Heartland quality

[JanAndBill]

People were reacting the same way with the auto industry decades ago until Japan demonstrated that automobiles could be manufactured with fewer warranty problems.

Dave, several years ago I was asked by a Japanese owned component vendor to a Japanese car plant here, to quote on shuttle services between plants. They made an interior frame part which once assembled would NEVER be seen again by anyone. Their finished parts were perfect with an immaculate painted finish. They were packed in custom containers with foam cut outs for the 30 mile journey. I can't even begin to describe how clean this place was, even the fork lifts had white tires. The trailers they were requesting had bright white walls, with the floors varnished, and buffed to a high gloss. I didn't get the business, but it impressed me that they were that concerned about something that would never be seen. That's a far cry from the RV industry!!

 

[avvidclif]

OK . . . this is what I got back from our dealership one week ago yesterday:

And what, might I ask, does shoddy/poor workmanship by the dealer have to do with Heartland quality? I would find another dealer. Or better yet just fix it myself.

 

[JohnD]

Dave, several years ago I was asked by a Japanese owned component vendor to a Japanese car plant here, to quote on shuttle services between plants. They made an interior frame part which once assembled would NEVER be seen again by anyone. Their finished parts were perfect with an immaculate painted finish. They were packed in custom containers with foam cut outs for the 30 mile journey. I can't even begin to describe how clean this place was, even the fork lifts had white tires. The trailers they were requesting had bright white walls, with the floors varnished, and buffed to a high gloss. I didn't get the business, but it impressed me that they were that concerned about something that would never be seen. That's a far cry from the RV industry!!

The manufacture date of our 2015 Prowler was January 26, 2015 . . .

We took it home for the first time May 29, 2015 . . .

This is a shot of the underside taken on June 30, 2015:

 

[jnbhobe]

Manufactured 1/26/15, hauled to Colorado in snow and salt, slush and salt were never washed off by the dealer upon delivery.

 

[Bob&Patty]

RV wiring issues are as follows. They do not have a custom made harness for each unit.....they are not cars or trucks. Cars and trucks wire harness's are made as a "one size fits all" so to speak. They all have weather pack connectors. Each model RV is almost hand wired like a S/B home. Now they may have a pile of wiring set a side for each model. The walls are built with wires in them. The roof is built with wires in them. The floor has a big pile of wire sticking up though it. Then all this wiring has to be connected together as everything is installed. Yes they could use shrink type connectors (butt splices) or shrink tube, but the ones in the OP's pix are not shrink type.

Now it seems that the coroplast was cut open for the 1st owner to have repairs done. If it was not sealed back up properly...then that's how all the moisture got in and turned everything green. HL's fault, not likely, dealers fault...most likely.

 

[JanAndBill]

The manufacture date of our 2015 Prowler was January 26, 2015 . . .

We took it home for the first time May 29, 2015 . . .

This is a shot of the underside taken on June 30, 2015:
I
View attachment 42546 View attachment 42547

Our BH will turn 3 this year and still looks better than this. However I doubt it has ever experienced the devastating effect of chemicals on the road either. Over the last few years the chemicals they've come up with to keep the roads open, have become even more toxic to anything metal. We ran an ongoing battle with this on our trucks and trailers. Our trucks were regularly in so they could be washed often, but the trailers would set in one drop yard or another and we were not able to keep the crud washed off. It was amazing how fast it would work on frames, doors, and wiring.

 

[JanAndBill]

RV wiring issues are as follows. They do not have a custom made harness for each unit.....they are not cars or trucks. Cars and trucks wire harness's are made as a "one size fits all" so to speak. They all have weather pack connectors. Each model RV is almost hand wired like a S/B home.

Bob, I'm afraid i have to disagree with you on this. Every RV Heartland makes has been drawn out in great detail before anything takes place on the manufacturing floor. They know were every appliance will be, every outlet, every connection. Once you have all the dimensional information, it's not rocket science to make up a harness. FYI there RV's out there with wiring harnesses, primarily in the motor home segment however, even a previous SOB lower end trailer had most of the wiring fed into a harness. I would say they don't use harnesses because it's cheaper, but frankly I can't really see how that would be either, if you factor in the savings on wire and labor. I do know every time I pull the bulk head on mine my blood pressure goes up when I see the rat's next of wires, plumbing and everything else that was simply thrown in place. Each time I try to organize and clean up a little.

 

[danemayer]

RV wiring issues are as follows. They do not have a custom made harness for each unit.....they are not cars or trucks. Cars and trucks wire harness's are made as a "one size fits all" so to speak. They all have weather pack connectors. Each model RV is almost hand wired like a S/B home.

