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Old 05-15-2007, 06:06 AM   #1
Dean A Van Peursem
Montana Master
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Snohomish
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M.O.C. #5583
Late 2006 3400RL Sagging roof

We are at our original dealer trying to get our sagging superslide roof repaired again plus a whole bunch of additional warranty items plus a new Apollo oven. Yesterday the dealer tried to slip an unacceptable fix past us. They just raised the whole slide a 1/2" and stated: "It is fixed". Well folks That went over like a ....... well you know what. The decals on the supeer slide are now mismatched 1/2" higher than the mating decals. I was furious.
After a heated discussion, they are now going to take pictures of what they did before and send them to Keystone. They finally admitted that there is a very high probability that they should have used angle iron rather than just flat bar stock to remove the sag. If they did it wrong to begin with the dealer will have to cover the cost to do it right the second time. Not my problem. That is between the dealer and Keystone. Please just fix it and also fix it the right way.

I'll provide further updates as things move forward.... hopefully.
 
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Old 05-15-2007, 09:07 AM   #2
richfaa
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M.O.C. #2839
Dean,The main slide sag was on our Service center repair list and they did correct it. I don't know what they did other than all the wood behind the fascia and the fisca itself is new. They did say something about raising the roof, not the slide and re enforceing it..The service center has the fix so your dealer, If he wants to, should be able to get the fix from them..The question would be do they have the expertise to do it. Oh..My decals are not mismatched..
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Old 05-16-2007, 07:51 AM   #3
Dean A Van Peursem
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M.O.C. #5583
Two days at the original dealer and the problem isn't solved. First Montana told the delaer to remove the Facia and the steel plate and drill twice as many screw holes and re-install. I didn't see how that was going to solve the problem. While that was going on Montana called again and required an additional 1" x 1" steel angle iron be installed behind the facia backing board (Plywood) and the top of the slide out. That I could see would add some strength. That was all accomplished and reassembled and checked. Most of the 1/2" to 3/4" sag was gone but not 100%. The rubber flap contacted the top of the slide about 5' from each end and then just lightly touched or there was a very small gap in the middle.

My analysis is the top of the slide is about as flat as one can get an unsupported 12' stretch. Now the real problem is the it appears to me that the roof of the slide just isn't high enough. The roof needs to be raised and there is no way to raise the whole slide since it rides on a ridge at the bottom with no adjustments. The slide can be adjusted up and down on the outside edge and forward or backward but not upward as a total entity. The roof would have to come off and some how built a 1/2 higher. That may be what they did to Rich's.

To get the slide adjusted so that it doesn't unduly mark up the carpet, the outside edge needs to be adjusted upward about 1/2" which makes the decal mismatched by 1/2". There just isn't a clean solution that I or the dealer can figure out.

This particular slide just wasn't built right to begin with and the tolerances have all accumulated to the point it is not adequately adjustable or fixable.

Montana is being informed of the situation this morning. Dealer is trying to sell me a slide awning to protect against rain caused leakeage. I'm not very excited about that due to it's a bandaid fix rather than a solution to the real problem. I'm really against paying more money to fix a defective Montana factory product.

We will see what Montana has in the way of a response today after they receive the bad news. Very discouraging! I'm really getting tired of arguing with dealer service centers and the factory. This is the 4th time this slide has been attempted to be fixed by Montana dealer personnel.
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Old 05-18-2007, 07:05 PM   #4
Dean A Van Peursem
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No response from Montan as of 2:00PM on friday. Supposedly there has been a storm in the Goshen area that has disrupted the Factory systems and response capability.

We are now back home after a 2 hour plus return drive. Reflecting on what occured at the dealer this week I have come to the conclusion they did everything we asked for but even applying the Montana factory fixes, the slide just cannot be repaired as it was originally built. The roof is just too low. We stopped into the dealer again today and they adjusted the slide forward so that the side rubber seals were equally sealing. This corrected the problem of the slide being too far to the rear which occurred when we were trying to get the outside edge adjusted to not excessively rub on the carpet. It appears that the excessive rubbing on the carpet is now cured but the decals no longer match by about a 1/2". I have decided to live with that temporarily to avoid damaging the carpet. While helping get the whole slide moved forward we noticed that the front side wasn't built square either. The bottom is further forward than the top. IMHO it is just a bad slide, all over, that just got built out of spec and no easy fixes are possible. I beleive the dealer gave it's best shot. We will wait to see what Montana's response will be.

But several other nagging warranty issues got fixed. A new Apolo Oven was installed, but unfortunately the bezel got cracked on installation. The dealer had to do quite a few internal modifications to the bezel to get it to fit. I don't understand why that was necessary. But the good news is the new oven works so much better than the original and it is at least 50% quieter. Didn't know what a good oven was supposed to work like until we got the new one. Hopefully that puts that issue to bed. New bezel is supposed to be sent to us for me to install.

Had the Fantastic Fan worked on again as the Oregon dealer fix didn't solve the sticking problem. Working again, we will see if this fix lasts.

The dealer removed all wheels and hubs for me to check the wiring. I took pictures of three of the four wheels with hubs off. Found no loose connections or worn insulation anywhere. I asked them to put a protective sleeve over the wires where they rubbed on the left spring. They used a split corrugated spiral type sleeve which looks to me will give the wires the extra protection they need. Hopefully that puts that scary problem to bed. No recurrence of the brake issue has returned on this recent trip.

