Decided to post as a seperate thread, and sorry, it is a long comment, aka, musings, aka, ramblings. Sorta in response to the thread on Reliablity and Harleyriders thread about Heard Back from the Dealer. Refer back to those threads, if you are confused. (that said, we know ole Carol is confused a lot!
) Here we go:
Not sure just where we stand on this issue, but keep going back to the thought, can we really blame Montana/Keystone for failures with Dometic air conditioners, failures with Alko axles?? Just for 2 examples. We have heard mumblings about Alko having a major problem on their manufacturing lines, one or two employees really messing up. Now, let me repeat that, we heard MUMBLINGS. We cannot subtantiate that!! We all note that Montana/Keystone no longer uses Alko. Looks like from where we are sitting that when problems started up with that axle, they went looking elsewhere, found something and changed.
It has all been said before, trouble with suppliers and quality of the materials from those suppliers. Running changes at Keystone. Read the other forums, other manufacturers all have trouble, some more than others, some we hear about more than others, some take care of their customers, others do not. Some customers seem to get treated better than others.
Answers, well we ain't got none, except to give Keystone a chance and be nice to those poor people answering their phones. We don't want to deal with snotty people, and I am sure they don't either.
Everyone states, be sure your dealer is a good one. Great advice, and how to you know that, maybe stand outside their service bays and listen to their customers, better than 50% ranting and raving, and you go elsewhere?? Just cause they got a fancy building and a lot of bays does not insure that they will treat you right or with equity. It depends on their attitude and ability to get quality workers. I said to Al a couple of times, how would you like to be in business, selling RV's and try to find quality workers to repair them?? Now that is a nightmare scenerio that gives me hives!
Maybe we do need lemon laws on RV's. If that is your strong belief, then you need to start with your state legislature. Is there any state, even one, that has such a law??
Maybe we owe it to Keystone to report to them, factually, not in a state of hysteria, when we find a dealer that is less that stellar?? Found one in Texas with the most filthy Montana's you have ever seen, I am not talking a little dust or road dirt on the outside, I am talking gravel and sand on every floor of every unit! Simple door adjustments were not made, stuff hanging out (most of had these units at a show, had all the little decorator items, thrown in closets, what a mess). Believe me, if we had never seen a Montana before, we would never have considered one after visiting this dealership. And, yea, some of the powers that be at Montana heard about it from us. Did they do anything, have no idea, but they heard about it.
Al and I have had 2 brand new Rv's that we ordered, a TT from another manufacturer, ordered and purchased in 1989, sold to purchase the Montana, in 2003. Had our fair share of problems with that unit, windows that did not fit, it took the plant 4 tries in one day to get that corrected, and that said, it really was not fixed 100%, several years later the window stopped functioning correctly and we lived with it that way for years.
Same TT, frame lost its camber. Just barely a year old. Again, fixed by the manufacturer. We were we happy?? NOPE, more like hysterical (for me) and angry (for Al). Both of us worried.
Have a boat trailer, currently it is not even 8 years old. First year, guess what, frame lost its camber. Again, fixed by manufactuer.
Do you see a pattern here??
At one time, someone dropped a number on us, the number representing what percentage of trailers came with camber trouble. Don't remember the exact number, but it was like 1 to 5 %. That is a LOT! Would not be acceptable in the automotive industry. Would it??
Will we trade our Montana in for another unit, hoping for better? NOPE. Not in the foreseeable future. This was a long term financial commitment for us, and replacement $$ are not in our foreseeable future.
We accept that maintenance must be done to keep RV's in workable and enjoyable order. Not that doing the work is a lot of fun, who wants to do work, when ya could be playing??
But, it is really upsetting to look at a large outlay of your cash and realize that you have some serious problems, maybe leaking slides, axles that are weak and bend, causing tires to scald out in less than 6000 miles, air conditioners that pee all over the carpet due to a error in engineering. The leaking faucets and horrible stereo sound systems are irritating, but can be fixed by most of us owners.
We have said any number of times here on the forum, that if you are gonna take these monsters out on the hard road you better be handy with your $$ AND handy with your hands. You better be able to fix most of the minor stuff, and you better have the $$ reserves to deal with the maintenance, like new shackles, new tires (after a reasonable time, not in one year, unless you drive, say, 30,000 miles a year, for example).
Maybe it boils down to every owner having their own unique experience and expectations. Each dealer is different, each service department is different, each unit is made a bit different, we each have different tolerance levels, what may bug us might not be an issue with you. We each handle it differently too. That said, would venture that we all are concerned about spending that much $$ and having what we consider to be big trouble.
No answers, as no answer is gonna be the right one for all of us. Our dealer was great during the sale. Loved the salesperson. Went downhill right after delivery. Seriously downhill. We had suspected we might have trouble with them after the sale, but several of the other dealers (that we knew of) within striking distance had worse reputations. Gotta buy it from someone.
Love the unit, love the layout, it suits our lifestyle. Cannot afford the $80,000 & units. Not sure we want to haul around all that weight either, as many of the more expensive units are much heavier.
It ain't a perfect world, but we don't relish spending our $$ on units that have serious problems either, problems that are NOT of our doing. Work with Montana/Keystone and try to resolve the difficulties, and we are well aware that sometimes that takes the patience of a saint.
Also acknowledge that MANY of you have only minor irritation problems with your units. In fact, from the posts of the happy happy owners, it would look like the majority of you are not experiencing major trouble. For you, congrats, we are truly happy for you. For a few of us that have trouble, the experience is less than happy, it is downright scarry. That said, so far, Montana/Keystone has been very helpful to us on our situations. We believe, from past treatment, that they will continue to be there for us! They have treated us well, and we feel we have treated them fairly as well, decent human beings do that for each other. And Montana/Keystone is made up of decent human beings.
Note that a lot of this post is generalizations, used for examples. We fully acknowledge that there are many opinions and many experiences. Isn't that what makes the world go round??
This post is not meant as a flame to any other MOC members, so, please do not take personal offense at my rambling on this way!
For now, Happy Trails, stay safe and try to enjoy that RV.
My musings are over, (for now, anyway
)
Carol
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