Bob, I'm afraid i have to disagree with you on this. Every RV Heartland makes has been drawn out in great detail before anything takes place on the manufacturing floor. They know were every appliance will be, every outlet, every connection. Once you have all the dimensional information, it's not rocket science to make up a harness. FYI there RV's out there with wiring harnesses, primarily in the motor home segment however, even a previous SOB lower end trailer had most of the wiring fed into a harness. I would say they don't use harnesses because it's cheaper, but frankly I can't really see how that would be either, if you factor in the savings on wire and labor. I do know every time I pull the bulk head on mine my blood pressure goes up when I see the rat's next of wires, plumbing and everything else that was simply thrown in place. Each time I try to organize and clean up a little.

Consider the number of floor plans, lifespan of a floor plan before something changes (sometimes less than a year), and the volume produced for each floor plan (in some cases one or two hundred). They'd be making a very large number of wiring harnesses in low volumes. Try subcontracting manufacture of 50 or 100 wiring harnesses at a time and see what kind of price you get. The economies of scale found in cars and trucks just aren't there.

 

[JanAndBill]

Consider the number of floor plans, lifespan of a floor plan before something changes (sometimes less than a year), and the volume produced for each floor plan (in some cases one or two hundred). They'd be making a very large number of wiring harnesses in low volumes. Try subcontracting manufacture of 50 or 100 wiring harnesses at a time and see what kind of price you get. The economies of scale found in cars and trucks just aren't there.

The ones I've seen built by a MH manufacturer were hand built on premise by tech on a separate line. He all the wire spools on a big rack, connectors, looms, etc.. So basically all he had to do was pull the wires to the right length attach the connectors with pneumatic tools, put it all inside the loom and test it. When it met up with the RV it was basically a matter of plunging it up.

 

[John T Bettencourt]

We all remember when Toyota started to send cars to the USA. The low quality that was going on in the American auto plants quickly came to a hault when the major auto makers saw the writing on the wall. What we need is for Japan and Korea to start building RV and send them over here to our market. In less than 2 years we would see big changes in the quality of the RV built in this country. They also see the writing on the wall. I think this is the only thing that will change the situation we have at hand. Thank you for letting me vent.

 

[kowAlski631]

Folks, are you forgetting the massive recalls on Toyotas? The exploding airbags that kill? Look, as long as humans are assembling RVs or cars or making parts for them, there are going to be screw ups. We have as high expectations as the next person, but we are also realistic about those expectations and know our RV isn't perfect. It doesn't matter what brand or how much they cost, the human element is the wild card in everything.

 

[TxCowboy]

Folks, are you forgetting the massive recalls on Toyotas? The exploding airbags that kill? Look, as long as humans are assembling RVs or cars or making parts for them, there are going to be screw ups. We have as high expectations as the next person, but we are also realistic about those expectations and know our RV isn't perfect. It doesn't matter what brand or how much they cost, the human element is the wild card in everything.

The exploding airbag is a subassembly. The defect was with the manufacturer of THAT subassembly. That's like blaming HL when a series of Atwood water heaters fail prematurely. HL may test the product at installation but, if it fails after delivery, that's is an Atwood issue.

Heartland is not at fault when one of their vendor provides a few faulty products. They are assemblers, not manufacturers of the major components.

Now, if you want to complain that HL's cabinets are faulty, that's a different story because HL makes their own cabinets.

 

[travlingman]

RV wiring issues are as follows. They do not have a custom made harness for each unit.....they are not cars or trucks. Cars and trucks wire harness's are made as a "one size fits all" so to speak. They all have weather pack connectors. Each model RV is almost hand wired like a S/B home.

Bob, I'm afraid i have to disagree with you on this. Every RV Heartland makes has been drawn out in great detail before anything takes place on the manufacturing floor. They know were every appliance will be, every outlet, every connection. Once you have all the dimensional information, it's not rocket science to make up a harness. FYI there RV's out there with wiring harnesses, primarily in the motor home segment however, even a previous SOB lower end trailer had most of the wiring fed into a harness. I would say they don't use harnesses because it's cheaper, but frankly I can't really see how that would be either, if you factor in the savings on wire and labor. I do know every time I pull the bulk head on mine my blood pressure goes up when I see the rat's next of wires, plumbing and everything else that was simply thrown in place. Each time I try to organize and clean up a little.

I had electrical issues on mine, mobile tech called Heartland and asked for a wiring diagram so he could try and trace. No wiring diagram available.

