First, let me say that Heartland is working with us to correct the problems that are listed below, but in my opinion they should not have existed if there was a better QA program.
We purchased a new 2012 Heartland 400RW Toy Hauler Fifth-wheel at the Hershey RV show this year. It arrived in November as we had some special request. Being experienced fifth-wheel owners we had a standard list of questions we needed answers for. These were answered by the sales folks and AJ from Heartland. We did our homework as best as we could at the time.
The Goal here is to educate those that may be looking at purchasing a Heartland RV. We love our floor plan and if we can get these items taken care of, we feel we will have gotten a good unit for our purposes (well other then the first issue below, that is disturbing to be lied to). Everything listed below is as factual as I can make them.
Starting from latest issues to original issues:
We have lost water so far three times this winter while camping. First time we thought it was our new Pirit water hose. Called the factory and was told to reverse the hose or extended the end that was inside the trailer so that the thermistor was outside. Did that and the water froze again the next night. So Pirit sent us another hose. I finally got around to replacing it and the water froze again. Some simple troubleshooting showed that it was not the hose but the rig itself. A call to Heartland reveled that the 400RW does not have the water lines running in a heated area as we were told at the show by numerous people. In fact the water lines run just under the belly in a non-heated nor insulated area. This Spring we will drop the underbelly and perform some modifications to make the unit more year-round suitable.
The island sink is leaking water from the hot water line or faucet. We had water all over the floor and inside the island.
We had some more work done in the kitchen to make things a little more useful. There are a very limited number of electrical outlets in the kitchen (1 set of 1 receptacle by the couch and 1 set of 2 recepicles on the island). So we had our RV repairman add one by the stove, another set put in the island and exchanged the single outlet by the couch for a double). During this process he found the following (this is a followup email to Heartland):
"As I write this (removed repair company) is here doing some work on the RV. He has shown me that the Convection Microwave was not bolted into the cabinet correctly. The plastic mounting piece was broken and only held in with one screw. The one side was broken and had no place for the screws to hold it in. The 'good' side only had one screw. In addition the plastic brace was broken along the front. It appears that the convection oven could have easily fallen out while on the road.
Next we have had a major leak behind the refrigerator. Seems that the water line to the ice maker is the problem. We have not yet gotten authorization from Heartland to do the repairs. (Repairman) is going to fax the detailed work order this afternoon and will be back once he has authorization to begin the extensive list of repairs."
Finally here is part of the orginal email to Heartland for items we found that need more attention to details:
"Per our previous conversation, here are some issues we have found with our new 400RW.
1. Cable TV wiring was not installed properly. After several hours tracking down the cable run and testing by the cable company and ourselves, we finally found the source of bad cabling in our rig. Seems the cables were incorrectly connected to the antenna amplifier in the master bedroom. The Antenna was on the cable connector and the cable was on the antenna. A simple test of the system would have shown this to be a problem. From my research, cable tv issues are a common problem at Heartland. Which makes this even more disturbing in that Heartland is not following up with production issues once they are identified.
2. The back door/ramp is out of alignment. We have a very hard time opening the back ramp as it sticks in the upper right hand corner (from outside). It takes someone pushing from the inside to open the ramp. This is hazardous as the ramp could open suddenly and possibly cause injury. This has not yet been fixed as the weather is such we won't be using it till Spring. We will have the RV Repairman take a look at this and contact Heartland.
3. The floor in the kitchen is weak. The area in front of the island near the garage is weak and walking by it, causes the island to dip almost an inch. The floor itself feels weak in that area.
4. The main door is extremely hard to close, often requiring us to slam the door to get it to latch. I have looked at the door and it does not appear that we can adjust the strike plate to fix this. I will have RV Repairman take a look when he has time and contact Heartland for authorization to correct the problem.
5. Leak in bathroom. There was a leak in the bathroom under the sink. I tighten the connectors and applied some silicone to the area where the leak was.
6. Leak under bedroom slide. This has not yet been addressed, but it appears that the seal at the bottom front of the slide has a gap that allows the rain water coming off the roof to flow into the main unit, soaking the floor when it rains. I will have the RV Repairman take a look at this as well.
7. The sofa bed fell apart. We went to use the sofa bed for the first time and it fell apart. It appears that the bolts that hold the frame work together were not connected properly. On the right hand side of the frame (front wall side), there is a bolt that holds part of the frame together. The bolt was into the front part of the frame but the back part of the frame was not secured to it.
8. The sliding door between the living area and the garage was not aligned properly. This one was easy to fix. But it should have been caught during someone inspection.
9. No mattress for the loft. This was caught during our acceptance inspection and the mattress is on order.
10. Finally the rats nest behind the radio. Well not literately a rat, but such poor workmanship that a rat could have done better. During our troubleshooting of the Cable TV problem we had to get behind the radio. Wires without terminators, disconnected plugs, electrical shorts, left over debris from construction. I was shocked when the cable guy got shocked because the 12 volts to the cigarette lighter was disconnected and laying in the open. Then we found the power connections to the radio also without wire caps or tape. This was not only dangerous to us, but could have easily caused a fire if the lines had shorted to the debris left from construction."
