Poor QA from the factory - Water Heater Woes...

[ScubaSteve]

As brand new RVers, we've been pretty irritated with several things. Most of all is the lack of quality of the owners manual. To say it is subpar would be generous. However, the biggest irritation was with the water heater.

I knew not to turn on the electric to the water heater without verifying water flow. I actually knew this before RVing. So, we picked up our new home and once we got to our main-stay campground, I verified water in the system and turned on the water heater.

I was pretty disappointed when there was no hot water after about 30 minutes, but I just chalked it up to a lack of familiarity of a 12 gal water heater (not sure why they don't install 16 gal, there's plenty of room). So, after a couple hours I thought it was working, but it turns out that was just due to the hot weather. So, for the night we used propane to have warm showers, actually, hot showers. The heater works very well.

The next day it dawned on me that there was another switch in the water heater panel. I turned it on and assumed I was just an idiot. I turned the gas off and the next morning there was plenty of hot water. For lunch, still hot water. When I got home from work my wife informed me that there was in fact, no hot water. I must say, the insulation on the heater works quite well to keep it hot for over half a day.

So, for the remainder of the week, we used propane. I assumed that some ****** had turned it on at the dealership and burned out the element. It's an easy fix and costs about $7 at Lowe's. But, given my engineering background, I wanted to find the problem first.

I got a operation manual from Surbaban with ease. They emailed it right to me and took less than a day. After verifying the interior switch truly had power to all connections, off to the outside panel I went. I first checked the suspected element. 10 ohms, right where it should be. Now, I was less optimistic. So, I turned everything back on and no power to the element. Ok...next suspect is the reset switch. No power!? Well, there's only one thing between the reset and the interior switch, another switch. I popped it off and checked...no power!?!?

At this point I was pretty ******. I had forgotten about something else between the reset and the interior switch...wire. My first thought was that it was wired and someone put a screw through the wiring. Then I thought about it more. I figured some idiot just didn't hook it up. Well crap, how am I going to get to this problem. Of course there's not much information in the owners manual on how to access the water heater (or the pumps, or really how to operate anything, no schematics, nothing!) And, since we're full timing, taking it to a shop would be a major pain ******* and leave us homeless.

I happened to notice a panel in the pass through storage. So, the next day was Saturday and I would give it a look in the morning since the heat here in Tennessee has been unbearable by 10:00am...actually it's unbearable all night. It's almost 10:00pm and it's still 94 with the heat index well above 100.

Next morning, I opened up the access panel and the first thing I saw...EXPOSED WIRES!!! It was marked with tape about 10 inches from the end. I immediately knew I found the problem. I hooked up the volt meter to the exposed end and had Katie turn on the circuit to verify. Sure enough, 120 VAC, that was the problem. I then saw the wires from the water heater, stripped and ready for hook up. If only someone had actually done that. (I could only get one picture to upload, I will post more on the blog)



Fortunately, I spent a few years as an electrician and was able to properly correct the problem fairly quickly. I did have to drill a hole through a wall of the shore connection trunk to get access to the j-box screw. A handhole would be a great thing to put in order to access the heater j-box. There's plenty of room and I may put one in sometime in the future. The other option would have been to disconnect the gas, pull out the water heater, connect it, then reinstall. If I ever pull out the water heater, a 16 gal is going back in it's place. 16 gal only require an additional 1.5 inches and there's about 4 inches available.

Needless to say, I'm pretty disgusted with the QA at the Cyclone factory. Add to that window borders that were not secured to the wall and a couple trim pieces that were not attached. Neither are as dangerous as exposed wires floating around waiting to short out, but luckily, no one was hurt!

I say to the Cyclone factory, you better watch your work and should probably step up the QA. I hope I don't find more problems this serious.

Regardless, I still love this rig and would recommend a Cyclone to a friend. I would just tell them not to take ownership until the water heater was tested.

 

[leftyf]

It's an easy fix and costs about $7 at Lowe's. But, given my engineering background, I wanted to find the problem first.

