A question for Montana owners

[exav8tr]

I purchased my 3400 in Sep of '06 and it sat at the dealers lot until May of '07 when we started fulltiming. We bought it in Anchorage, Alaska and have travelled to So Cal to AZ to Yellowstone, to Minnesota, to Florida and up the eastern seaboard and are presently in NY, with Boston next. That's alot of miles over the last 27 months. We had a leaky shower, fixed by Keystone, lost one of the Apollo MW ovens, bought another, replaced all 4 Mission tires early on, a few loose cabinet screws, closet door slide fell apart. GCFI goes off ocasisonally with wet weather. No water leaks, no electrical probls, Hate the TV wiring system. Replaced hitch pin with a Morryde, replaced suspension with MorRyde Independent suspension added a cute front door stained glass, added a Winegard Traveler Sat system and a 32inch HDTV with Yamaha Amp.

I say this because we have never had another RV until this one and we LOVE our unit. We do have to maintain it and we don't go looking for problems until we hear of them on this forum. I guess I have always been of the philosophy of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" This is not to say I don't look at things I hear about on this forum, just haven't found many. I feel like Robbie does: Housing costs. My last stick house I had the septic back up, cost about $2,000 to dig up and replace some pipes. Had my well pump went out, cost about $1200 to replace. Had a leak at T from well to house at the 12 foot level, Big back hoe and repair was around $3,000. Had to paint house after 5 years, $3800, Son ran into garage with car, cost $600 for repairs. Had to replace lawn mower twice, $600. And the list goes on and on. To clean up a little sawdust and pick up some screws and make minor repairs PRICELESS !!!!! (or almost). Some would say I have been lucky so far, I would too. Of course, my last home was over $300k, this one around $50k. Can't, and won't, complain too much.

[PSFORD99]

quote:Originally posted by Champ_49

I have a 2007 3400RL. I have had some minor problems with mine also. Some water leaks that also caused an electrical problem. Other than that I been pretty trouble free. I believe Montana is a great affordable unit and its record shows it. I will say that my experience in the rv industry as far as owning has always been the same. There will always be things that come up and need a quick fix. You can't take something this big down our beautiful hwys. without having some kind of effect on the trailer. Its just the way it is. If you want to blame anyone I would say blame the state for not giving us great perfect hwys. But then again in order to do that you have to pay more taxes. It just keeps going on and on. Its part of the rving life for me.
Dave

I don't think anyone could have said it better, I am on my second Montana fifth wheel ,and have no complaints , some minor problems yes, nothing I am going to lose sleep over. I do believe as you say I think we forget what a beating these fifth wheels take going down the highways. Preventive maintenance, and proper care will go a long way to helping us with some of our problems. I firmly believe we would be hearing far less complaints about some of the problems. I know I have been lucky , but one example I have never had a water leak, but I never use the water system until I check every water line fitting I can get to , including removing the panel ,and checking the water pump fittings. How many people do this I have no idea, but I do know one thing, If I get a water leak, I hope it will not be my fault for not checking things out.

[Champ_49]

PSFORD99 I also checked all fittings behind the convienence center and have found some a little loose, but not leaking. The one major water leak I had was the shower/tub area. It seems they didn't caulk well around the walls and it leaked into the basement. But dealer took care of this and said they had done a number of them. Evidently there was some sort of overlooked thing in assembly. The other leak was way up under the unit right below the frig area. Had to take the side skirting off and plastic to get to it, but it was taken care of.
These rv's not only give us the freedom to do what we want, they also need TLC. They like being cared for, and the ones that are show it, no matter how old they are.

[jerrybb]

Must be you did get one of the bad ones ,,,, Full timers here ,,,, 3 years ,,,, 2006 3500RL ,, ( KNOCK ON WOOD ) we haven't had any problems I couldn't handle myself , except A warranty problem with the refrigator , but they cam to us ,, maybe you've got all the bugs out ,,, keep on going , GL

[Thunderman]

We are not full timers, only use it for pleasure at our convenience. Purchased new 5 years ago, we are on the second pump for the slides. Both times replaced with no hassle by Lippert, I installed. Had a leaky shower door, repaired by dealer no problem. Had a soft spot in the floor near a heat register, dealer said they could not fix. I have noticed at times the soft spot is not as evident which makes me believe the Montana may not be parked level. ??
A few normal problems of which I was able to take care of. The greatest disappointment is the lack of quality control. I had the same problem with wiring as some have had that caused a fire. The wiring and plumbing underneath was terrible in that there was no order where the wire and water lines were placed. Recently I replaced the attic vents on the roof. When the vents were installed originally, they cut a hole thru the rubber roof and plywood. The wood of course fell down and was left there, the rubber roof membrane was cut in such a way that there was a small piece holding it and it did not fall. It was left that way effectively blocking any process of ventilation.
If the job was worth doing it should be worth doing correctly. No excuse whether it was Keystone or any other manufacturer.

[washley1]

I guess like the original poster, we got one of the questionable ones. We have spent several weeks in our Big Sky since it arrived new last November. However, when not on the road it has spent more time at the dealer than in it's storage slip. We have suffered, among other things, a major water leak in the bed room slide, which in turn damaged the bed room door and door jam, hundreds (No exageration!) of carpet tacks sticking up in our feet, broken entry stairs, loose baseboards, a leaking window, a defective recliner chair, A/C problems, defective sink gasket, poorly made cabinets (in one instance obviously covered up by the installers), an several more that I would need to see our file at the dealer to list. All that being said, we are still enjoying our unit at every opportunity. I do wonder what I will feel when the warranty runs out...

[RADHAZJOE]

We have lived full time in our 3400RL for more than 4 years, traveling over 66,000 miles through 44 states. We LOVE the Montana but:

I feel that if I were not an experienced engineer and before that a technician, we would have givenj up the first 6 months.

Our dealer has been FANTASTIC (Dixie RV in Newport News, VA), taking care of many issues both before and after we took delivery, and running offense for us when we needed things done far from home.

But: My personal opinion is the whole Quality Control and Maintenance issue needs to be addressed industry wide. Admittedly we used our 5er much more than expected, but most problems occured in the first year. Most problems after that involved appliance, etc. issues, and our 5 year extended warrenty really saved us thousands, paid for itself 3 times over.

We feel we have worn Monty out so we are looking to upgrade to a 2010 in April, 2010, and a 3400RL is on the very short list. The floor plan and quality of build will be the deciding factors in which brand we select. We will be touring many manufacturers in the Elkhart area in a few days, talking to the engineers, technicians, and salesmen.

I will also always appreciate the help this site and all of you have provided me.