A nightmare Monty

[tjblocker]

About 15 months ago my wife and I purchased a new 3231CK. My wife and I have come to hate the lack of quality control in this unit. Is is truly a piece of crap.



Here's some of the problems we had. No 11 is especially troubling. I'm currently waiting on a call from the vet to tell me if our dog is going to survive the latest monty failure/surprise.



1) Living room slide floor came detached from the slide out and destroyed the floor. Repaired under warranty.
2) Replaced living room flooring. Also repaired under warranty
3) Bedroom slide out came off the rollers destroying the floor. The floor and the slide out were repaired under warranty. I expected to be blamed for this but wasn't.

4) Several of the wet bolts were clogged and wouldn’t take grease. All 14 wet bolts were replaced under warranty
5) four of the day/night shade broke and wouldn’t roll up. These were replaced under warranty. Another blind came detached and feel to the couch. It pulled the screws out. I will have to fix this one.Too late for warranty.

6) Oven door won’t close completely. Using the oven makes the house very very hot. Not covered under warranty. I was blamed though I know I didn’t damage it.The only repair is to replace range.

7) Bedroom head of the bed outlets don’t work. I didn’t discover this until it was too late
8) My Norcold 2118 is a piece of crap. When 100 degrees outside the fridge would be 50 degrees and freezer would be over 20. I researched and found lots of people with the same complaints. That cooling unit was never going to work so I upgraded to a JC Refrigeration 12 volt vapor compression compressors. This worked perfectly but it costs several thousand
9) The original drum brakes just barely worked. They couldn't lock a wheel on gravel. I complained but was told to burnish them. I did so many many times but it made no difference. Wanting better braking I upgraded to disc brakes. Once again, several 1000 dollars.

10) The light under the kitchen sink never goes out. This is still a problem that I keep putting off

11) This morning 3 sections of the molding around the living room came detached and fell to the floor. One section landed on our 5lb chihuahua causing a bleeding head wound. We don’t know if she will survive, but she’s at the hospital for at least the night. I’m not confident she will survive. Her eyes were crazy dilated. She can’t stand and we struggled to keep her awake. I don't think anyone was home when we spoke to her.

12) Handles on the shower door came off. The set screw hole is broken so it can’t be fixed. I have to get a new handle
13) The trailer came with a TPMS, but I couldn’t get signals on two tires. I purchased a booster only to discover that a booster is already installed. The TPMS will probably never work, but I sure paid for it.
14) We have a love seat but one of the seats won’t stay connected to the center console. One chair moves all over the place and I’m always pulling it away from the wall. These chairs wear out quickly. The material comes delaminated.





This next one was my fault, but I did have the help of the trailer’s leveling system. If you push auto level the first thing that is done is the nose is lowered as far as possible. This seemingly needless step is always a surprise. I once accidentally parked the truck too close to the trailer and the front cap came down on the bed rail corner and broke the front cap. I’m sure this will cost 1000s to fix. As a software engineer I always prescribed to the idea of "The Principle of least astonishment". Seeing the trailer lowered to the ground is a surprise.



I paid 90k cash for this very loaded fiver and it is a total piece of **** that’s not under warranty any longer. Oh how we wish we had bought another Arctic Fox. We got burned. Never again



I’m sure this isn’t all.


Keystone needs to think about assembling a team that knows something about quality control.




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[mlh]

I sorry about your troubles with your camper. Our little, read tiny, RV dealer says “they are all junk”. I was down there recently. They had worked on a popup for two days to get it ready for a customer to pick up. The large campers take even longer and some are so bad they just send them back.
Lynwood

[tjblocker]

Originally Posted by mlh

I sorry about your troubles with your camper. Our little, read tiny, RV dealer says “they are all junk”. I was down there recently. They had worked on a popup for two days to get it ready for a customer to pick up. The large campers take even longer and some are so bad they just send them back.
Lynwood

Thanks.



Our dog is going to survive. yea!!

[BB_TX]

You have certainly had more than your fair share of issues. I have been here since 2006 and bought a 2007 new. Kept it 14 years and other than routine maintenance didn’t $1,000 on repairs during all that time. Could not have asked for a more trouble free rig. Not sure anyone who has bought new in the last 5 years or so could say the same.

But I frequent another RV forum and it is not uncommon to see “I will never buy a brand A again. Terrible workmanship.” or “I bought a brand B and is the worst piece of cr@p I have ever owned”. Seems everyone has had issues, some fortunate ones have only minor and few, other less fortunate have major and a lot. And across all brands, even the once revered Mobile Suites are sometimes mentioned.

Best of luck to you. Good to hear the pup is ok.

[mlh]

Our dogs become a member of the family so it’s really good news your dog is going to be OK.
Lynwood

[1retired06]

You certainly have had more issues then most, was good to hear warranty took care of a lot of it, particularly the big ticket items. We are dog owners, glad to hear yours will be ok!

[jsb5717]

So sorry for your issues and very glad to hear your dog will be OK. I can’t imagine having that happen to our little guy.

Getting a lemon RV is really an issue of the odds. Every manufacturer has them and they all have life-long haters as a result. Yours would have likely been built toward the end of the Covid run which brings its own increased odds of problems for every OEM. But I’m sorry that you drew the unlucky ticket.

It seems like the majority of owners of most any brand are generally happy with their purchase, as we are. I hope you are able to get these far too many problems resolved and still get some years of enjoyment out of this one.

Good luck with the repairs and your dog’s health. Please let us know how things progress.

