crlly6,
We had an appointment too, for 7 AM on Tuesday, left the rally after dinner Monday night, drove over, slept in the parking lot of the service center in our unit.
They did not even start on our unit until Wednesday afternoon after 1 PM. We were there all week and finally left on Saturday about noon.
THAT SAID!!!!! Here is how we saw it, and I think it boiled down to a communications situation between Keystone offices.
Jeff Rank and his gang knew MOC was coming in, during the plant tour on Saturday, they listened to our suggestions AND our complaints, doing what they do best, which is "Making the customer happy", they promised some MOC Rally attendees that they would get the service center to FIX their units.
The service center really had NO idea that there was a Rally, until Monday and Tuesday, when people started showing up and they probably got a call or two from Jeff and his staff.
The service center is booked with appointments for at least 2 months, FULLY BOOKED. When you get an appointment there, they go over your complaints, and with their knowledge of our units, the problems and the fixes and knowing how fast their staff works, figure out how long to "book" you into the service center.
Now, comes Monday morning, and all of a sudden a number of units they did not expect, all with problems for sure, time consuming problems, show up and have been told they are gonna get fixed!! Problems solved for the MOC owners, and problems created for the service center--how to get all the units scheduled fixed and the MOC members units fixed too!
Only there is no extra manpower, they are already working long days and most Saturdays.
We watched these guys working all week, they were under a LOT of pressure, and tried VERY hard to NOT let it show. They kept on laughing and smiling and trying to make all the customers feel special and important and happy when they pulled away from the service center. They worked VERY hard, VERY hard!!
We saw units leave with a lot more repairs done than were on the list. Even a bad tire was found by the service people and replaced for a customer. Customer had NO idea he had a bad tire!
Being kinda the truthful types that we are, we were not real happy with having an appointment and then being pushed back and sitting there all week. There were a number of reasons were were sitting so long, part of the problem was the extra units MOC brought in, part of the problem was the types of repairs/corrections we had done to the unit.
I will tell you that I was told that WHEN we come in there for another rally, the service center will not be caught unawares again, and they will not be booked solid like they were this last week. I heard that from a pretty good source.
The long and short of it, the service department got a nasty surprise on Monday morning, made the best of a nasty situation, got us fixed and on the road (even tho a couple of our MOC units will be coming back in a few weeks for some additional work, cause the service center did not have a couple of parts needed). I don't know how they managed to do all this extra work, but I can guarantee you that there was a really tired bunch of employees on Saturday at noon.
Sorry you guys could not keep your appointment, we are lucky in that we are retired and had no commitments for the entire week, so we could stay. Not sure what we would have done if we had commitments or work or something.
Our wish is for all Montana owners to NEVER need to go to the service center, but we feel that if you get in the situation when that is what you have to do to get your unit fixed, then go forth, enjoy Elkhart County, and our experience is that you will leave the service center a happy camper!