No Question...Just a Thank You!

[kakampers]

I figured the only way the guys at the factory would see this was on this thread...so here goes! THANK YOU, THANK YOU...THANK YOU!

Approximately a month ago we started noticing some serious issues with the sidewalls in our 08' Bighorn, i.e., seams separating, flexing, etc. After finally getting Lippert to come do their part, which only took care of part of the problem, we spent several days having the dealer try to handle the rest of the issues, which was way beyond their capability. The entire time the factory was coordinating everything, as best they could. By the start of the fourth week we knew we had to take to the people who built it! We contacted the factory, told them we were coming, and they were waiting for us when we got there.

The people at Elkhart had us all repaired, better than new, and back on the road in three days. They knew we worked on the road and had a schedule to keep. In addition, their employees who did the work are some of the proudest people I've ever met. They really love the product they make, and enjoyed seeing people who really used their units.

I can't say enough about how we were treated and taken care of, and want to personally thank the Service Rep, Steve Kennel, and the Service Manager, Jim Fenner. I also want to thank the owners who were there and went out of their way to make sure that the repairs were done right and as quickly as possible...Thanks to Scott Tuttle, Brian Brady, John Rhymer and Jack Culbertson! We will be Heartland owners for life...customer service is what counts...and Heartland is the best!!

 

[Pulltab]

I saw the repair and must say it was an incredible job! Actually I couldn't tell the difference from original!

 

[creeper]

Wow, I didn't know you couldn't ask a factory question without being censored.

Censoring makes this forum less credible.

So again. STILL FRAME PROBLEMS????????

Question denoted by question markes.

While we are just about to pull the trigger on a bighorn and thought the frame issues were over, we are now stepping back and re-considering.

 

[jbeletti]

Creeper,

All posts to the ATF forum are moderated. When I reviewed your your post this morning, I elected to not validate it.

The reason being this:

1. This is the place where you post constructive questions to the factory for them to give you an honest and quality response
2. I took your question as more of a "ping" than a direct and specific question of the factory. Similar to if I was to shoot a note over to the Kroger store general email box stating "still wilted lettuce??", based on the fact that a neighbor received wilted lettuce from the store

In saying this, I don't mean to take away from the seriousness of your implied question or worse yet, compare it to wilted lettuce and say that they are equal - they are not.

I just feel that the factory may not be compelled to reply to your 3-word question in a meaningful way. Now this is me talking, not the factory and I don't want to put words in their mouth. And honestly, they may have a reply for this.

In terms of your consideration of a Heartland product, please don't allow my management style of this private forum to be a deciding factor for you. At the end of the day, it's the product, not my little online space that product owners have to depend on.

Thanks,

Jim

 

[mrcomer]

creeper,
While I understand where you are coming from I think it is more important to see that kakampers were very well taken care of. Sure, they had a major issue but let's look at who all stepped up to the plate to deal with it. While I am not aware that Heartland has had alot of frame issues, this particular one seems to have been dealt very well with and again we have a happy customer. Once again Heartland has been there to take care of their customer. If you get a chance to look through the rest of this forum you will see similar situations where Heartland will bend over back wards for the customer.
As far as this forum being "censored", well that is all up to Jim. Like anything else in life you do have the option to not participate but I hope that you will come to see that there are alot of very friendly and helpful people here more than willing to lend a hand.
I have been a Bighorn owner for just over two years now and through this forum have "seen" alot of things happen with owners and Heartland. I have participated in the forum and have been to both annual Heartland Rallies and have met many of the owners of Heartland, all of whom are very customer conscious and ready to listen.

Regards,

Mark

 

[kakampers]

Creeper...let me clarify the situation just a little. My "frame" issue was not to say the frame broke; it actually stayed intact. However, it appears to have been a combination of things. The upper deck had some flex in it. Probably wouldn't have been an issue until you add our Medium Duty Truck, WITHOUT any benefit of "air" between the hitch and pin,i.e., air ride hitch or an air ride pin box (Which we DEFINITELY have now). This and some missing wood in the aluminum plate of the sidewalls on the upper deck caused welds in the sidewall to break. The frame was given extra support by Lippert and Heartland rebuilt my OD sidewall like new!

