What were Montana's engineers thinking? - Montana Owners Club

Dave Nowlin · 06-09-2007, 06:18 PM

On my 2006 Montana is a very nice and expensive Dometic Digital Thermostat. This thermostat is capable of controlling up to 4 A/C units and is also capable of turning on a generator in case of power failure. This is great you say, but wait Montana left out the necessary wiring to utilize these capabilities. It is Montana's very limited vision that we should add on free standing A/C units if we need a second one. That is it will have it's own set of controls instead of being tied into the existing thermostat. Many Fifth Wheel manufacturers who use this thermostat are kind enough to run the control wiring so their customers can add a second A/C unit and tie it in. What must be done is add a 4 wire control circuit which runs back to the existing unit. Thankfully my background is facilities maintenance and just like when I worked in a plant I must now engineer a way around poor foresight on the part of degreed engineers. Well I have figured a way. In my 3295 RK when you pull the fascia around the bottom of the front vent you will observe a rectangular duct which supplies A/C to the front bedroom. I intend to cut into the side of this duct and use it as a wire chase as it goes back to the rear unit. I also intend to tie the front unit into this duct. This will enable me to feed the duct from either end or both ends depending on my needs. The interesting thing is the Montana Dealers all seem to add stand alone units when they aren't ordered out from the factory with both units. For some reason it hasn't occurred to them to use the duct work to run the control wires. Of course when this is done a temperature sensor must be added in the front bedroom which shouldn't be rocket science.
Dave Nowlin

bsmeaton · 06-09-2007, 09:12 PM

Dave,

Not sure I put the blame on Keystone for that one, rather I would look to Dometic. I think the new thermostat just showed up on the Dometic ACs after the blunder Dometic had with the previous remote control model and Keystone is installing the same way they always have.

Send your thought to Keystone using the "send us your ideas" button on the Keystone webpage. They really do listen and have responded to several of mine. Wouldn't hurt to put a little positive twist to your suggestion either, as it will gain you far better mileage.

By the way, Welcome to the Forum!

Dave Nowlin · 06-10-2007, 07:48 AM

Interestingly I have already spoken to the customer service people at Montana, thus my attitude. I previously had a TT built by Forest River. One of the nice things about them is you can actually talk to their engineers and make suggestions. You can also give them a heads up on quality control issues and they will listen. When I asked to speak to one of the Montana engineers my request was flatly refused. I was told the person I was talking to was my advocate and he seemed somewhat disinterested. To say the least, I wasn't impressed. When the engineers at Montana are willing to take from their valuable time to listen to a sincere concern I will be impressed. Right now I'm not. I was flatly told it is their vision for us to install a stand alone unit in the front bedroom. That answer is unacceptable. I looked at a used Grand Junction in Gulf Shores that was set up properly with the front heat pump specified as zone #2 on the thermostat. Since my unit was built in early 06 with no provision for tying an add on unit to the thermostat and they are still building them that way I won't make excuses for them. I'm sorry but these units are too expensive to excuse incompetence. An engineer designing these units should look at the capabilities of all of the individual components used in the building of them and build them in a way that allows us to fully utilize all of them. If you decide later to add a generator wouldn't you like for it to kick on automatically should you lose power while you are asleep on a hot night or would you prefer to awaken in a puddle of sweat. That's what I call a rude awakening.
Dave Nowlin

bsmeaton · 06-10-2007, 10:55 AM

Not sure exactly what you are trying to accomplish by talking to the engineer about a model/year Montana no longer in production, other than to make sure he knows you think he is incompetent. I wouldn't accept the call either.

Now if you are trying to suggest to them that they upgrade the new 2008 production line to the full potential of the thermostat, the mechanism to express your idea is through the suggestion format. I have already suggested they look at the Dometic AC solar system panels as well, and recieved a favorable response. It won't affect me, but may be available on the Montana line next time I'm in the market.

