Lack of quality

[Steelernut]

We purchased a 2020 Keystone Montana 3971. Our first trip out started a non stop down slide with sub par quality issues. We literally had a river running down the steps and across the kitchen. Dealer replaced the window and sent it back to us. Next trip out same thing. Replaced window again. Find out it's not the window, factory failed to install seals on rear slide outs. This after floor was soaked and basement storage dreanched. Amongst other things, arm of chair broke, TV failed to extend correctly, hydraulic pump failure, door bowed out, this just a few of issues. Trailer went back to Keystone for three months. Got it back and things seemed good. Until two ago retrieving it from storage. The hydraulics have failed and front jacks retracted rear jacks extended. Dealer has it yet again. Keystone/ Thor Ind. Are producing JUNK. Never buy there crap. Because that's all it is, us crap

[Gubs]

I feel your pain! We have a 2020 Montana 3121RL and it has spent more time at the dealers getting fixed than on the road camping. I'm about ready to sell it and let it be someone else's "Money Pit".

[Steelernut]

Originally Posted by Gubs

I feel your pain! We have a 2020 Montana 3121RL and it has spent more time at the dealers getting fixed than on the road camping. I'm about ready to sell it and let it be someone else's "Money Pit".

It's pathetic. And there is no legal recourse either. No lemon law. Me personally believe that word of mouth and group collaboration about the poor product is the only means to degrate Thor Ind.

[wed]

All brands have issues work with Montana customer service I have found that they really care even if it takes time to go through many issues

[DutchmenSport]

The "quality" issue with ALL RV's was never really good. And it seems, over the last 10 years (especially), the "quality" has declined even more. And since the pandemic started, it's just now non-existent.

The only recourse is to somehow get the word out and hopefully, if new sales slump to a new low again, the message might get through to ALL manufacturers that the consumer is no longer purchasing their very disappointing product.

But, very few, if any will heed the warnings. I am sorry about your troubles Steelernut. I do not wish anything like what you are going through, on anyone. But the fact is, the warning about "poor quality" built RV has been blasted on every RV and camping forum on the Internet, social media, and word of mouth. And just like so many others, the warnings were ignored because the advertisements and the "glimmer" and "glitch" of the RV is so tantalizing, it's hard to reconcile bad quality with all the glimmer facade.

Folks who purchased during the pandemic did so hastily, not thinking things through, looking for an easy way out of their isolation. And now, they are paying the price for rash choices, not listening to what was really going on in the world. Instead, hearing only what they wanted to hear.

This does not solve your issue, I know, and maybe harsh words. For that I apologize. Reality is a hard and bitter pill to swallow. I know. I purchased my Montana about 4 years ago now, before the pandemic. My previous 3 travel trailers were solid, good, and trouble free. Then I got the Montana several years after I purchased my last travel trailer and had nothing but serious disappointment after disappointment with it the first year.

Warranty was a joke. And even if warranty covered the problem, getting the camper to a shop for the fix took months, and once there, the camper was there for months. Little did I know. After the 3rd event, I took it very serious and started aggressively doing my own repairs. After the first year of ownership, I felt like I completely rebuilt my Montana. Today, it's a good, solid, pretty much... trouble free camper that I truly enjoy. BUT is was not easy getting it there.

Again, I know you have your share of problems with your new Montana. But, if you hang in there long enough, things will get resolved. One thing you really need to do is forget about warranty issues and start fixing things yourself. You can use a mobile tech. Watch lots of YouTube videos on your unique RV problem (because it's really not a unique problem at all, it's problems we all have). And then start fixing things yourself. This does not take the sting away from your very disappointed expectations of "warranty" repairs, but it does give you better control of your own situation.

You have money lost. All you can do is suck-it-up and move on. Use what you have at hand. Use YOUR knowledge, YOUR independence, and YOUR skill and move on yourself. In the long run, you will be much happier.

The other thing you can do is help the rest of us sound the warning for new potential, first time RV owners, who somehow refuse to heed the warnings too. Post on every social media site you have access too, talk to people, and share your experiences. And don't be afraid to name names and point fingers. BUT, always start the conversations with .... "This has been my experience." And don't generalize the experiences of others. This is the best offensive we have against the RV manufacturers.

[bcrvman]

Originally Posted by wed

All brands have issues work with Montana customer service I have found that they really care even if it takes time to go through many issues

Really!? I have tried on two occasions to contact Keystone, the message I got both times was "We don't deal with customers, only dealers".
I have fixed whatever failed on my trailer without taking it to the dealer including a chair, fireplace and a baggage door.

As far as I can tell there is NO Keystone CUSTOMER service. If you know differently, post the phone #, and or email here, otherwise admit to being a Keystone shill.

[JNLVaughn]

Where they failed to put seals around slide...is that passenger side LR slide? We have intermittent leak...it runs down behind trim sometimes. VERY FRUSTRATING!