What element number?

 

[Wharton]

It is not just the factory you should be annoyed at but also your dealer and yourself. This should have been picked up at the dealers PDI and resolved. When we take out trailer home, even if the dealer assures us that everything is working, we verify all systems ourselves. That way we know that everything worked once, before bouncing down the road.

 

[mrcomer]

ScubaSteve,
While I agree that the factory should not of let this pass, it is really good that you dove into this yourself and found the problem and corrected it. Thanks for the well spelled out process you went through and the conclusion you made. It also is a poor tribute to your dealer for failing to find this problem and fix it before you took delivery. May make you wonder "what's next"? Hope this is all you have to deal.

Good luck and keep us posted of your adventures,
Mark

 

[wdk450]

ScubaSteve and ALL:
Most of the manuals for the equipment on Heartland RV's IS ON THIS WEBSITE!
Click on the "TOOLS" tab above then on the "Heartland Owners Manuals" choice. Click on the systems area and then the specific device.

 

[olcoon]

We had a similar problem with ours, but not as dangerous. Finally got it home, and was checking everything out & fridge wouldn't work...wouldn't cool down it would only get down to about 50, freezer was down to at least 0. Took it back to the dealer, & they finally determined that it was a faulty fridge & they installed a new one. Life was good, cold fridge! Made 2 trips & had to keep adjusting it, as it was wanting to freeze everything in the fridge! Made the 3rd trip, and if it got to 40 I felt we were lucky. What saved us was I had taken those refreezeable things & I'd put them in the freezer at night & in the fridge during the day. Now, hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the dealer AGAIN!

 

[RoadJunkie]

It is not just the factory you should be annoyed at but also your dealer and yourself.

What? I believe in product loyalty and courtesy to our hosts on this forum but, in this case, the "air gap" between connections does demonstrate a QA lapse. Are we to assume that a purchase of an RV is like an Easter egg hunt where it is an end users responsibility to seek out the problems and potential booby traps? There are only a handful of critical appliances installed into an RV, like the water heater, refrigerator, stove, etc., each of which when failure occurs, can mean a spoiled trip. Perhaps it is asking too much for the factory to check the functionality of these critical items prior to delivery? But perhaps this test and acceptance process is truly the responsibility of the dealer? In either case I don't believe it is the end user's responsibility to verify functionality of these items on a new coach. In my view, a warranty is invoked upon discovery of an item that faiedl to a once-working component and QA should ensure an RV is in working order prior to leaving the factory. But that's just my opinion, and reality is, well, what it is.

 

[tmcran]

What? I believe in product loyalty and courtesy to our hosts on this forum but, in this case, the "air gap" between connections does demonstrate a QA lapse. Are we to assume that a purchase of an RV is like an Easter egg hunt where it is an end users responsibility to seek out the problems and potential booby traps? There are only a handful of critical appliances installed into an RV, like the water heater, refrigerator, stove, etc., each of which when failure occurs, can mean a spoiled trip. Perhaps it is asking too much for the factory to check the functionality of these critical items prior to delivery? But perhaps this test and acceptance process is truly the responsibility of the dealer? In either case I don't believe it is the end user's responsibility to verify functionality of these items on a new coach. In my view, a warranty is invoked upon discovery of an item that faiedl to a once-working component and QA should ensure an RV is in working order prior to leaving the factory. But that's just my opinion, and reality is, well, what it is.

I agree. The end user deserves and should expect a high level of quality control. I raise cattle and I can assure you the folks that buy my beef demand a high quality... I can't wait until it gets to the consumer level and then be told folks are getting sick. No more sales for me. JMO, the beef consumer is not as forgiving as some in the RV industry.