Thank goodness it's a country of choice. It sounds like you had several opportunities to know what the other brands offered as compared to the Montana before you purchased. Perhaps you just made the wrong choice.

ols1932 · 06-10-2007, 11:39 AM

Perhaps the Montana isn't the rig for this gentleman. Some other brand might be a better choice, but there are and will be problems with other brands too. We've had other brands and still believe the Montana is the best bang for the buck. I've never had a problem talking to whomever I desired to talk to at Keystone. I usually call and say something like this, "Hello, my name is XXX and I'm the proud owner of a 2000 Montana that I bought new and have lived in for the past 6+ years." That always elicits a positive response. And, I don't open with that just to get a favorable response. It's the truth. You get a lot more accomplished with a little honey than you do with vinegar.

Orv

richfaa · 06-10-2007, 12:13 PM

A design engineer left to their own devices would Not do that kind of design work.The Design Engineer designed the system according to Keystones Spec's.I am sure that all of the things you mention occurred to someone at Keystone but as with all organizations " Cost effective Design engineering" takes precedence over "effective engineering" You seem to have done your homework so you know what you purchased. Perhaps doing it yourself would be more cost effective to you rather than purchasing a unit with those design features. Do go to that "send us your ideas" Link...someone may listen??

Dave Nowlin · 06-10-2007, 07:04 PM

I'm surprised at those who rushed to Montana's defense. First I didn't know what I know now when I purchased the Montana. Secondly I have done a lot of reading on this site this weekend and know that some of you have had your own problems with Montana. Strangely the inner rafter on the front portion of my awning was too short to allow it to extend out fully and click it in place. The span is 90 1/2 inches and the outer rafter is 54 inches and the inner rafter is 32 1/2 inches. I discovered this after I got home with my unit. I had many phone calls to the selling dealer to try and rectify the situation. I finally got them to check a 3295RK sitting on their lot. They discovered that a different length inner rafter is used than is normal with the 54 inch outer rafter. After many phone calls where they seemed to think I was crazy they finally checked it out and agreed I was right. They are shipping me the inner rafter to change out. Only after camping in the unit did I decide I wanted to add a second A/C unit. When I began checking into things I began hitting stone walls. The Montana dealer I bought the unit from has never tied a second unit to the thermostat and had no idea how this could be accomplished. Dometic won't discuss this with a consumer when you call their tech line. They will only discuss this with an authorized dealer of Dometic products. I did some reading on their web site. You can read the installation instructions and come to realize that the second unit's control wires aren't actually run to the thermostat but rather to the control board of the first unit. It was then after pulling the fascia around the bottom of the front vent that I saw the A/C duct was a very short distance away from this vent and the thought occurred to me to use the duct work as a wire chase. A fellow I go to church with runs an RV repair center here in Savannah and is a Dometic Dealer. I discussed my idea with him and he believes as I do that it will work. In the next few weeks I hope to have this project finished. To answer the question already asked, no I didn't believe that talking to the engineer would change my situation. I did believe it might make life simpler for future Montana owners however. There is a concept called paying ahead. I often do things to protect others. If you don't believe me go to a web site called Archery Talk and mention my name. See how many I have coached over the phone to enable them to work on their own compound bows after the Pro Shop where they bought their bow let them down. I have helped people from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, France, Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, The Lower 48, Mexico and several South American countries.
Of course I P.M. back and forth with the folks in foreign countries but call those who live in the U.S.A. I have had over 2,00 inquiries for help in the last 2 years and have helped every one of them to the best of my ability. RVs are new to me but I will obviously have to learn about them in order to properly maintain my own. Just as I have done some pistolsmithing and handloading for 23 different rifle and pistol calibers as well as building many different fishing lures such as jigs and spinnerbais for bass and flies for many different species of fish and building my own fly rods. I will also learn RV maintenance. It seems to be necessary.
Dave Nowlin

richfaa · 06-11-2007, 02:13 AM

This is a Montana owners forum and there are many folks here who do not want to hear anything negative about the Montana. Do not allow that to inhibit you from sharing your experiences and suggestions on how to improve our Montana's..That is how we learn. Your post was informative and I will bet it has many folks checking out your suggestion. There is a lot to learn about the RV industry and you may be dismayed at much of what you learn.Note that you are in Tn. The MOC has a Rally in Goshen, In, a long trip but usually involves a tour of the Montana factory and there are many other RV manufacturers in that area.. A great place to start your education of the RV industry.

