Not feeling great about dropping my camper off at CW of Tampa

I'm starting to feel a little sick about dropping my camper off. Tried to get ahold of a service writer today today with no luck. 2 of them wouldn't return my call to set up a time to bring it in. Not seeing the greatest reviews on CW customer service after the sale. Now I'm worried that they will hold my camper hostage for an undetermined amount of time. I have a pretty lengthy list of stuff to get repaired, but most of it could be done in less than a day. From what I have read once you drop it off your at their mercy for when you'll get it back and in what condition.

Not all Camping World stores are like that, but from what I understand most of them are. I've only been a customer of CW buying items in the store. We have 3 here in MO, haven't been to one of them, but of the 2 I've been in I'll only go into one of them if I have to, because of the employees they have; rude, not interested in helping you, bad attitude, etc. However the other one employees are friendly & bend over backwards to help you. Don't know what their service dept. is like though.

The key to service at CW is to stay on top of them. Visit them often, if possible, and confirm your rig is actually being worked on when promised. Ask for an approximate completion date. This can get complicated if they have to order parts, but stay on top of that also. If they order parts from Heartland, call and confirm they actually ordered them when they say they did. I've heard CW is making an effort to improve their service image. Good luck.

Thanks for the responses. I'm about a30 minute drive from the house to CW, guess I'll be burning some fuel running back and forth. I have no problem staying on top of them and they will probably be glad to see me take the camper home. For what good it will do, I have the business card for the regional service director. Hopefully I won't need to use it.

We tried to have some work done in the Boise and Spokane CW's this summer. I ended up leaving because of the service attitude. On the other hand the CW near Minneapolis is top notch and I've used their service quite a bit.

Al

Blue Oval said:

Thanks for the responses. I'm about a30 minute drive from the house to CW, guess I'll be burning some fuel running back and forth. I have no problem staying on top of them and they will probably be glad to see me take the camper home. For what good it will do, I have the business card for the regional service director. Hopefully I won't need to use it.

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After 6 months in our camper I took our unit in to our CW dealer for warranty work, two and half hours away, told them I wanted them to knock out a 10 item punch list. Called frequently and got a lot of smooth talking but they never said anything was actually done. Called Heartland after 4 weeks of the sweet talking from CW and found out that not only had there been no warranty part ordered or labor charges submitted. (The CW warranty lady supposedly hadn't had the time to do her job for 4 weeks.) CW had not even notified Heartland of the sale to activate the warranty. 6months none of the standard papers filed. I faxed a copy of the sales documents to Heartland, and asked them to send all parts to me which they did. Heartland called the CW warranty lady and told her over the phone that they approved a couple labor charges for a few items that just needed adjustment. I told cw this was nuts and set a pickup date. Three weeks before pickup date nothing fixed. Two weeks nothing. One week out still nothing. Called the day before picking unit up, and wow they are now working on it. I go to get it and mess everywhere. Sawdust on floor, grease on windows. They adjusted the slide topper on one slide and after looking at it a while I realized what was wrong, they had moved(adjusted the topper) and not reattached it to the camper. No screws or rivets. Their excuse on pickup day for everything was that they were covered up with work because of their install anything for $29.99 special. If I would have known that I would have given them $29 to get some service. I rescued my Gateway from CW and will never return. To many good dealers in the world to ever go through that abuse again.

Your best friend will be your Heartland customer service rep. Stay in touch with them. They have just sent me the parts I have needed on the few items that have come up. Or if you like, they will work with any dealer it doesn't have to be the CW of purchase.

Good Luck

I had a Winegard SK3005 installed at the CW in Tampa. I had an appointment and everything was done on time but it was only one item. You do need to be a pain in the a,, The delays can happen at any service dealer if a job before yours takes longer then expected. For sure, if possible, make sure they have the parts.............Don

I had a fuel tank installed by CW Tampa (Dover) and they did it when they promised. I think when the snowbirds arrive in Fl. in the winter everything slows down and they get overextended. Just get a commitment from them when you drop it off....It only takes me about 10-15 minutes to get there......I have had some issues with them. Once I had them measure and order a replacement awning fabric. When I took my rv back to have it installed they claimed that Bowling Green sent the wrong size replacement fabric but low and behold they had the complete awning in the color pattern that I wanted so they could install that. Like a dummy I said OK.......Then we had them order window awnings and when they came in it was a different color pattern than the awning on our brand new rv. They claimed that they did not make that pattern any more. They must have a book with all the screw ups that they could do and just pick an excuse out of the book.

Blue Oval said:

I'm starting to feel a little sick about dropping my camper off. Tried to get ahold of a service writer today today with no luck. 2 of them wouldn't return my call to set up a time to bring it in. Not seeing the greatest reviews on CW customer service after the sale. Now I'm worried that they will hold my camper hostage for an undetermined amount of time. I have a pretty lengthy list of stuff to get repaired, but most of it could be done in less than a day. From what I have read once you drop it off your at their mercy for when you'll get it back and in what condition.