We purchased a new 2012 Heartland 400RW Toy Hauler Fifth-wheel at the Hershey RV show this year. It arrived in November as we had some special request. Being experienced fifth-wheel owners we had a standard list of questions we needed answers for. These were answered by the sales folks and AJ from Heartland. We did our homework as best as we could at the time.
The Goal here is to educate those that may be looking at purchasing a Heartland RV. We love our floor plan and if we can get these items taken care of, we feel we will have gotten a good unit for our purposes (well other then the first issue below, that is disturbing to be lied to). Everything listed below is as factual as I can make them.
Starting from latest issues to original issues:
We have lost water so far three times this winter while camping. First time we thought it was our new Pirit water hose. Called the factory and was told to reverse the hose or extended the end that was inside the trailer so that the thermistor was outside. Did that and the water froze again the next night. So Pirit sent us another hose. I finally got around to replacing it and the water froze again. Some simple troubleshooting showed that it was not the hose but the rig itself. A call to Heartland reveled that the 400RW does not have the water lines running in a heated area as we were told at the show by numerous people. In fact the water lines run just under the belly in a non-heated nor insulated area. This Spring we will drop the underbelly and perform some modifications to make the unit more year-round suitable.
The island sink is leaking water from the hot water line or faucet. We had water all over the floor and inside the island.
We had some more work done in the kitchen to make things a little more useful. There are a very limited number of electrical outlets in the kitchen (1 set of 1 receptacle by the couch and 1 set of 2 recepicles on the island). So we had our RV repairman add one by the stove, another set put in the island and exchanged the single outlet by the couch for a double). During this process he found the following (this is a followup email to Heartland):
"As I write this (removed repair company) is here doing some work on the RV. He has shown me that the Convection Microwave was not bolted into the cabinet correctly. The plastic mounting piece was broken and only held in with one screw. The one side was broken and had no place for the screws to hold it in. The 'good' side only had one screw. In addition the plastic brace was broken along the front. It appears that the convection oven could have easily fallen out while on the road.
Next we have had a major leak behind the refrigerator. Seems that the water line to the ice maker is the problem. We have not yet gotten authorization from Heartland to do the repairs. (Repairman) is going to fax the detailed work order this afternoon and will be back once he has authorization to begin the extensive list of repairs."
Finally here is part of the orginal email to Heartland for items we found that need more attention to details:
"Per our previous conversation, here are some issues we have found with our new 400RW.
1. Cable TV wiring was not installed properly. After several hours tracking down the cable run and testing by the cable company and ourselves, we finally found the source of bad cabling in our rig. Seems the cables were incorrectly connected to the antenna amplifier in the master bedroom. The Antenna was on the cable connector and the cable was on the antenna. A simple test of the system would have shown this to be a problem. From my research, cable tv issues are a common problem at Heartland. Which makes this even more disturbing in that Heartland is not following up with production issues once they are identified.
2. The back door/ramp is out of alignment. We have a very hard time opening the back ramp as it sticks in the upper right hand corner (from outside). It takes someone pushing from the inside to open the ramp. This is hazardous as the ramp could open suddenly and possibly cause injury. This has not yet been fixed as the weather is such we won't be using it till Spring. We will have the RV Repairman take a look at this and contact Heartland.
3. The floor in the kitchen is weak. The area in front of the island near the garage is weak and walking by it, causes the island to dip almost an inch. The floor itself feels weak in that area.
4. The main door is extremely hard to close, often requiring us to slam the door to get it to latch. I have looked at the door and it does not appear that we can adjust the strike plate to fix this. I will have RV Repairman take a look when he has time and contact Heartland for authorization to correct the problem.
5. Leak in bathroom. There was a leak in the bathroom under the sink. I tighten the connectors and applied some silicone to the area where the leak was.
6. Leak under bedroom slide. This has not yet been addressed, but it appears that the seal at the bottom front of the slide has a gap that allows the rain water coming off the roof to flow into the main unit, soaking the floor when it rains. I will have the RV Repairman take a look at this as well.
7. The sofa bed fell apart. We went to use the sofa bed for the first time and it fell apart. It appears that the bolts that hold the frame work together were not connected properly. On the right hand side of the frame (front wall side), there is a bolt that holds part of the frame together. The bolt was into the front part of the frame but the back part of the frame was not secured to it.
8. The sliding door between the living area and the garage was not aligned properly. This one was easy to fix. But it should have been caught during someone inspection.
9. No mattress for the loft. This was caught during our acceptance inspection and the mattress is on order.
10. Finally the rats nest behind the radio. Well not literately a rat, but such poor workmanship that a rat could have done better. During our troubleshooting of the Cable TV problem we had to get behind the radio. Wires without terminators, disconnected plugs, electrical shorts, left over debris from construction. I was shocked when the cable guy got shocked because the 12 volts to the cigarette lighter was disconnected and laying in the open. Then we found the power connections to the radio also without wire caps or tape. This was not only dangerous to us, but could have easily caused a fire if the lines had shorted to the debris left from construction."