 

[Wharton]

I agree, but I also believe that to assume(we all know what that means) something is working, not having tested it yourself is a mistake. I agree it is a QA problem but what did the dealer do for the PDI. Our dealer had the trailer for close to a week, loaded the water tank, checked all the drains, checked all the appliances. He installed solar for us and checked that out for several days to make sure it was functioning. He also pulled up and down each shade etc. We felt he did a complete chekc out but when we got the trailer home we did the same thing again to assure ourselves everything was working.

This happens all the time. I had a friend pick up a new car, first stop the car pulled left, turned around and there was something wrong with the brake..................Also had another friend who picked up a new car, oil light was on. There wasn't enough oil in the engine...............It is not just Heartland, it is everywhere. The assumption is that a person does their job, you can't have another person walking around behind them checking that they are doing their job.

I wonder if Heartland pays the dealer to prep the trailer? I would assume so.

 

[ScubaSteve]

It's interesting to see the mixed response and I admit that I am big on QA issues. It's mostly due to my time spent on submarines where QA = life and death. You can imagine what happens if don't reconnect a valve's control lines before leaving dry dock. As far as the dealer catching the problem, I agree that they should have found this issue, but it's still not their fault. The reason you don't pick up a new vehicle with 0 miles on it is because it's started and driven at the factory. True, something may come loose during transport from the factory to the dealer, but electrical connections don't go back in time and disconnect themselves and replace the insulation on the wires. It's pretty easy to verify power to a component, which is the equivalent to starting and driving a new car at the factory. Or how about this...the guy that puts the panel on over the water heater and water pump looks and says, hmmmm....maybe those wires should be connected to something. It's not like it was hidden (see photo below or my blog for more photos).

I also appreciate trying to shift the blame from the factory to the dealers and end users, that's truly representative of the American attitude today. I never said that I expected everything to be perfect, just that I thought the QA was lacking. Also, I did state that I love my 3950 and would recommend it to anyone.

As far as the manuals, maybe "most of the manuals" are on the web, just like MOST of the manuals were in my owners package along with Heartlands overall manual. It doesn't upset me that a few of the manuals for the individual components were missing. What is irritating is the lack of detail in the main manual. The quality of the manual is substandard to say the least. I don't expect to have every detail on the systems, but I do expect to have detail on operating the systems. A great example is the generator. There is nothing in the Heartland manual that talks about it (or at least not where all the breakers are in the system). I had to look in the Cummins manual which still wasn't very detailed. Fortunately there were enough diagrams that I could find what I needed. Though, it would have been nice to have a little detail on how to open the cover on the generator so I didn't feel like I was about to break something. (I'm pretty sure my truck manual shows where the latch handle is located.) But, I know how to do it now.

Manuals should not be written to assume the end user has operated that equipment before. Again, I'm biased because of my engineering background and you can imagine the detail involved with submarine and nuclear power plant operation manuals. But, I'm not asking for that amount of detail, just more than what is there. And, if manufacturers do not want to put more detail, at least include diagrams of system layouts. It would be nice to know things like: how the coax cable is routed so you know which satellite connection to use since they are both labeled 'satellite'; or, what is that vent for under my bathroom sink and why does it smell bad; or, where are all the switches and breakers in the electrical system. I figured most of these out, but not thanks to the owners manual. Honestly, would you build a new house and accept the final product without the plans? I wouldn't...well I guess I did in this case

By the way, the element from Lowes is a standard 120VAC, 1500 watt screw in element (1.5" threads if I remember correctly). It's easy to find in the water heater section and you can get the thread size from the suburban water heater manual.

 

[DMitch]

ScubaSteve - You are 100% on the money. There is a lack of quality control. I also really like my coach and I think Heartland is a good company. I would buy another product from them. That said they need some major work in the area of quality control. Just take a look behind the access panels in the storage compartment, it all speaks for itself.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Just take a look behind the access panels in the storage compartment, it all speaks for itself.

I did, and behind the stereo where I found two broken wooden supports and a rats nest of wiring that wouldn't pass a rats QA check. And I agree, I love my coach. I doubt that any factory is flawless, even Ford's Kentucky Plant