Dave Nowlin · 06-11-2007, 04:58 AM

It's good to support a product you like up to a certain point, but blind brand loyalty simply doesn't make sense. It doesn't speak to the fact that we are made in God's image, the most intelligent of all the creatures He created. He gave us intelligence that we might learn to discern and make wise choices. From pictures I have seen on this site many of you are older than me. I will be 65 in October. Wisdom should naturally increase with age, so please don't insult me or your creator by sticking your head in the sand and displaying blind loyalty. In fact many of you have come up with brilliant solutions to overcome some of the shortcomings engineered into these units and I salute you for this fact and your willingness to support other owners by sharing what you have learned. I'm simply trying to do the same. I would hope my careful explaination of how I have reached certain conclusions and how I have dealt with the lack of cooperation from both Montana and Dometic will give others ideas. It seems strange that when Dometic won't discuss something with me I can go to their web site and find the information I need. Information their customer service people won't share as it is company policy not to. I'm not crazy but I am impatient with incompetence and company policies which defy reason. I'm in sales and have been since 1984. I have dealt with some of America's biggest corporations and am absolutely shocked at the lack of foresight displayed in the RV industry. My previous unit was a Forest River Surveyor 291. My granddaughter laid down on the rear bed and told me she could see daylight by the edge of the door. I checked and she was right. The Surveyor folks bragged in their literature that they actually pressure tested all the seams on these trailers with compressed air and a soap solution. This impressed me, so I was very surprised to see this gap on the leading edge of the door. A place where there was double weatherstripping. When I shared what I had found with their design engineer, he explained that they checked all the seams where they assembled the unit. That the door assembly had been built by a component manufacturer and hadn't been checked by them. I later returned to Bankston Motor Homes lot in Florence Alabama and found that 5 out of 6 remaining units on his lot had the same defect and reported this to the factory. They sent out a replacment door unit for my unit which Bankston installed. As far as I have been able to discern, even though I pointed this problem out to Mr. Bankston at his main facility in Huntsville Alabama, the other units were sold to customers without disclosing the defect. I don't know what happened to all these folks even though I pointed this all out to Mr. Bankston in hopes of protecting his customers. I believe they actually sold over 100 of these units and have no way to know how many of them had the defect. I do know 5 of the 6 I checked did have it. So in answer to a previously asked question, do I believe discussing these problems with Montana will fix my problem? No! I do hope it will make things easier for someone else down the road. How much could it increase cost to tape a 4 conductor control wire to the side of the duct when building the unit? A wire which would run from the rear unit to the front unit, a span of less than 30 feet? Folks to cut this corner makes no more sense than saying in your literature you pressure check all seams and even show a picture on your brochure and then send out units with a crack that varies from 1/8 to 1/4 inch which is unsealed along a door edge. A crack which will cause water to enter the unit when it is towed in the rain? All of these manufacturers deceive us and cut quality corners in the name of profits. Does it seem strange to you that my wife and I bought a new house in Memphis Tennessee in 1966 for $14,175 dollars on my G. I. Bill and today paid over twice that for a used Fifth Wheel? That home was inspected by government inspectors before we bought it. Later we inspected it and made a list of all the things which were wrong and the builder was forced to repair every one of them. I read over the weekend about the couple who bought the new Big Sky and all the problems they are having with it. It seems the problems are actually growing more numerous as they use it. This doesn't speak to the quality they should have received and the attempted repairs don't seem satisfactory either. These folks were let down by both Montana and the selling dealer. These units aren't terrible but Montana still needs to step up to the plate and do better. You deserve better.
Dave Nowlin

Emmel · 06-11-2007, 06:10 AM

Dave,
I'm a little curious as what options were oredered on your unit when you ordered it new?
The unit should have a switch for the generator separate from the thermostat control.
I didn't order the second air setup, so I can't speak for the wireing, but there are a lot of folks that have installed their second, maybe they have a solution for that.
I'm also trying to understand blind brand loyalty? I really believe we made a very wise choice purchasing our two Montanas. I believe everyone has an option to buy what they personally like here in the USA and we did our homework before the first and also ordered what we needed different on the second! We visited the factory twice before we ordered our first one. Maybe you should have dug a little deeper before you ordered your Montana, if you were not satisfied at what you saw there, you could have purchased an S.O.B.

bsmeaton · 06-11-2007, 07:26 AM

You folks are cracking me up

. Now I might have my head in the sand, but just think Dave, a little loyalty from you and you'd have bought another Forest River product and wouldn't have to put up with this "incompetent" engineering at Keystone!

