off”” Mode for no reason, Does not loose power, just goes off. Reset and normal.
20) Caulking on the bottom of the front hatch missed its mark and you can push the panel away from the camper
21) Skirt on Kitchen slide , screws stripped and fell ou.t March 14th
22) Hot water heater will not light on. Gas Worked till March 16th,07
23) Clothing rod ripped out of the wall on the right side. March 17th
24) A/C breakers are tripping with increased frequency all over the camper with no increased load. Kitchen, living room are the worst.
25) Fantastic fan sticks
26 seal around side compartment falling off


In the Rv industry poor quality is the norm. The good news is that Keystone corrected all the issues and now after 28 months of ownership we have few failures.. Except our hydraulic pump is leaking again..our decals are starting to shrink and we may have the start of frame flex on the right side of the camper.. Just part of rv'ing.

[David Salzman]

Thanks for the reply, sorry you are having problems too, you are helping me to make up my mind to trade this one for a Coachman. I don't believe that this is the norm. I owned 2 Coachmens before this Montana. The first I had for 2 years and the second for 8 years. Between the both I only had 7 things go wrong with them. It will be interesting to see how many others have had as many problems. We are having manufacturing now that Montana won't take care of.

[richfaa]

Well we also had a Coachman for 18 months..worst camper we ever owned which goes to show that all of them have problems. Many folks will not share all the problems thay have had with the camper they paid big bucks for because it might make it look like they did not do their homework before they purchased..which they probably did not. Most of my problems and there were many of them..example 23 cabinet screws were over torqued and two doors fell off, were minor, trim around the island popped off, wheel fell off the bed.Most can be attributed to poor and shoddy workmanship.. As we said..the norm in the RV industry.The chances are you would do no better with another brand.

[Hemlockusa]

I would have to agree with Rich, if your looking for a RV with no problems.. They are not made!!!!!!! You may have been very lucky with the two coachman you claim had no problems, or perhaps when you had those two units you were younger and not as picky.... Now your older and your eyes ae better, you are also looking for more value for your money and things are shouting at you to take care of... trim, screws, door length, Now I will agree a tank leak is important, but something like that should have been detected very quickly, like the first fill up. This industry is noted for assembly line problems, lets face it, there moving these down the line as fast as they can, that results in dealers that have to take care of what the factory neglected to do. There in is the problem, the dealer in most cases are suppost to go over every inch of your unit before it is delivered and then again at delivery time with the new owner.. By theory that unit should never have left the dealer until all the discrepancies are taken care of and fixed!!! Most new owners don't want to wait, they take the unit with the intention of bringing it back for the minor tweeking, never happens, then things start to fall apart and the complaints start.. There are a lot of steps inplace to keep this from happening but it still does. If you think you can get a couchman RV with no issues power to you and good luck, when you got those units you must have had dealers that really cared and went through them with a fine tooth comb before you ever picked it up.. I have a very good friend with a 44' top of the line Manaco couch.... Just under $500,000. He has a list as long as my arm and it still growing..

[David Salzman]

Part of this problem is everyone accepts this as a "standard". Seems to me if you are paying for a quality product you should get it. I believe that if the rv's had the lemon law that the problems would be few. If we all stand up to Keystone corp they would change. My way of doing it is by changing to another company

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

David

We wish you the best of luck. Ya, we all know, that accepting the standard as low as it is, well, not good. We scream bout it here on the forum all the time. What we have at Montana is the fact, that they are sooooooooooooo good at standing behind the units. I figure you don't feel that way right now, and that stinks too. Sorry.

If you feel that strong, maybe it is time to move on. Suggest you really search the financial backing of ALL companies you buy from right now in the RV industry, look at the rumor mill around Teton. I had the opportunity to talk to an insider of the industry a few weeks ago. Some of the names he mentioned as in trouble would shock you. Nope, Montana was NOT one of them, the Keystone/Thor pocket books are deep enough, in this insider's opinion, to survive. He seemed to suggest Jayco would survive as well. Course, this is just one man's opinion, no matter how deeply entrenched he is in the RV business.

Take it from there and we wish you the best!

Camp on!!

[richfaa]

If changing to another company would solve the problem it would already have been solved..Example, this is our 5th Rv..all different brands.The consumer does not hold the rv manufacturers responsible and that is the biggest problem. David you need to come to the fall rally or take a trip to the Goshen, Elkhart area and tour ALL the RV plants. You will have a far better understanding of why we all have the problems we do. Keystone is by far better than most others in standing behind the product..Example all of our issues were corrected by keystone with out a single hassle. We would really like to upgrade to a newer unit with the most recent upgrades but decided to stay with this one because after 28 months of repairs, upgrades, improvements we have the camper to where we have high confidence it will not have serious problems.. We do not want to start over again.You have a basically solid unit and IMO would be ahead of the game to do what needs to be done to get it up to your standards rather than purchase a new one that will most likely have the same start up problems.