PLANT BURNED DOWN MEXICO

[ALAN]

Unfortunatly we are caught in a problem with our new trailer that I thought I should pass along to anyone about to order or who has a trailer on order with Keystone for a Montana. I just got off the phone with Charles Wade from Keystone. He told me that a factory in Mexico that makes a number of items for Montana burned to the ground. Some of the items no longer available concern the awning, hot water heater and other parts I did not make note of. As a result Keystone is trying to get past suppliers to make up the difference with the result that their normal production of 20 trailers per day is now down to 5 per day. This happened when production demand is way up. Current backlog is in the hundreds. Delivery quotes for new trailers are in the 10-12 week level as opposed to 6-8 wks. Suggest you have a talk with your dealer if you are caught in this situation.

I will post my problem after we see what Mr. Wade and Keystone are going to do to resolve the issue.

Alan

[Crossthread]

I just found this, Bill

Fire Destroys Dometic Plant in Juarez, Mexico

Email This Post Print This Post April 8, 2009 by Steve Bibler
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Sherman Goldenberg

Fire has destroyed a Dometic Corp. plant in Juarez, Mexico, that produced component parts for RV awnings and air conditioners for its U.S. customers.

Brad Sargent, Dometic’s vice president of marketing, told RVBusiness that the fire started in an adjacent facility on Tuesday and spread to the Dometic plant.

He said he learned of the fire ” through an e-mail from the company president less than an hour ago” but had few details.

“They are assessing the situation right now,” he said.

He understands that the building was a total loss, there were no injuries and workers were able to save some finished goods from the flames.

Products built at the plant were shipped to Dometic facilities in Elkhart and LaGrange, Ind., and distributed from there.

“We’ve got 22 other factories thorughout the world,” Sargent said. “I don’t see a supply interruption at all to other customers. We are assessing that too. We have inventory available.”

Juarez has a population of 1.5 million and is located on the Rio Grande River across from El Paso, Texas.

[Art-n-Marge]

Wow, how unfortunate. However, the backlog may not be so bad since recent orders from other RV manufacturers were going away since so many have of them closed down. Not a good reason mind you, but this just means the costs to ship will go up as the units come from farther away.

I hope they have plans to rebuild the plant in Juarez. The jobs will be needed for the Mexican people and we can certainly use their completed products.

As explained to me Dometic and Norcold are one and the same company anyway, with headquarters in Scandinavia. I hope this gets settled soon.

What will tick me off is Sales and Product providers who will kneejerk their prices higher on their current inventory, just because. They forget we know what they paid for their current inventory and the jack up in prices is called gouging (ala the oil companies). If Dometic/Norcold solves the supply problem and don't pass on higher processes then neither should the builders and Sales folk, but this is Capitalism at its most opportune, eh?

[mail2us]

Maybe they'll build a new plant in Elkhart IN where unemployment is over 15% heading to 20%. Just a thought.

[SlickWillie]

Yep, they probably had a couple of their RV refrigerators in the plant to keep cerveza in. I was just on a fishing board I frequent discussing the recall. Someone posted a picture of a Sprinter fifth wheel that the fridge caught on fire. He said it gutted the fiver in five minutes. Burned 3 days before he knew about the recall. Says he has hired an attorney to deal with Dometic, as they wouldn't even talk of paying for the loss.

[jpkelpe]

Our dealer told us that the airconditioners were made at that plant, possibly the reason ours came with out the second one that we ordered.