Pinehurst feedback

Anyone who owns Landmark Pinehurst please chime in with your feedback both pro and con on your experiece. How well did Heartland resolve any issues within the first year? Also any feedback on extended warranties would be appreciated.

wray,

I have moved your thread here to the Landmark Prospective Owners area where it will get better attention.

I work for Heartland in the field and used a 2009 Pinehurst my demo coach for 2 full seasons. In that time, I pulled the RV maybe 25,000 miles.

In terms of the floor plan layout - it suited us to a T! Loved it.

The build quality of my unit was very good. I also had a PDI done to it over a period of a couple of days and I credit that PDI with providing me with zero major issues with the unit.

That said, I had minor things as follows:

• Loose interior trim (I shot that back on with a brad nailer and filled the holes)
• Water leak at a couple PEX fittings behind the UDC area (I Rescue Taped them and the factory fixed them later for me)
• Main slides required adjustment (factory did this for me)
• Quad steps broke a rivet (I replaced with grade 8 bolt)
• Lino torn by frozen roller (factory had lino repaired)
• I knocked 1 or more hard legs loose next to the windows with chairs (factory reattached them for me)

As my unit was a demo coach owned by my employer, Heartland RVs (HRV), they took care of these minor issues for me when I would visit the plant.

I am sure you will get a lot more feedback on you request. Bear in mind also that you are really looking more for Landmark feedback in general, rather than specific issue feedback on one floor plan. In that, I am sure our owners will not disappoint you. They'll do their best to give you the good and not so good.

Best of luck to you - awesome floor plan.

Jim

Landmark Augusta

We ordered our Landmark last year and were pleased to find out the it was going to be one of the first 2010 off the line and that got us some great upgrades/changes. We love the floorplan for all the storage and kitchen space. As we live in the trailer full-time we ordered it with many of the options including: washer and dryer, 5.5Kw Generator, dual pane windows, 2nd A/C unit in the bedroom, tank heaters, 4 door refer, leather chairs, and slide awnings. Overall we LOVE the trailer and it has worked for us very well for the past year. We have had some issues though.

1. Leaks from PEX fittings - I crimped many of the clamps with a set of end cutters.
2. Leak at toilet fitting - I cut off the fitting as it was cross-threaded and replaced it with a new fitting.
3. Toilet would not hold water - called dometic and they sent replacement part at NO cost, it is kinda a recall item.
4. Bedroom slide would not seal when closed - I adjusted the hydraulic ram about 1/2" and all better.
5. Failed check valve on water heater output - I replaced it with a 1/4 turn ball valve (heartland received a large defective batch and has found a new supplier I believe)
6. FM antenna adapter broke - Called Heartland service and a new one was sent at no cost.
7. Power converter stopped working - Called Heartland service and a new one was sent at no cost.
8. Leather chair seat broke - emailed Flair and was sent a replacement at no cost.
9. Sink drain baskets leaked - removed and replaced and sealed with plumbers putty.
10. Fridge would not stay cold in the 105 degree heat of a Texas summer - this is a problem with all manufacturers with refrigerators in a slideout not a heartland issue - I install a 12 volt rocker switch to bypass the thermo-switch that turns on the vent fans on the back side of the fridge and it would stay cold (between 34 and 39 degrees) for the hottest 10 weeks of the summer, and then we moved to Washington.
11. Noticed the Quad steps are bending downward - Called Heartland service and they are contacting Elkhart tool and die for a response, still pending, but only started this one last week.

This may seem like a lot of issues but they were all easily addressed and many may have been avoided IF I had done a proper PDI. Take your time with a PDI and check every inch of plumbing as that is were most of our problems have come from. The other issues are with suppliers that supply parts for many manufacturers, and their service has been just as good as Heartland's. The Landmark's are great trailers and most of the construction is great, just be willing to work with a dealer and/or heartland for any issues you may have.

Landmark Pinehurst feedback ????

I appreciate the feedback on issues owners have experienced with their Landmarks. The gentleman who had the list of problems with his Augusta was particularly interesting. It's good that he has the skills to deal with some of these issues on his own. However, as a perspective owner with retirement plans I would not want to spend my time working on factory mistakes.

My question is, hopefully someone for Heartland will answer, what is the factory doing to strengthen its quality control? It seems that if there isn't time to do it right the first time there could not be time to do it again. As a potential Heartland customer I could certainly wait another week or more for my unit to be built than to spend my time returning it to the dealer or even less desirable working on it myself.

I'm now beginning to rethink my Heartland purchase and may go back to shopping around again. My wife and I thought, when we found the Heartland Landmark, we had found the best quality for the money, but now we are not sure???

Thank you for your interest in the Heartland product!!

We at Heartland are constantly looking at different ways to improve our quality and design. We have become the 3rd largest 5th wheel producer in the country in a mere 5 1/2 years. As you can tell by our exceptionally fast growth we have taken care of our customers and have produced a quality product.