This was apparently a very unusual situation where all three things came into play in one unit, and caused problems you would not see on virtually any other Heartland product. A WORD TO THE WISE...if you're gonna tow with a MDT or HDT...MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF AIR SUSPENSION BETWEEN THE HITCH AND THE PIN...a lesson hard learned!

Don't let this isolated incident affect your decision to buy a Bighorn...they are a wonderful company and a great product.

 

[creeper]

The frame issue is what held us up from purchasing not only a Heartland ,but the others that we like that also had the frame issues.

If it's still an issue, then something needs to be fixed. OR the supply company needs to be changed.

I'm not slighting Heartlands customer service, BUT and that's a BIG BUT, I certainly don't want to spend hours and hours, miles and miles and gobs of fuel and days of my time fixing something that is brand new.

A good explanation as to what is the problem is and why there is still frame issues would be reassuring. Why is it that it can be fixed at the factory after the fact and not at the factor before it goes out?

I have no doubt Heartland would step up to the plate and fix the problem, but who is going to reimburse me for time. For us the closet Heartland dealer is 3 1/2 hours. That's a lot of time and fuel to get service and hopefully it won't have to go back to the factory for a major fix.

Heartland is taking a lot of dings in forums because of the frames, which of course they don't build. Again, why the failures and why are they sticking with the same problem frame supplier?

 

[Scott]

Heartland Frames/suspensions

I am going to to throw some numbers out here - which I know will cause some forum members to criticize me or assume that I am uncaring. I do this, not to minimize any issues that some have encountered, but to try to put everything in perspective (because I think way too many people tend to "generalize" on forums and percieve that there must be wide spread issues when less than a dozen people have experienced a particular issue).
Consider this - Heartland has built over 6,000 fifth wheels just this year alone, not counting what we produced over the past few years. Out of just this year's 6000 coaches, if 99% of them had absolutely NO frame or suspension issues at all - that would still leave 60 coaches that experienced some sort of issue. I can tell you that there are CONSIDERABLY LESS than 60 coaches we have produced this year that have experienced frame and/or suspension issues. In fact, I would say that number is closer to a dozen, which would put us at two tenths of one percent or .002 for such failures. That means that 99.8% of all Heartland fifth wheels built have no such issues. It is NOT my intention to diminish the fact that those who do experience such issues are not thoroughly frustrated, but I just wanted to put things in perspective for you. And as you hopefully know, those who do experience such problems are responded to by not only Heartland but Lippert as well, and we have a very, very good track record of making those customers happy.
One thing I would ask all of you to do is to not jump to the conclusion that "all" or even "most" of a particular brand is experiencing "wide-spread" issues when you hear of more than one or two people experience them. I'm not saying that it doesn't mean anything - but I am saying that it doesn't automatically equate to across the board.
I know that it is something that we will continue to battle until we are able to raise the 99.8% up to a full 100% - but that would mean that we are approaching perfection and I just don't see that happening, no matter how well intentioned we may be.
FYI
ST

 

[kakampers]

Very well said Scott!! I know we are the EXCEPTION...NOT the rule! We tend to refer to it as "Adams" luck!! LOL

 

[Pulltab]

.02% I feel is a reasonable percentage. Granted if you are in that percentile it doesn't seem like such a great thing but unfortunately there will probably never be perfection. I personally feel reassured that if I have an issue it will be dealt with properly and quickly. I feel great comfort in that and also appreciate how the factory participates in this forum to enforce that.

As for being censored, it is just this part of the forum that is censored and I don't think censored is the correct word for it. Basically I feel that when posting in the ask the factory forum that what you are looking for is a response from the forum not every member of the forum. You are looking for factory info to your question. Otherwise you could post in the approproate forum. I have to admit that I do respond to ask the factory posts but try to refrain from it unless I feel it is a simple answered question merely put in the wrong category.

Once again kudos to the factory on the response in fixing Ken and Kathys coach in record time.

 

[snuffy]

I appreciate Scott's straightforward reply. Although we would like perfection, that is not possible. We just like to know someone is going to stand behind us if we drop upwards of $40-50,000 for something and not leave us with a piece of junk we wish we'd never seen.
I like the fact that Scott admitted to some frame problems and did not trivialize the issue.

