Montana Quality

[grizmt]

quote:Originally posted by et2

We have had a "great deal" of problems with our's this first year. It has been in service more than we have camped. Dropped it off November 2nd for 13 items to be repaired under warranty. We are still waiting on parts from Montana... they have had it over a month.While at the dealer it was broken into.

I'm not going to go into the details as to the repairs needed as I'll probably hear " there all like that". Just saying ... we've owned four other models and have never had this many issues.We bought the Montana because we heard they are suppose to be one of the better made fivers. My wife want's me to get rid of it.

We're right there with you! My wife is ready to just give up RV'ing at this point since we've had so many issues.
I do have to say Keystone has been absolutely WONDERFUL to deal with and has gone way beyond what I'd expected in every case so far!
It's not that I didn't expect "bugs" in a new rig, just not this many or as serious as it has been.
I'm guessing I just got a rig that was built on an "off" day...
I know we're not alone, the people next to me right now have a new fully loaded Heartland Landmark that was given to them by Heartland as a replacement for the one they bought due to many issues. It's not just one manufacturer, it's all of 'em. Anything mass produced is bound to have a few that for whatever reason just don't turn out correctly and unfortunately I may have one of the few.

[NCFischers]

Ed,
We also have a 2009 3665RE and we've not had anything major go wrong with it so far. I really haven't had many minor problems with it either. I'm not saying that I won't have problems down the road but I hope not. Keystone service is the best. I hope you hang in there and see if your dealer can fix you up.

[RickW]

We bought our 3400 this past March. Our problems have been very minor for the most part. Our dealer has been great. I will take it back to the dealer for the 3rd time this since purchase this next week (assuming the weather corporates) for a few more warranty items that we have discovered along the way.

When we purchased it we immediately took it for a overnight trip just a few miles from the house. The purpose of this trip was to try everything in the trailer. By the next morning we had a list. Some items I took care of myself because they were just simple adjustments. Other items required replacement like the noisy gas regulator. Our dealer is 80 miles away so we made arrangements to have all the items on our list taken care. We made arrangements for a weekend get away another 20 miles away from our dealer. So we spent the afternoon at the dealer and they fixed while we waited as we showed them the various items on our list. Then spent the weekend again working everything possible in the trailer. The dealer even told us to stop back by on our way home if we found anything else over the weekend. The stop was not needed.

Dragged the trailer a total of 4k miles over three weeks for summer vacation. Again we found a few more warranty items. We did have to leave the trailer at the dealer for about 3 weeks. Waiting on parts from Keystone was the big holdup but again everything taken care of.

We have spent about 40 nights in the 3400 so far. It has not been perfect but it has been enjoyable. We knew when we purchased if we spent the time to look for problems and get them resolved from the get go, we would have less "surprises" pop up when on vacation and other trips. We are already planning this summers trip and it is currently looking to be a 30 night trip and about 5k miles on the Montana.

There were a few items I did not like they way Keystone did. I figured I had two choices, live with them as is or make them the way I needed or felt they should be. Electrical is one of the things I did change. I added a hardwired EMS. I disconnected the charger and installed a Magnum 4 stage charger with built in 2800wt inverter and replaced the single deep cycle battery for 2 6V golf cart flooded batteries.

[richfaa]

It is a good thing to be real picky during the warranty year and get all the issues that come up large or small taken care of. We learned a ot of things from this forum as to what to go look for. One thing about the service center. They will only, In general, repair the unit up to the " as built" spec's when correcting warranty issues. We were fortunate that we were only @ 3 hours from service center and had all our warranty work done there.

[et2]

Just an update on our trailer dropped of November 12 2009. We are still waiting for Montana to ship our dealer parts from Lippert.It's still not repaired and our warranty has expired. Montana keeps rescheduling the delivery date on the parts ... over and over again.

I asked them if they were still making the 3665RE, the answer was yes. So I find it hard to believe they stopped making the 3665RE for three months. Their customer service department said there is nothing they can do about it.

[HamRad]

Et2,
Three months, I believe, is excessive. May I suggest you PM or Email Wayne and Carolyn Mathews. That would be Carolyn. They had a devil of a time getting some warranty work done on their rig and I'm sure they would share some of their secrets with you.

If you started this process while you were under warranty it should still be in force even though you may now be out of the warranty period. There really is no excuse for that kind of delay.

Good luck,
HamRad

[Bill-N-Donna]

From what I’ve seen on this forum that people have experienced I doubt that anyone would have bought the one we have. When we bought ours it was a used 2002 model manufactured in 2001. We noticed the decals pealing right off the bat. We also saw a crack in the body right where the bedroom slide is. We even noticed there had been a water leak in the bedroom slide area. We were also buying without any furniture where the PO had removed all of it. I don’t believe we got our unit at a bragging price. Still yet even with all of that we have no regrets whatsoever.


This is our sixth camper that we have owned and when I first went into it I seen quality. I knew it was built well. I believed we could fix the water leak (of which has been repaired and not leaked since.) I wasn’t concerned with the decals where that was cosmetic and didn’t harm anything. I felt that looking at the crack near the BR slide, that is was a stress crack and didn’t even worry about that because of it being in the area it was in. I have not done anything about the crack except keep my eyes on it. There don’t appear to be any structural concerns. Any movement I see in the frame or any flexing there might be appears to be to be a very normal thing. We have had a couple of issues since we purchased it, one of which was a bad water heater which the dealer made good. The other problems we have had was simply my own fault and not worth mentioning. Anything more has simply been very minor and not worth mentioning either.