Now before we go bashing the engineer for incompetence, let's look at what you have overlooked - the rear AC is a ducted system designed to operate as a stand alone system for 100% control of the Montana. Supply air diffusers are located throughout the ceiling including the bedroom area. To effectively have a dual zone system within the capabilities of the thermostat, the supply and return air systems must be independent. Simply adding a sensor and AC to the bedroom will not give you a dual system, as the rear AC airflow into the bedroom will interfere with the front AC operation. The engineering change would go well beyond just adding wiring, and would almost force Keystone to provide 2 ACs as standard equipment. If Forest River did not totally separate these zones, then I would question their Engineer's competence.

Now lets look at the Corporate perspective. Keystone had to warranty hundreds if not thousands of Montana's throughout 2004-2005 equipped with the previous Dometic wireless remote thermostat that simply did not work. As a manufacturer, I would really hesitate to incorporate all functions of an even more complicated thermostat system until I knew it showed some field reliability.

Ideas and comments and even opinions are always good, just watch the fine line of calling me a fool for investing in a Keystone product.

jrgwdenner · 06-11-2007, 07:56 AM

Phew, thou doest protest too much! And you haven't read this forum enough. "Blind loyalty"? Not in this group. There are few of us who have been without problems with our rigs but where is perspective? Your rig has a design element with which you don't agree. Few of us don't have issues with some design elements. Most of the guys posting right now have had MAJOR issues with their rigs.

I think you would find people on this forum more sympathetic and understanding if you hadn't jumped right in with a strong criticism of Keystone. People get their defenses up when criticisms are thrown up so strongly out of the blue. Maybe an introduction first or some other softer approach would have been appropriate or received better. As for the age issue (how that relates to anything, I don't know), you're probably older than most of the people on the forum, not that it matters.

Anyway, welcome to the forum. You will find a good listening ear here and highly intelligent people who can relate to your problems.

Dave Nowlin · 06-11-2007, 09:08 AM

I didn't and won't refer to anyone as a fool. That is very much contrary to scripture. Second as I have pointed out in previous posts, I didn't buy the unit new. It was about 1 year old when I bought it. As for the seperate returns, the Dometic units have the return in the base of the unit where it comes through the ceiling. Secondly if fan speed is set the same in 2 identical units blowing into the same duct which are located at opposite ends of the duct the air flow will somewhat split in the middle. I will gain some volume in air flow but not a lot. What I will gain is an increase in cooling capacity which is what I am after. By the way as I mentioned earlier my background is facilities maintenance and today I sell filtration products of all types and I have done an awful lot of work with air handling equipment over the last 21 years. It is difficult to feed a fan with a fan due to cavitation problems and far less difficult to dead head 2 fans against each other when there is an opportunity for the air to escape through diffusers. I won't challenge you on nuclear firefighting issues and hopefully you won't challenge me on air handling issues. I have helped drug manufacturers, hospitals and food manufacturing plants with filtration and air handling issues as well as cleanroom manufacturers in the electronic industry.
Dave Nowlin

bsmeaton · 06-11-2007, 10:07 AM

Dave - two things to consider:

The front AC roughin on the Montana is not a ducted system, so your theory on dead heading the fans against each other won't work unless you modify the ductwork above the ceiling to include the front AC rough in.

Also, the thermostat controls fan speed automatically as well (hi-lo) so you won't be able to establish a constant fan speed for both units unless you bypass that feature at the thermostat.

BTW - nuclear firefighting is 90% airflow engineering and passive containment. It would be a mistake to assume we drag hoses and spray water.

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