Changing Dealerships - NOT

[Mr. Camper]

I bought my TM from Sanders RV in Alachua, FL. That's about 3 1/2 hrs from my home. I'm already unhappy with the attitude from the dealer regarding minor repairs after our first couple of trips. Not from anything we did, but from factory/dealer miscues that they knew about and some things we discovered. Since we made the purchase another TM dealer is coming to our area. Less than 20 minutes away. Has anyone taken their TM to a different dealer than where they made the purchase?

[Bill]

I'm sorry to hear that. Our dealer (MCD on Cape Cod) was spectacular for us, and I understand from this board that most TM dealers are the same.

I would not hesitate to take your TM to the new dealer. Naturally, you won't make a big deal of it (with either dealer), and won't burn your bridges with the old one, right? As soon as you have enough experience with the new one to form some valid impressions, be sure to post. It may help someone else.

Bill

[TKB]

Bill I just picked up my new 3023 April 10th at the MCD dealership. It was a very good experience for us. What state do you live in I'm in NH.

[Mr. Camper]

:) Okay, some good news. The dealer is making things right. The repairs I outlined in other posts were fixed at the dealership. We took the TM out last weekend and found they "overfixed" one problem. They sent the service tech to us (a two hour trip from their location). He had the problem corrected in about 50 minutes. Now that's the first time I've ever heard of that. My only complaint now will be the dealings with the people at TM in Lake City. That makes it kind of hard to change dealers so we'll hold off on that for now.

[Brightsu]

Ok now don't pick on the factory, we visited them last week and actually got to see ours in production, I've been dealing with them over a year now and they've been great from Keith Hulsey, who is in charge of sales and marketing down to the service manager and the parts manager. Never met a finer group of people, Ask Bob Strong he'll tell you the same thing. Sorry you had a bad experience.

Pam

[Bill]

Bill I just picked up my new 3023 April 10th at the MCD dealership. It was a very good experience for us. What state do you live in I'm in NH.
TKB -

We lived in Nashua for almost 30 years. When I retired in May 2001 at age 55, we moved "home" to Maine. The plan was (and continues to be) to spend summer on the beach in Maine, but to go to Arizona for the winter. By the time we made the decision to buy our TM that year, it was almost time to leave for AZ. Dana Cheyne at MCD jumped through hoops to get the factory to build and ship our chosen TM in time for the trip. He even lent us his personal car while his crew was struggling with the wiring in our new Explorer - Ford had assembled the under-dash brake connector wrong, and the mating pigtail connector was missing. In the next few days - and over the next few months - Dana spent quite a bit of time patiently helping us over those first new-trailer jitters and the first shake-out problems.

Thanks, Dana!

Bill

[Mr. Camper]

Brightsu, I'm glad you had fun on your tour at TM. However should I feel the need to "pick on" the folks there, specifically the service manager, Ed, for not supporting me, the customer in my concerns after purchasing their product I will do so. I'm glad you haven't had problems with your unit. I wish even more that I could say that. My understanding of this forum is to share information. TM makes a product. We purchased it. If it's not right we get to talk about it here and figure out solutions. I hope that doesn't offend anyone, as it isn't my intent.

[ccc6588]

Brightsu, I'm glad you had fun on your tour at TM. However should I feel the need to "pick on" the folks there, specifically the service manager, Ed, for not supporting me, the customer in my concerns after purchasing their product I will do so. I'm glad you haven't had problems with your unit. I wish even more that I could say that. My understanding of this forum is to share information. TM makes a product. We purchased it. If it's not right we get to talk about it here and figure out solutions. I hope that doesn't offend anyone, as it isn't my intent.


Mr. Camper. You spent good money on your TM and you should expect good quality. Isn't that the reason why you spent more for the TM in the first place? Without honest feedback TM will not get better. They should not make you feel as though you are inconveniencing them. Customer is still #1. Wouldn't it be great if they wrote you and apologized for the quality problems and more importantly do everything necessary to correct the problems. I thought they lost an opportunity when they told you the problem with the tire is the tire manufactures problem. Wrong answer. According to Fleetwood for perspective owners, they recommend sticking with manufactures who will warranty everything on the RV. If it's on the RV, the manufacturer should stand by it. I agree. That is how one stands by their product.