I said all of that to say this; our unit is an older unit in comparison to what I see on the forum. In general most people seem to have newer ones and I feel that we’re in the minority as to the age of the camper. However, I’m not intimidated by that at all. As a matter of fact this is one of the nicest campers we have ever owned and I might add one of the least expensive to maintain. We have had this camper for almost three years already and I expect to get several more years of use from it. We’re looking forward to spring weather when we can de-winterize it and get back to camping in it.

As other people have stated on this forum, I feel that you in fact do get “a good bang for the buck” with a Montana. I might also add this; we had an option when we purchased our Monty to purchase a newer SOB sitting right next to it that was less expensive, lighter to pull and was fixed up really fancy inside as well. We chose the Monty instead because we seen a good quality built unit. Just being inside of it felt like I was in a better more solid camping unit, I simply don’t know how to put it in words but we aren’t sorry of our purchase!

To the original poster, it sounds like you have a really nice camper! Enjoy it and I hope you get many years of happing camping out of it.

[CamillaMichael]

Anyone have any idea why this OLD POST shows up as a active topic???

[SlickWillie]

quote:Originally posted by CamillaMichael

Anyone have any idea why this OLD POST shows up as a active topic???

I was wondering the same thing. Last edit I saw was in December.

[stimpy123]

I have a question about torquing the wheels on the first trip. It would appear to me that many if not most of the rigs on a dealers lot, have been delivered by a transporter, towing it from the factory. Doesn't this seem to be something that the transporter should have done? Yes, I suppose that some rigs travel from the factory on a flatbed trailer, which would make the need to retorque the wheel nuts on the specified schedule. I also check mine before each trip and at least every other day to ensure they are tight with a torque wrench. Thanks for all of you that have stepped in and mentioned the schedule as a reminder of what should be done.
Best regards,
Steve

[Rondo]

Steve-- Good question! I think you're wrong on the flatbed idea however! Our rigs are to big to be transported via flatbed. I think they are all transported to the dealers by contractor transports via TV.

[SlickWillie]

I was thinking about this the other day. There are multiple stickers that tell the driver to check air pressure and lug nuts before getting under way. Hmmmmm, tells me Keystone knew those dadgummed tires and valve stems were gonna leak!

[K&Gs3400RL]

Well, as for the wheel separation, ....kind of your fault. You drove 28 miles past where you should have done the first of three re-torque sessions. Click Here for Keystone's official .pdf file about wheel torque procedures.

Silly Question, If this is so important to Do. Why wasn't it done when the trailer was being delivered to the Dealer 250 miles, 500 miles, or even 2500 miles from the factory. Isn't that the time it should have been done? Im pretty sure they dont haul these things on Trailers to the dealers. Wouldent the damage already be done?

[DQDick]

On the way back from the rally we were passed by four transporters towing 38' Montana's at various times on the way home. All of them were doing 75 or more and I would imagine none of them torqued any lug nuts thus setting up the new owner for issues with wheels and Marathon tires.

[richfaa]

Quality and RV do not belong in the same sentence.It is not poor vendor provided material it is how the material is assembled on the assembly line.
Attention to detail would make a much better and trouble free product and that goes for Evey brand.

[bw2]

Checking tires and hubs and lugs seem to me to be a prudent maintenance activity. If for no other reason than road hazards. Checking the suspension components for the same reason. It appears now that the wet bolts are a part of the newer Montana, the strengthening of the shackles and our understanding of the stress that very sharp turns, especially backing, the shackles are not the problem they once where. (IMHO) This is just from observations on the forum.

[mhs4771]

I wonder if the Transporters ever wipe out the side of a Rig as a result of a China Bomb blow-out??

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Actually Al and I did see a new rig, being hauled, and it had a flat tire, pulled off in some rest area or something. It was not a Montana, not even sure it was a 5er. There was minimal damage to the rig done by the blowout.

OH, not sure bout the china bomb stuff tho, it has been a while since we saw it, so??? your guess is as good as mine.

So, yes, mhs4771, have seen at least the blow out part.

[grizmt]

Haven't been on here in quite a while since we sold our 2011 Big Sky but feel compelled to say a couple of things if I may. First off, our selling dealer never,ever told us about wheel torque so we didn't do it from OK to MT. I thanked god daily when I did find out (here) after getting home that nothing ever happened with respect to wheels falling off. It shocked us when I did start checking and found out how quickly they could loosen up and then had it explained to me by our shop and by Keystone why that happens on small trailers (not semi trailers) so quick. Also, while we had several issues that were aggravating and one major suspension issue that could have killed us (just do a search on my posts here) I can't say enough about our service shop AND Keystone. I would NEVER hesitate to buy another Keystone product, they stood behind it 100% and took care of us like we were family. Whenever you buy a new rig there's going to be problems I guarantee it and these will be more of a challenge and/or more dangerous if you don't take the time to inform yourself on the ins and outs of whichever rig you choose to buy.
Lastly, your choice of shop MATTERS greatly. Pick wisely all are not equal by a long shot and don't think that just because you have a new rig warranty that any shop will work on it THEY WON'T believe me we've seen more than our share of "you didn't buy it here get lost" shops until we found one of the best I've ever seen that works on my current rig to this day.
Take care and be safe y'all Happy Trails....

[HOOK]

Having sold RVs for many years, I have made it a point in my sales conversation, more especially to newbies, that a person should at least be handy with small repairs if they want to own an RV. These things rock and roll down the road bouncing and twisting. It is amazing to me that they perform as well as they do. We have owned some type of RV for the last 40 years with the largest problem being Marathon tires, and they were not manufactured by the RV industry. IMHO if you think it through you will decide that they are worth the small troubles. I also think if you have larger troubles and approach your manufacturer, just as many did at the Goshen rally, you will receive satisfaction. IMHO Larry