RV News – Insights from an RV Dealer – April 2024

Great update on the woes of the RV industry! Some RV manufacturers just don’t care about helping the customers! Continuing to give themselves a black eye! Thanks John .👍😁🇺🇸

Have to be nutz to by an RV today. Especially class A B C anything drivable. If u break down the material cost to labor costs better off buying land in remote area and have fun building an off grid tiny cabin. Better chance of not loosing ur shirt plus u have a possibility of gaining an asset vs a huge liability…

Dealers have switched to service to make money cause they sold people crap that falls apart. Goes to show people are naive an uneducated…

People just don't want to buy things that are cheaply made and for those ridiculouse prices. They are finding better ways to get around this.

I share your experience, concern and frustration with the warranty process. Thanks for your reporting.

Great information as always. I always look forward to your post.
Industry broken is so true.
Cash sales all time high, i a little surprised at cost of an RV.
Sad but so true about warranty difficulties. My RV had rust on the frame. It clearly was where it sat on the assembly line as they painted, but not where it sat. I was lucky. One it was so blatant that frame manufacturer 100% missed fully applying paint. At first manufacturer said it was environmental and i should sand and paint on my own. Not a warranty issue. But my Dealer fought for me and got 2hr approval to sand and paint. Looking at Dealer work I pretty sure they spent more than 2hr working on my RV. My cost zero dollars.
This is twice my Dealer went to batt with a manufacturer.
1) the missed undercoat and paint they had to fight for me.
2) my WDH hitch. The angle bolt backed out. I emailed the hitch company for torque and there reply was: warranty is voided. No answer to torque of the angle bolt. It was a long email back and forth with them and they would not relent on the void of warranty. The stupid thing was, I wasn’t asking for parts or money. I just wanted to know the torque of the angle bolt. So i drove out to my Dealer. They called the area rep and i got an apology. Got my WDH fixed. Got home and darn it, that same rep that gave me a hard time he emailed me probably after being corrected, because i turned over my emails to the Dealer , who turned them over to the WDH rep, still saying, due to my lack of preventative maintenance the warranty is void. Well my hitch is very popular and very quality, so i doubt I will have a warranty issue. Plus as a mechanic i am rather OCD on my preventative maintenance anyway.
Thanks again for your great info.

Well done.

Thanks for the insight John, wonder how many dealers are going to make it through this storm.

Top notch report 👍

I bought our 6th motorhome two years ago spanning 30 years of rving, yeah and we love it but there again I have a horrible hate beyond belief for the manufacturers as a whole. I don’t feel sorry when small rv companies go under and I don’t feel bad for the workers neither. Time for them to be punished and go out of business or get it together along with the dealerships. And as for the CEO’s of these rv companies,, well they are ALL a bunch of over paid tools, all of them. Their objectives are money, stocks and their paycheck’s. Not quality, reputation, longevity and retaining customers and all around reputation. So they get no mercy from me.

The poor quality coming out of Indiana is catching up to them.

As always my thanks for an informative post. I noticed the quality bereft RV manufacturer was not named. I guess they’ll threaten lawsuit if you do so.

I will never ever ever ever ever buy any RV of any type or kind. Horrendous RV quality, laughable RV prices, atrocious RV maintenance time and cost. With a standard car, you have a much higher quality vehicle, much lower fuel bill per mile, much greater legal protection for lemons and warranty repair, many more reasonable car repair options. Today, it is significantly cheaper to take a sedan or small SUV for a road trip, using short-term rentals or hotel incentives for lodging (e.g. buy two or three nights, get the next one free). The car fuel savings alone is enormous. RV camping fees are now so high that car + lodging is nearly always the superior choice.

Out of warrantee 2021 171 Pod with the 'drooping' - meaning falling-off-the-wall - front window shade issue...my Chippewa Falls WI dealer response: "We didn't install your front window, Forest River did." I plugged the stripped out holes with toothpicks & woodglue, then replanted the screws. Forest River sent me three plastic clips to add as additional support, but no screws, as indicated in the Service Bulletin. When I inspected following winter storage a few weeks ago, the lower shade mounts have now pulled away from the wall...there is NO PG rated comment for my frustration...

TY so much for keeping us posted , updated and educated!😊

I've had 4 travel trailers. No matter if it was a 2018, 2020 or 2021, I've always had to do repairs and maintenance. If you get into RV's thinking it's going to be like owning a car or truck you're in for a rude awakening. The quality control is nowhere near as good and there are no lemon laws. Simply put, if you are not handy with tools and aren't skilled at fixing things you're bound to be dissatisfied. For us, RVing is well worth it. We have 2 dogs so flying is pretty much out. They have to be stuffed under the seat for the entire flight, so you have to give them tranquilizers/sedation. We tried it a couple times and said never again. With our RV we can cook whatever we want, whenever we want without going to a restaurant and paying the high prices and tipping. Hotel prices are too much plus some want to charge extra fees for the dogs and for parking.

To me, you can't beat the feeling of the outdoors and the freedom of making your own way.

I think your dealer friend's comments are on point with the economy. Old folks retiring have plenty of cash and young people are struggling to pay rent. I hate to say it, but I think the RV industry will be in big trouble within a decade. Younger generations won't have as much disposable income as the cost of living continues out of control. Sad stuff... hopefully incomes will increase eventually.

Wish I could shop but the quality since 2020 is not worth it.