[Jay & Bobbie]

First of all, glad to see the pup is OK. We travel with 2 of ours and can't imagine one of them being injured while traveling.
Second, I assume your rig is a "covid" unit.
Sadly, the horror stories are endless.
I am a retired plumber/builder/and current home inspector. I have seen initial quality of new construction go to pot in recent years. Builders, it seems, build as cheep as possible, and repair the few items discovered during warranty period, knowing not all the problems are discovered. This mindset adds to their bottom line.
The rv business amplifies this business model, sadly.
We wish you the best of luck getting all your repairs done, and safe travels.

[Mikendebbie]

Tom - take each item that you still have to fix and post a separate question about the item, preferably with a photo. Your lemon list is thorough but intimidating to offer ideas it repair the item. I’m sure the folks in this forum can help you repair each item, or at least offer suggestions. By the time we are done - you will have worked through the lemon list and should have a solid unit to enjoy.

[tjblocker]

Thanks to everyone that answered. I think I will take the suggestion of posting each item separately.



And I'm pretty sure that COVID is partly to blame for terrible quality.



Oh how I wish we had bought another Arctic Fox.

[Todd & Mary]

We gave up on warranty repairs, CW had our 3761FL more the first year than we had it! I think Keystone deliberately takes their time (sometime over a week) approving warranty work and getting the parts to the dealers. And some of the work performed didn't correct the issues, and Keystone would not approve repairs because it was already done, even though it was insufficiently repaired! I have done a lot of my own repairs now! Good Luck, it absolutely pays to be handy.

[Skw774]

Good insurance? You could have a short that burns it to the ground.

[tjblocker]

You have quite the setup.



Quality is a joke. If you walk around and and look you see all kinds of things that are just not quite right. for instance, I've had to fish wall receptacles from inside the wall and remount. Several were never even tightened. And you also see things like loose molding, very poor brakes, absorption fridges that don't work, and I could go on and on. Everywhere you look you see things that just aren't quite right. I should have been more put off by the little things. In addition to little things, there's been bunches and bunches of serious issues too.

[raygreg]

I also have a 2019 piece of junk that says "Montana" across the front.
Have too much money in repairs to sell it now.
Too bad it doesn't work as good as it looks.
Should have kept my old Hitchhiker.

[tjblocker]

Originally Posted by raygreg

I also have a 2019 piece of junk that says "Montana" across the front.
Have too much money in repairs to sell it now.
Too bad it doesn't work as good as it looks.
Should have kept my old Hitchhiker.

And my wife and I should have kept our Arctic Fox. We lived in it for about 5 years and had few problems. With this, everywhere one looks they see shoddy workmanship. Things are literally falling off!



I couldn't agree with you "too bad..." statement.

[skippydoo]

"I think Keystone deliberately takes their time (sometime over a week) approving warranty work and getting the parts to the dealers."

^This is our experience as well. Our cw service desk staff cant help us with finding replacement lightbulbs much less anything else. Their go to answer is mostly 'I don't know"...true story. They lack any motivation to search for anything. Customers are required to do the leg work.

[jsb5717]

Originally Posted by skippydoo

"I think Keystone deliberately takes their time (sometime over a week) approving warranty work and getting the parts to the dealers."

^This is our experience as well. Our cw service desk staff cant help us with finding replacement lightbulbs much less anything else. Their go to answer is mostly 'I don't know"...true story. They lack any motivation to search for anything. Customers are required to do the leg work.

It’s been said before…many times…the dealer can make or break the whole RV buying experience. Some have had some good experience working with CW on warranty issues, but the general consensus is that they are awful. We had a great experience with our dealer (which I researched before we bought from them). Even after the sale they were very responsive and helped even with some things that weren’t warranty…they were just helpful and had good customer service. If a dealer isn’t good then that’s not Keystone’s fault. It’s the buyer’s fault for not doing enough research before being sucked into a good sales pitch. Sadly too many don’t know this until it’s too late. But I find it interesting how many blame the manufacturer for lousy service from a lousy dealer.

All OEM’s work through dealers…pick a good one.

[tjblocker]

For the first 6 months my service writer seemed to ignore my requests. Customer service was non-existent. But I wrote a complaint on Google and was assigned another service writer who was much better. This woman bent over backwards to be attentive. I did appreciate her.



The factory did step up to the plate pretty good. However, I still have an oven that's almost useless. The door is sprung and can't be un-sprung. But there were just so many issues, and many that were blamed on me. I purchased my first RV 26 years ago. I'm not a newbee. And the factory installed TPMS system has never worked. Yes, it has a booster which was installed by the factory. The factory covered most big ticket things (except fridge and brakes)

cheers

[jsb5717]

Originally Posted by tjblocker

…However, I still have an oven that's almost useless. The door is sprung and can't be un-sprung.

cheers

I know you’ve got a lot of legitimate manufacturing complaints. But I’m wondering if you’ve tried contacting the manufacturer of some of the problematic sub-component issues like this one. Many OEM’s use a lot of the same products from other manufacturers. They didn’t make them…just installed them.

I’ve done well getting after-warranty help directly from Lippert, Suburban, and Dometic (Atwood). Maybe worth a try.

[tjblocker]

Originally Posted by jsb5717

I know you’ve got a lot of legitimate manufacturing complaints. But I’m wondering if you’ve tried contacting the manufacturer of some of the problematic sub-component issues like this one. Many OEM’s use a lot of the same products from other manufacturers. They didn’t make them…just installed them.

I’ve done well getting after-warranty help directly from Lippert, Suburban, and Dometic (Atwood). Maybe worth a try.

Good idea. Thanks