[steiny93]

lack of quality is a very common thread

I've purchased a few new rv's, 3 of them from Keystone. Each of them had multiple quality control issues. To be fair, the other brands had basically a similar number of issues.

[Byron B]

It appears that quality has become more of a significant issue in 2020, 2021 and 2022 years of production. Glad that our Montys are 2016 and 2019. Had a few stupid problems that were the fault of manufacturing in the 2016 (front a/c wired to back thermostat and back unit wired to front thermostat) but fortunately no major problems with the 2019 3021RL.

[Bad Moon]

Originally Posted by bcrvman

Really!? I have tried on two occasions to contact Keystone, the message I got both times was "We don't deal with customers, only dealers".
I have fixed whatever failed on my trailer without taking it to the dealer including a chair, fireplace and a baggage door.

As far as I can tell there is NO Keystone CUSTOMER service. If you know differently, post the phone #, and or email here, otherwise admit to being a Keystone shill.

That was my experience as well. Then the dealer got to give me the bad news.

[Lee-CI]

Very interesting read.......
Can not dispute actual build quality, for the threads about such are bountiful and at times abhorring. We've been blessed in that respect so far - knock on wood - our only structural issue has been alignment on our DS kitchen slide. Watched a couple of Lippert videos for alignment checks and sure enough ours were out of spec. After making the proper vertical alignments I found out rather quickly that I did not have anywhere near enough back to make the slide parallel to the side of the fiver. A wee bit of southern ingenuity along with a 3" wide ratchet strap from old hay hauling days hooked from the offending end of the slide to the ODS of the fiver frame allowed me bring the slide into correct seal alignment. It was either do it myself or succumb to being out of sorts from leaving it to a dealer for how knows how long.


Matters of failed installed components can hardly be blamed on any manufacturer other than them succumbing to lowest bids from suppliers for bean counters. On the other hand, highest quality components would likely put the price point out of a lot of folks financial reach. I'll put myself in that category.


Had a no response issue with Magnum-Inverters for a week and popped onto the Keystone website looking for a customer service number. Unexpectedly a chat window popped up from a Keystone rep. The rep was not familiar at all with my issue and was convinced it was a solar controller issue. With that said, the rep got on the phone with me and bent over backwards trying to help out. Suffice it to say she had to resort to towing the company line suggesting rather emphatically that I take our fiver back to our dealer.


Evidently the Magnum-Inverter folks have been swamped, but a rep did finally reach out to me the same day I reached out to Keystone purely by happenstance. The supplier rep worked with me via numerous emails throughout the day, finally concluding after working through every possible scenario that our 2000W inverter has a bad internal relay circuit. We could trick the inverter to going from pass-through to invert mode only by securing all shore power to our fiver as well as all DC power to the inverter, then bring the DC power back online. Suffice it to say I am having to wait for another inverter to be built and sent to me, but I already have a copy of the build order. In the mean time, we have a workaround.


Working through issues within our means is the best we can do. As Dutchman made note of, I along with everyone else that have purchased within the past two or three years had been forewarned of build quality issues. Perseverance and determination and asking for the knowledge of the myriad of very seasoned MOC members here can normally help one with all but the most catastrophic of issues or failures. Heaven forbid that we ourselves have a catastrophic failure of some sort, but in the mean time I look forward to the challenges ahead - and choose to be happy with our purchase.

[rames14]

Soapbox out. We are on our 4th Montana. All 4 have been relatively trouble free. I have found the dealer makes the biggest difference in customer satisfaction. Have we had issues, yes. But when I do, I make an appointment at my dealer, pull in at 8:00 am, they have the parts and we pull out at the end of the day with everything fixed. On the few occasions it took longer, we stayed overnight at the dealer and they finished the next day. Our current 3230CK had an issue with the slide on our recent trip. Our dealer got us an appointment in Albuquerque, overnighted parts and they had us in at 9 am. Maybe I could have saved a few thousand dollars somewhere else (maybe). But, what’s it worth not to have your unit in the shop for months? My experience has been Montana stands behind their product and they are very customer focused. They are one of the few manufacturers that did not increase their builds when prices skyrocketed. And, they keep a much more stable workforce because they don’t go through the feast and famine that others do. Are they perfect? No, but they try. Choose your dealer wisely. They will determine your satisfaction, regardless of brand. Soapbox put away.

[1retired06]

We have had 4 Montana units over 20 years to include fulltiming and snowbirding in Florida. Mixed bag dealing with Keystone over issues. Starting with the 2010, noticed a decline in quality. Our 2015 clearly was substandard to the early ones we had. Keystone going cheap to keep price points down. We usually replaced every five years or so as you can see from our signature. We have been extremely disappointed in what we have seen in the new units. No more Keystone purchases. We will stick with our 2015.

