By (Popular?) Demand - Our Ownership Story

Bob&Patty

Founders of SoCal Chapter
Yes Rhyph had many issues. Seems like some were sub-assemblies that HL buys and installs in the fiberglass box they build. All new RV's have growing pains. So go pick a brand you like, buy it, then let us know how it was. I know a couple that had a HL and had some issues over 2-3 years. They bought a Forest River high end product and now it's been in the shop with many issues.
 

Big-B

Well-known member
I know that this is a very old thread that some would probably rather forget, but it popped up on me and I read it from start to finish. I had considered starting a similar thread for our 2011 Bighorn 3055 but never did as the rig is long out of warranty and I've done most of the repairs myself.

The motivation for starting a thread was so that the factory people could get some ideas on how to do simple things so their customers could avoid repairs on their end. Some of the things that went wrong were pretty simple fixes and should have been done at the factory. I'll give two examples here of what went wrong and how I repaired them.

Our microwave bezel (the plastic trim piece that goes around it) was cracked and hanging loosely when we stopped one day. I pulled it off the rest of the way and used some epoxy to glue it back together. I had noticed that the lets of the microwave sit in little pods and one of the front pods had an all purpose screw going through it, evidently the installers figured that it would keep the microwave in place. They may as well have put a screw in a 2x4 and thrown it in the trash because it did nothing to stabilize the microwave.
After the bezel broke the second time I was going to just buy a new one but they aren't available and I was told by a dealer that the only way to fix it was to replace the microwave, which is costly and would also likely involve some modifications to make it fit.
I ended up re-gluing the bezel and then I put a piece of wood on top of the microwave and screwed it into the cabinet so that it couldn't move and the microwave couldn't jump up and break the bezel. It's been several years now with no further problems. But this simple fix is something that could/should have been done at the factory so that those that aren't handy wouldn't need to mess with it.

Another problem was the air bed sofa. It has a drawer under it and we have a set of bedding in there. Most every time that we would stop the drawer was laying on the living room floor, having come out of the slides.
After a few times of that, the drawer guides didn't work anymore and I ended up buying a new set of drawer guides and installing them. Still had the same problem as the plastic latch that is on the drawer wasn't nearly adequate to hold it from opening.
My easy fix was to just take a strap that was probably used to hold down some chairs and wrap it around the sofa in the center so the drawer couldn't open very far when we were traveling.

We bought this unit as a very lightly used 5 year old rig. We take it to Arizona from Michigan most winters and one thing that I've learned with all four of our fifth wheels that we've owned over the last 25 years or so is that most of them are built to be set in a park and left there. If you are going to haul one of these things thousands of miles, you better be ready to get your tools out and fix things. Fortunately I'm a fix it guy and can handle most things.

If we had bought this rig new and had the same runaround as the OP here did, I would have made a very similar post. Customer service seems very lacking at Heartland from the sounds of it and they need to do better.
The OP didn't say if he kept his rig or how things went after the repairs were finally done.
 
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