There are times that quality is blamed on a manufacturer when in reality it is a supplier’s part that has failed. We do due diligence on all of our suppliers to make sure that we are using a quality product and make sure the supplier backs their parts by taking care of our customers after you have purchased your 5th wheel.

I want to make sure you understand that no matter what brand you purchase even if it were to cost $200,000 that you will experience an issue at some point! The product will have failures at some point.

What is extremely important to you is how the manufacture will back you while you have a warranty issue!! I believe that is what the owners are trying to tell you on this forum....we take care of our customers!!!

I hope you will reconsider your decision and become a Heartland family member!!!

P.S. What other company offers this type of support to their family members?

Sincerely,

Kevin Finn

As you know we own a 2009 Pinehurst, have had it since May. We have camped 2-3 weekends a month since, including a week vacation on it. This is my first 5th wheel but 4th camper or rv (I have had 2 motorhomes and 1 33' travel trailer). The other brands were Winnebago, Allegro, and a coachman TT. There were issues with EVERY one of them, some minor and some major. We traded our TT on the Pinehurst and believe me it was a hard decision. We had the TT for 5 years and used it, but when we looked in the Pinehurst and saw the difference in quality workmanship compared to the other brands we have had it was time to trade UP. I have had my Pinehurst back to shop 2 times (once to add the 2nd a/c because it gets very hot and humid here on the east coast) and the other time was to replace the control board in the first a/c (covered under warranty). I have had some leaking water lines but were able to just tighten up myself. I did find a leak around the heater on the outside but it only leaked with I washed the camper because of the force of water, I had to add a little caulking and leak was fixed. With that said, do I wish there could be more quality control with wiring and water lines in the basement, absolutely. But compared to the other brands my Pinehurst is still better built. You are going to have issues, you are towing a 16,000 pound house on roads with pot holes, gaps, bumps, and bridges at 70 mph. Fittings are going to work loose, screws are going to back out. As far as warranty issues the only one I had was the a/c and Dometic took care, so I can not really give an opinon on how good or long the warranty issues take. I can say I did have warranty issues with the other brands but eventually they were taken care of. I know this forum has helped out with many warranty issues (either by giving a telephone # and name of person that can help you or what other owners have experienced and how they got them resolved) and I think the forum is a great asset to owning a Heartland. Would I buy another Heartland, without a doubt.

wrayj1,
Kevin makes a good point. Everyone has there troubles regardless of pricepoint. What should be helpful to know is whether or not a company will stand behind their product and their customer. I for one can attest to this. I have had to deal with Heartland on occassions because my dealer went out of business. Heartland has bent over backwards helping me deal with any issue that has arisen. I not only experienced this personally but have also seen this for other owners as well. Heartland has your back.

Good luck,
Mark

Heartland Success

Kevin, I fully understand that things will go wrong after towing a "home" across America's highways. However, the issues I referred to were listed by the owner as right after taking delivery. Of course one must assume some responsibiliy for not taking the time for a thorough PDI, but the fact these issues existed seems to point back to manufacturer quality control.

Surely any manufacturer must acknowledge that warranty work costs them money and that tighter upfront quality control means a stronger bottom line. Reasonable incentives to production line workers often resolve many of the problems. Also, who know better what the problems are and how to solve them than the work force that works with the product daily. My experience has been that if you ask them they can tell you how to to economically solve the problems before they get to the consumer. Growth at the expense of quality can lead to a short-lived history.

To close, we like what we have seen in the Heartland Landmark and genuinely hope that Heartland sees the value in increasing quality control.

Just out of curiosity how have other brands that you looked at compare to Heartland quality wise? Have you looked behind the basement walls to see what kind of rat's nest they have?

Our Landmark Augusta appears to be very well built. When you start comparing you have to go to 18,000 pound units that start close to 100K to be close enough for real comparison. Even then there are some features that are lacking. I have compared every major competitor in the luxury class out of curiosity as to what they offered. If you got everything in one package it appears that 150K or better would be the starting point. Reading other forums and post there are problems with all of them.

Landmark Quality

Over two years we have explored many 5ers and honestly we have not looked behind the walls of any of them. My comments are related to comments I've read here about problems with Heartland product. I fully acknowledge that these issues will exist with any manufacturer. My intent is only to bring attention to, if these issues are industry-wide, the fact that perhaps as consumers we are are settling for sub-standard quality in general and to hopefully get others onboard to demand higher standards of quality from all manufacturers. So many RV manufacturers have gone out of business in the past two years and one can only wonder how much is quality related. I also am not bashing the industry as I want them to succeed, however, I strongly believe quality can be enhanced without additiona costs and perhaps there could be a better bottom-line for the manufacturer through eliminating unecessary warranty claims. Anytime a manufacturer has to redo something it has to cost them more. Also the consumer might benefit from lower costs and higher quality in the long-term.

I would sure have to support your comments 100%. Quality control can make or brake a company. Working for GE many years certainly drilled that into me.