[MandK]

We've had good luck with ours (so far) but have only had it 8 months and only have a little over 4000 miles on it. The first night we stayed on it we found out that the motion light at the stairs up to the bath and bedroom never stopped going on and off, something we never noticed during the pdi because obviously we were moving around. I waited until we used it a couple more times before calling the dealer because I figured there would be more, but there wasn't. Dealer is 100+ miles away so I just asked that he send me a light. He said it would come direct from Keystone. 4 days later it was on my doorstep. The other issue was somewhere between Richmond VA and Clearwater FL the heat duct hose fell off of the floor register in the bathroom. It was a chilly morning and we turned on the gas furnace to warm things up and noticed no heat in the bathroom. Whoever installed that didn't eat their Wheaties that day I guess. I removed the floor diffuser and reached down into the belly with a pair of grill tongs and pulled the duct hose up and reattached it with the hose clamp that was still on the end of the hose. I don't think that's too bad for living in it for over 100 days so far. Everything has certainly gotten a good workout. We've decided it's a keeper so we are going to spend the money to put disk brakes on it before we take it south again this winter.
Now that I've posted this, hopefully the next time we take it out the ceiling won't cave in.

[dfb]

I know what you're going thru, believe me. We have owned 5 previous 5th wheels. Aljo, by sky line, no issues. Prowler by Fleetwood, no issues, another also and a KZ NEW VISION ULTRA, no issues. This is our first Keystone. Montana 3611 rl legacy.. big slide fixed 3x... Bedroom cable slide 2x.. black water rank is 2 piece and busted loose, axle bolts to frame leaf springs broke. And other issues. We have some things like trim coming down, ..

[Fred]

I've said it many times. I've owned many RVs, boats, cars and trucks. RVs are the worst built by far. All the brands use the same crummy components.

Either you realize this AND you must have the ability to fix anything, otherwise your life will be full of heart breaks.

[jsb5717]

If you believe all of the RV complaint sites for all of the brands over all of these many years then you realize that anyone can be the victim of a problem RV. For the most part…pre covid…the odds were against it and most buyers got a decent unit while some ended up with multiple problems. It’s not a new story and over the years, Keystone (Montana in particular) had a higher percentage of successes than the other brands. Since covid all bets are off and the percentage of problem trailers has gone up significantly. It’s definitely a buyer-beware market. And while it always sucks to be one who ended up with a problem trailer it’s always been a possibility. We all roll the dice, buy our rigs, do a thorough PDI, and hope for the best. A good dealer makes a world of difference.

Since covid it’s still possible to end up with a good trailer but the odds are much higher of getting a problem. The warnings are out there and plentiful. Any research at all should make any potential buyer think twice. If you do buy you assume the higher risk. I feel badly for anyone who spends all of that inflated price and ends up with big problems. It sucks. But you can’t say you weren’t warned. I hope you have a very good dealer.

[dfb]

Originally Posted by jsb5717

If you believe all of the RV complaint sites for all of the brands over all of these many years then you realize that anyone can be the victim of a problem RV. For the most part…pre covid…the odds were against it and most buyers got a decent unit while some ended up with multiple problems. It’s not a new story and over the years, Keystone (Montana in particular) had a higher percentage of successes than the other brands. Since covid all bets are off and the percentage of problem trailers has gone up significantly. It’s definitely a buyer-beware market. And while it always sucks to be one who ended up with a problem trailer it’s always been a possibility. We all roll the dice, buy our rigs, do a thorough PDI, and hope for the best. A good dealer makes a world of difference.

Since covid it’s still possible to end up with a good trailer but the odds are much higher of getting a problem. The warnings are out there and plentiful. Any research at all should make any potential buyer think twice. If you do buy you assume the higher risk. I feel badly for anyone who spends all of that inflated price and ends up with big problems. It sucks. But you can’t say you weren’t warned. I hope you have a very good dealer.

Ours is a 15 precovid

[jsb5717]

Originally Posted by dfb

Ours is a 15 precovid

Yes, and ours is an 18 precovid. We’ve had next to no problems with ours. Like I said, I think it sucks that anyone should have larger, nagging problems with their RV. But there’s always been a percentage of rigs that result in problems. Sadly, it happens. But the point is that the percentage of faulty rigs is much higher now than precovid. Buyers should be aware…with any brand.

[bshgto]

I used to get all bent out of shape, stomp around, complain on the forum about quality issues when things broke or didn`t work with my last Montana HC. With this one I just fix it and forget it even if I paid for the parts from day 1. I mean letting the unit sit at a dealer arguing with the dealer/Keystone wasn`t for me. You`ll sleep better. Yes, yes you shouldn`t have to put up with this considering what you pay for one, especially now, but it`s not going to get any better so buy some tools read,read,read about your unit and U-tube is your friend and tackle the issue yourself you just have to roll with it.