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Good luck , last January at the tampa rv show, we ordered a new landmark from CW of Tampa, in March it came in with nothing we ordered except full body paint, so they made a lot of excuses including it was heartlands fault, it was not. So they ordered another one which came in with everything but full body paint and the worst part was their lack of communication and it isn,t all camping worlds because we bought our big horn at CW in Georgia and everything was perfect. They don,t operate a tight ship.
LindaW

I dropped it off Friday with the understanding that they would not be staying on it till this past Monday. Called today and about half the items on my repair list has been approved through warranty. They seem to be trying to get everything done. They can expect to hear from me at least every other day. Service manager called me back today on his cell. He is probably gonna wish he didn't do that since it is now stored in my phone.

I don't have good things to say about CW Tampa, when I went there to fix our HW heater in warranty I had an 8:30AM appointment, the finished at 6:30PM. I had to unload our storage compartment. Move the trailer 3 times and move our stuff three times to the new repair spot. All of this time and effort to replace the electric thermostat. I made them find a site in the Lazy Day's Campground. Never Again. The second time I had problem I had a mobile repair outfit come to me - worked out perfectly.

Westwind said:

I don't have good things to say about CW Tampa, when I went there to fix our HW heater in warranty I had an 8:30AM appointment, the finished at 6:30PM. I had to unload our storage compartment. Move the trailer 3 times and move our stuff three times to the new repair spot. All of this time and effort to replace the electric thermostat. I made them find a site in the Lazy Day's Campground. Never Again. The second time I had problem I had a mobile repair outfit come to me - worked out perfectly.

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I always use a mobile repair if possible. It is usually cheaper and quicker...............Don

Picked my camper last week. Everything that needed to be fixed or replaced was taken care. Overall I was pleased with the service and communication that I received from the service department...... Until I got home and found that someone had used the toilet and because there was no water left their crap and toilet paper in the toilet. I noticed dried toilet paper and pee in the toilet bowl and when I pressed the foot pedal I saw wads of toilet paper in the hole. I called the site and corporate. Apparently they don't care. So much for being completely satisfied.

I would notify Marcus on the rv net web site and if you took photos send them to him. There is no excuse for that kind of treatment. I would also post about it in the General Topics section of that web site....That just stinks.....no pun intended...

We live in our Landmark and if we don't have it we would have to stay at a Hotel.In 5 years we have never stayed at a hotel because of repairs.
Let them know up front that you are waiting in the waiting room .Never leave your RV without saying, THAT, unless you don't really care when its completed.

Spending 8 hours or more in a RV Dealership waiting room (some don't have any) can be very painful and makes for a very looooong day. The only consolation is that it's a short walk to check up on the progress or lack of.

Next time you need a repair try RVservicereviews.com, you may find someone local. CW is the pits for even buying anything. We stopped at one, wanted to buy 1 items(levels, ours fell off at truck wash), there was no cashier, waited around, still no cashier, finally just put them down and walked out. The other problem with CW over the years is there is no space to pull into one with your rig. Even with our truck, an Intl 4700, we had problems finding a spot to park. They are so busy selling RVs that they have gone away from their original purpose, supply "things" to Rvers. We avoid them if at all possible.

We stopped at the CW in Roanoke VA off I-81 to get a tire replaced that blew out on us in Blacksburg. Stopped there because it was a "RV" place and figured they would be able to take care of it rather quickly. Tire was off the camper, they didn't even have to take it off and it still took almost 4 hours to get a new tire on the rim. I told them we were in a bind and had to be back in Yorktown that afternoon and really needed to be on the road quick, asked them if they could accommodate this and if not we would just head on down the road. Even told them my son was sick, which he was from having his tonsils taken out the previous week and they assured me they get right on it.

That was absolutely the most horrible service experience I have ever had. I would never trust CW to do anything to any vehicle of mine ever again.

That is horrible. We locked our brake on a tire about a week ago, when setting up my DW noticed a flat spot on the tire. We called the local tire place(CG recommended), 20 minutes later he was out, took the old tire off, put on the spare, went back to shop, ordered new tire, truck came in the next day around 11, back at our site around 11:30, tire back on, spare back away. Besides the price of the tire, $75 service fee which insurance will pick up. This was the local Goodyear dealer. I was only surprised he didn't have the Goodyear G614 in stock being close to the interstate etc.

For all of you previously having, or now having a negative service experience with Camping World, I found a "Complaints" form and phone number link online:
http://www.campingworld.com/contactUsForm.cfm?&contactValue=Comments and Complaints

But, as I have posted before, and INDEPENDENT RV servicer (No sales operations) has a vested interest in getting the job done quickly and to your satisfaction. You, the RVer needing service, are their ONLY source of income, and source of recommendations to others. On the tire issues, I believe that GOOD tire stores can address our needs in a quick manner. I LOVE Les Schwab tires in the Western United States. They all stock the tires we need for our 5ers, and are quick to greet you and help out in any way they can. Just good folks.