Dan Gamel RV in California - closing

I found out at 11 pm last Friday, on the news no less that Dan Gamel was closing. The problem was that they had my Landmark for warranty work! So...today I called to find out where they were with repairs and they said it would be a good idea to drive over and see for myself. Imagine my surprise to find the entire maintenance bay EMPTY!! My rig was outside but there is no record of what was done, not done or anything because when the employees were laid off - they destroyed everything. Pulled the tags off of the keys, and shredded the service records.

Long story short is that the batteries are DEAD. We had to jump it to get the rig hooked up. It is a 20 mile drive to my storage place and evidently not enough to charge the batteries because they were still dead when I got there. There isn't enough power to even illuminate the test panel. So everything remains hooked up and I am parked in front of my sisters job until I can sort out what to do next. I don't know if they batteries are permanently dead or if a simple recharge would take care of my problem. My brother in law, who usually helps me, is in the Galapagos until Saturday. This is one of those times that being more mechanically inclined would be a good thing.

On the positive side - for anyone looking for a new trailer, fifthwheel or Class A - they are selling all of their stock at 50-80 cents on the dollar. You just won't get any service from them.

Thanks for letting me rant. I fell better already.
Marybeth

Marybeth, what area of CA are you in? In the Sacramento area, Ray's RV is pretty good (where we bought ours, authorized dealer) and I know of a couple other shops in Northern Cal. Maybe a few can chime in here and suggest a few others.
From my personal persepctive, losing the Dan Gamel up here was no great loss. I know others have had good luck with them, not so in our case.
I would also suggest you call Heartland Customer Service, as if it was warranty work, they would have had to get approval from HL. If you call with your VIN number, they may be able to tell you if parts had been sent or ordered or even authorized. Good Luck!

I am in the Sacramento area. Thanks, I will check on Ray's RV. I have heard of them just haven't been by. I guess my first clue about my dealership should have been when they auctioned off a whole bunch of RV's in the winter. I got a really good deal on mine - especially after I saw the MSRP PDF that Jim Beletti posted earlier.

Since it is a long weekend, I am pretty much dead in the water unless I can sort this out. I have e-mailed the Heartland people for the closest dealer to do warranty work. I will take your suggestion though and give them a call and see if we can kind of regenerate the service record by determining what was authorized. This may end up being a blessing in disguise.

Thanks,
Marybeth

Marybeth, The Ray's Service Center is on Glide Ave., in West Sac. My service guy is J.R. They kind of assign you a person and that's who does the work and you talk to. Makes it much easier to find out what's up with your trailer. As with most dealers, I always make them order the parts then set the appointment when the parts are in. As we drive a couple hours there, it saves a lot of aggravation on my part and cuts down the waiting for service. Good Luck!

This is our first post. Will try to make this story short. We have a BigCountry 3075RL purchased from Dan Gamel in August 2007. Used it in Feb converter went out new one put in along with new hot water heater 2nd one. Picked it up in March, used it again 2 weeks ago the converter has gone out again. Called Dan Gamel no Dan Gamel. Called Heartland talked to Chris was unsympathetic said we could take it to the repair sevice of our choice and pay for it and Heartland MAY reemburse us. Then said to call Rays RV. Talked to them they are booked through august and said they could care less about Dan Gamel warranty work. What do we do to get our warranty work done? We live in Napa CA.
John and Karen

I received information from Corporate today that Affordable RV is in the process of being setup to do Heartland service work and can handle warranty work that Gamel would have done.

Below is the information I have:

Affordable RV Rentals
9994 Hillview Road
Newcastle, CA 95658
Phone: 530.889.8175
Fax: 530.889.8177
customerservice@arvrental.com
owner/manager: Dora Lemke

There's going to be a bunch more RV dealer failures over the next 6-9 months. Some may have gone belly up anyway because of bad customer practices but some good ones are going under also because of the 35% reduction in new unit sales and the associated loss of accessory/equipment and maintenance revenues. The credit crunch has already killed a couple of noteworthy manufacturers and the national RV (not necessarily Heartland) dealer network won't be immune.

Thank You!

Thankyou for the info on Affordable RV Mr Beletti. John called and talked to Dora, a very pleasant woman. We have an appt. in 2 weeks. We really love our Heartland product and we want it fixed so we can enjoy it. We really love this site we have learned alot about our couch and fun little tricks people use.
Thanks Again
John and KarenNone

Whoo-hoo...Mr. Beletti! Cool!

I'll be contacting Affordable RV in Newcastle as soon as get back from my camping trip. Seems my inability to remove my fifth wheel from my truck was related to the 7 pin on the truck end not charging and having batteries so dead that they wouldn't take a charge.

Losing Dan Gamel will truly be a blessing for me although I would hope that I would have figured it out eventually. Almost none of the work that was billed to Heartland was actually done unless it was cosmetic. If it was something I couldn't readily check like the black water tank - it was billed but not done. Twice. I won't tell you about the little surprise I got when I tried to hook up to city sewer.

So, this has been an expensive week for me between new batteries and a service call from the Good Sam people.

Marybeth

You kno they are out there...you just hate to hear of companies like that. Maybe it IS a blessing!

I just bought a bighorn from manteca trailer sales. They also had big countrys and I think Landmarks. I'm sure you can get warranty work there. Their new place is very large. Nice shop & 14 acres of trailers. I have only had my trailer about two weeks with no major problems yet. I have confidence that they do good work from the looks of the place. It' all new

Stevie Wonder stated "There's going to be a bunch more RV dealer failures over the next 6-9 months". He's not kidding. Not only has National RV gone out of business, but Alfa has now closed up shop. They are blaming a manufacturer and supplier problem as the reason they're closing, after 35 years.
Hang on to your hats, it's going to be a bumpy ride....