Dealer policed the whole 3400RL outside for stray and smudged Silicon caulking. Many of the seams had excessive silcone spread as much as an inch out from the actual seam. There were also randonm spots of smeared silcone all over. Really ugly and collected road dirt like a magnet. They used a plastic "putty buddy" to score the silcone film where it needed to stop and then scraped the excess off of the gel coat also using the "Putty Buddy" and then used a chemical called SAR (Silicon Adhesive Remover) to clean the surface to remove any adhesive residue. They got 80% or more of the bad stuff. Bought a bottle of SAR and will try to get the remaining 20% myself.

Had a whole bunch of miscellaneous stuff fixed as well, such as tightening the kitchen faucet which had come loose again even after the Oregon dealer fix. Bedroom mirrored closet doors lower tracks repaired and now slide like they are supposed to. Many of the door latches were adjusted to try to get them to stay closed while we are on the road. Dealer told us that the factory latches were just too cheap and probably were not going to satisfy us. They gave us a recommendation on alternate style latches, which we purchased six of to install on a trial basis. There are a lot of hinges that need to be replaced. Replaced cracked screen door handle, etc, etc. Many more little items were fixed.

All of these were done at no cost to us and I doubt Montana paid for much of it and possibly none of it. The dealer went the extra mile for us. For that we are very thankful and appreciative.

I'll report again when and if we hear what Montana's response is on the defective Super Slide. I know this may sound trite and underestimating the cost involved but I really think the only solution is a compete replacement of the whole slide. We will see.

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Old 05-19-2007, 02:55 AM   #5
richfaa
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This will not be a popular response but your experience is not at all unusual. What is unusual is that you will recognize the issues and talk about them. We had many of the same issues and your unit is less that 2 months older than ours.We were beginning to get black marks on our main slide carpet but after the service center worked on the main slide they went away. Our Kitchen faucet had come loose since day one..they installed a new one..it comes loose..but we are resigned to tightening it every time as I don't think there is a fix other than gluing it or screwing it to the counter top, For the cabinet doors coming open..we use those Velcro tie wraps..the alternative is to buy all better latches. Poorly applied caulk..of course but there is a 06 Jayco parked next to me here and it is no better.We did much the same thing on our flapping brake wires long ago. It is very disappointing to spend this amount of money on a camper then experience all these "workmanship issues" but that is the way it is in the RV industry and most Rv have accepted that as the norm.There are a few of us, myself included, that insist that the manufacturer be held responsible no matter what the inconvenience to ourselves.Having met you and talked about these things I know that you are a hard headed, Stubborn, that will settle for no less than what is right, stick to your guns,person..(hummm I just described myself)

After 1 year of Holding the manufacturer and vendors responsible, at times at great inconvenience to ourselves we feel we now close to having the camper we should have had the day we took delivery. The is a payoff down the road.
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Old 05-19-2007, 07:10 AM   #6
Dean A Van Peursem
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M.O.C. #5583
Rich,

I think an "ANAL" personality and "Stubborn" would catch most of the traits! :-) But to put this in perspective, we paid more than an average US Annual salary for this RV and more than the price of many new cars. In comparison to average automobile manufacturing quality, this RV's quality comes up very short in comparison. In my past life I worked as a supplier to the auto industry providing inspection tools to improve the industry's sheet metal matching tolerances. The tolerances that the auto industry tries to hold in this area is light years ahead of the RV industry. My gut tells me that we customers have just not held the RV industry up to the standards that should be and could be achieved. What has been accepted historically is the standard that is permitted still today. I see no reason why the RV industry shouldn't try to acheive ISO 2000 quality consistency. But as long as wiring schematics, as an example, are not available to us and the manufacturer's wiring is up to the installer's whims at any given moment, real quality can never be achieved. I'm still astounded that is acceptable to the industry and even worse, acceptable by the RV customers. It is so basic a quality principle that I just plain cannot believe it. And the resulting high repair labor and manufacturer's warranty costs as a result are just excessive. It just doesn't compute.

But after a year of frustration and at least one major failure on each outing we are beginning to see less and less problems as we flail away at the issues. In review of this last outing we had no major or minor new failures. The ones we did have were dealer induced as a result of trying to fix the Super Slide. So we are making progress, I guess. Our one year Keystone warranty is up today. We still haven't decided on whether we need to purchase an extended warranty. Initial reviews of some of the policies has not been encouraging since most policies tend to exclude the things that fail or cover stuff that is already covered by longer term warranties from OEM suppliers. Historically, I have been very negative about extended warranties on anything and haven't purchased but one in 40 years. To date, haven't regretted it. But, this particular RV has been a tough learning experience. I've always been a subscriber to the "infant mortality" theory and once the initial failures are taken care of things tend to settle down. This particular RV has had a long infancy! :-)
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Old 05-19-2007, 08:03 AM   #7
richfaa
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I agree with you about extended warranties in general but I DID purchase one for the Montana for the very reasons you outline above. The probabilities for failure are, IMO, High.My service contract is sold by "warranty Experts" it is a "RV shield" service contract administered by WWW. warrantech.com and the contract obligator is Butler Financial Solutions, LLC..take a look at it..it is one of the better ones. Your backround in quality is far broader than mine but we both understand the problem and how simple it would be to correct it.. that is why it upsets us so much...Consumer apathy is the primary reason it is not being addressed by the collective manufactures. Such is life.
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