[jniles]

Tire manufacturers warranty tires, battery manufacturers warranty batteries even in the much superior Japanese RV's (cars and trucks too) ;D.

[Mr. Camper]

I didn't buy 5 tires with a TM attached. If you use someone else's product to make yours you sure do stand behind it. I couldn't care any less about what the Japanese do. Unless they've bought TM out that is.

[Paul_Heuvelhorst]

I didn't buy 5 tires with a TM attached. If you use someone else's product to make yours you sure do stand behind it.
Mr. Camper,
I think the point that jniles & I are trying to make is that your trailer is not solely made up of parts manufactured in Lake City by TM. They "assemble" some parts they manufacture and equip it with products from other manufacturers, who warranty their individual products.

Yes, the TM dealer is supposed to support the entire trailer and provide warranty support, no matter what part goes bad. (Our dealer always did.)

However, as Ford learned the hard way, Firestone provided defective tires for the Explorer (as determined in the courts) and in our litigious society, had to pay a fair amount of bucks to pay damages awarded in court, as well as suffered reputation loss.

If the dealer isn't providing you with the service you think you deserve, the TM factory is very interested in learning that, and will either "jack up the dealer" to serve you properly, or find another dealer for you that will provide you the level of service you and TM demand. You are dealing with a quality manufacturer.

[Mr. Camper]

We purchased the TM after almost 2 years of looking at other RV's and research at campgrounds talking to other owners of TM's and standard TT. For all of the obvious reasons we selected the TM. Forget every other problem and construction point we had after purchase. Let's talk about two points only. The door pin on the right (hinged) side of the door kept coming out of the clamp every time the door was opened and the latch screw on the front shell became loose and fell off. By themselves these were not major issues. We brought the TM to the dealer to fix and/or adjust and were told that they had "new and improved" pins/clamps to use. We always check the bolts before a trip and everything was fine, until we got to the campground (about a 74 mile trip) and found that one had worked it's way loose and was gone.
I received two private messages from TM owners concerned because they had read my posts and had gone through the same problem. Both of these owners had their problems resolved when they discovered that the tires were not properly balanced and that the vibration had caused those problems for their units. In both of these instances and I don't know how many others TM was aware of the problem. I understand that in at least one of these situations it was with the knowledge of a previous TM Service Manager.
The dealer refused to check this out. They spoke to Ed at TM in Lake City and he called us directly. "TM doesn't warrant the tires and their balancing and therefore if you want to check this out you will have to do it on your own."
That comment alone is enough to shake my faith in a manufacturer.
As to the post by someone who used the Ford/Firestone analogy, perhaps if Ford had acted on the first few blowouts by doing their own testing and not just reporting the problem to Firestone (after a long delay) they might have kept their name out of the litigation.
We still believe that the TM concept is a good one and we are experienced enough with RV's to know that things do "go bump in the night." When you run into an outright refusal to check out a known problem how do you justify that?
At any rate it is not my intent to prolong this issue or to try to change anyones opinion of the manufacturer.
Thanks for reading.

[jniles]

Mr Camper stated that Ed at TM said: "TM doesn't warrant the tires and their balancing and therefore if you want to check this out you will have to do it on your own."

If that is the case even I agree Ed or TM gave a poor answer at best. TM has to mount the tires to the wheels they make or buy unless it is subcontracted. In either case balancing is a part of the manufacturing process by every vehicle I know about that travels at highway speed. If this is not the case at TM there is definitely a problem. If Ed's answer is official TM would loose any litigation arising from this problem particularly involving injury or loss of life. Most likely they would loose if TM could prove Ed does not speak for the company in an official capacity because a jury would never buy it.