 

[kowAlski631]

The exploding airbag is a subassembly. The defect was with the manufacturer of THAT subassembly. That's like blaming HL when a series of Atwood water heaters fail prematurely. HL may test the product at installation but, if it fails after delivery, that's is an Atwood issue.

Heartland is not at fault when one of their vendor provides a few faulty products. They are assemblers, not manufacturers of the major components.

Now, if you want to complain that HL's cabinets are faulty, that's a different story because HL makes their own cabinets.

My point exactly! I'm not one of the complainers. Oh, and I believe from what I remember we were told during our factory tour that the cabinets are also built by vendors and placed into the trailer during assembly.
My point which I guess I wasn't clear on is that complaints about the lack of perfection in these builds are derived from components put together. 1/16 of an inch off in any component makes a big difference in fit or function. There are no perfect manufacturers. There are no perfect RVs.

 

[Bohemian]

The simple fact is thar all affordable RVS are designed to a low standard with many inherent problems built-in by the design. Extreme susceptibility to water damage. Extreme susceptibility to freezing damage and leaks. Frame and suspension problems. Too rapid assembly with too few quality checks and enforcement. Current available solutions are expensive. No one company is to blame. This is an industry standa4d. Some may be better, some orse. Yet, the standard guarantees these problems. This is then reflected in lower standards for subassembles and components.

We no longer accept this standard in our cars and trucks. Not that they are perfect.

Having a strong welded moocoque body would add complexity and cost to construction. RVs would be smaller and heavier in order to be safer and more durable. Across the industry. You may not get what you pay for from some manufacturers, but you never get what you won't pay for.

 

[danemayer]

True Story



Back in the 1980s, when personal computers were still a fairly new product, we had a quality debate about memory modules. The memory chips were soldered onto modules that were inserted into connectors that in turn were soldered to the motherboard.


Service was replacing quite a few memory modules under warranty. The engineers looked at the failures and determined that about 70% of the failures were related to a poor connection where the module was inserted into the motherboard connector. So they proposed soldering the memory chips directly to the motherboard to improve quality.


Everyone was in complete agreement that this would be a significant quality improvement.


It was not implemented.



At that time, the cost of a memory module was relatively high, and the cost of a motherboard was extremely high. When we did the math, we found that the additional cost to warranty (which of course is passed on to the customer in the system price), and the cost to the customer after warranty expires, would be dramatically higher in the 30% of the cases where the failure was due to a memory chip malfunction. In those 30% of the cases, the fix would have been to replace ALL memory (because it was soldered) along with the entire motherboard, rather than just replacing one memory module. Repair cost would have been astronomical.



If we had implemented the change at that time, customers would have seen better quality. But a significant number of customers would have been outraged at the cost of repair after warranty. And everyone would have paid for the higher cost of warranty when buying the computer. And the higher price of the computer would have made it less competitive in the marketplace.


Moral of the story: quality metrics are not the only thing that's important to customers, even though it often gets most of the focus when something breaks.

And as I said, it's a true story.

 

[Bob&Patty]

If HL has wire harness's that are built for each coach....as to say "ready to go" plug and play. Then why wont HL provide a schematic for each model. That would be simple. I can go to any GM dealer and get a schematic for any part of my truck from stem to stern and color coded. Ain't gona happen in my BH. I rest my case.

 

[Bohemian]

If HL has wire harness's that are built for each coach....as to say "ready to go" plug and play. Then why wont HL provide a schematic for each model. That would be simple. I can go to any GM dealer and get a schematic for any part of my truck from stem to stern and color coded. Ain't gona happen in my BH. I rest my case.

Consumer documentation per unit is cheap for the numbers manufactured by GM and expensive for small volume pruduction.

Not an excuse, just the facts.

 

[kowAlski631]

Consumer documentation per unit is cheap for the numbers manufactured by GM and expensive for small volume pruduction.

Not an excuse, just the facts.

I'm confused. Did you ever get your 3760EL? I suppose I'm curious since you speak with such authority on what can and should be done.

Martha

 

[Bohemian]

I'm confused. Did you ever get your 3760EL? I suppose I'm curious since you speak with such authority on what can and should be done.

Martha

No, not yet. Now waiting for the house to be sold. A painful time.

We have been RVING since 2002. We have been in, out, over, and through many units over the years. I also have some knowledge of how things are done and can be done. That said, presenting information is not the same as making recommendations. Everything has it's costs, in design, tooling, supplies, and operations/manufacturing, and in wzrrentry. Warrentries are not free either. It's always a trade off. Manufacturers need profits or they close.