 

[jbeletti]

Replying to posts in the ATFs

Hi all,

It's okay for any member to reply to a post in many (not all) of the posts in the ATF forums. The fact of the matter is that while we cherish the factory participation here, with as successful as Heartland has become and the growth they continue to experience, we could experience a lag in response on the ATF posts.

Now, after several years of product being out there, it's all of us member/owners that have become the real experts. And to not leverage that knowledgebase to everyone's advantage would be short sighted on my and on Heartland's part.

With that said, I'd like everyone to feel comfortable in responding to an ATF question of they feel they have the answer. The factory will continue to weigh in as time allows. And I do realize that some posters really want to hear from the factory, not from a bunch of product owners as many times, the questions posted are pre-sales in nature. So as you have usually done in the past, let the factory reply to those items that only they can truly respond to and lend a hand on other ATF posts to help your fellow (or future) Heartlander out when it makes sense to.

Jim

 

[Scott]

Just for the record - I appreciate all of those owners who do their best to jump in and answer questions - even on the Ask the Factory threads - because often you can give a more timely answer and most often you are right on. If we see a wrong answer, we'll be sure to address it, but it just doesn't happen that often. You folks know your product and the many nuances of using it and you are very helpful on these threads.
Keep up the good work!
ST

 

[creeper]

Thanks for the reply Scott and that does make us feel better.

Many times those with problems are the ones heard from and when you get a few together the problems seems worse.

With searching other brand forums and those owners are also complaining about Lippert (sp) frames. It makes you concerned there is a problem with Lippert and their product.

Then if you look at the pictures people post of the failures, it truly leaves and impression.

The one thing that is lacking in all the posts is the actual cause of the failures. Is it bad QC? Bad steel? Bad design?

 

[Scott]

Honestly, the only real frame issues I have seen have always been the result of something going wrong in the suspension area. We have seen springs that have not worked properly; shackles; axles; tires; even suspension hangers - and all of these can typically be traced back to "side load" where the fifth wheel was being torqued at a very hard angle, and even going up a hill at the same time. This type of stress can put an extraordinary amount of stress on the individual components, and there have been times when it caused a failure. Then the dominoes can start to be set in motion. For instance, there was the person who drove over something and broke the support bar off that ran between their suspension hangers on a particular model. Then after a few months of travel and backing in and some side load, the hangers started to lean, which eventually resulted in a tire rubbing, which then blew out. By the time this had occurred, a crack had developed in the frame. So - the frame gets all the attention (i.e. "My frame broke!"), when in reality, that was just the last domino to fall in a series of events that were all caused by one starting event. I saw the same thing on a coach that took the Alaskan highway. Their bindings around the leaf springs busted of, which caused the leaf springs to flatten out, which caused stress on the suspension hangers, which caused stress on the frame.
We are talking about steel here, and in both of those instances, steel supports and braces were added and the repairs were more than sufficient to not only get them back on the road, but also secure their coach and frame for years to come.
I have NOT seen a frame that just failed on its own. The worst I have ever seen in my 20+ years in the industry is some of the smaller welds, like on an outrigger, or on a cross member that have broken off and had to be rewelded.
That's not to say I've seen everybody's frames - because I have heard stories of some manufacturers building too much coach for what ever frame they chose and they surely had major issues. So - I'm just talking about what I've seen in properly engineered frames (i.e. enough I-beam or box tube support for the GVWR of the coach).
ST

 

[sagefolk]

Now I'm worried, we just closed on our loan tonight and picking up our 39ft 3670RL tomorrow! We are really impressed with the design and construction of the rig. I sure do hope and pray we don't experience big problems, pocketbook can't take anymore.

 

[kakampers]

Just make sure that if you're pulling with anything BIGGER than a 1-ton truck to be sure and use either and air ride hitch OR an air ride pin box...Like I said earlier, I think our situation was unique in that THREE different factors came to play in ONE unit! If any of the three (i.e., extra flex in upper deck, missing wood in wall plate AND MDT without air in hitch system) are not present, you should have no problem!!

 

[Happy Campers]

I feel if I ever have a problem it will be taken care of either by the dealer or if need be,Heartland which is something I'm proud of. I just hope our 3370RL will live up to our expectations but if it doesn't - then i know it will be fixed. This is the first company that I have a lot of confidence in and can't wait to get on the road. Actually we can't wait until we return to our favorite spot for vacation so we can show off our new Heartland.