I'm not as forgiving. Our trucks and my Mustang are the first American vehicles I purchased in more than 25 years. I went to Japanese cars because I was tired of warranty work. It isn't that a company doesn't repair its errors, it's that there are errors in the first place. In that 25 years I didn't have a single warranty issue. The three Fords we have had (traded a F150 for the current F350) like the Japanese cars, have had no warranty work either. I have had my Mustang for a year and a half now.
A car or truck is far more complex than any trailer. The standard blurb that dragging a trailer is like dragging your house makes no real sense to me. Our F350 was designed to travel on the good and bad roads we follow. Every system is designed to handle the bumps and bruises and still keep going. Some people act like it is a surprise to the RV companies that their products actually travel on roads. They seem to be saying that the RV is a house and you are dragging it around and should expect problems. Sorry, that is just plain wrong. Heartland knows that my expensive 5th wheel is going to be moving all over the place throughout its life. With that in mind, every single part in the trailer should be manufactured, installed and tested to operate trouble-free for its useful life. It shouldn't come as a shock to Heartland that I plan to take my new trailer on freeways, secondary roads, and even unpaved campground drives. If they built it to sit in one place, then they are building houses and not RV's.
I know that Heartland understands how my 5th wheel will be used and that the engineering is correct for it to have a long, trouble-free life. The problem is that we customers have not let the company and industry know that we are not going to buy products that force us back to the dealer time after time for "adjustments". Our truck has thousands more moving parts than the trailer. If Ford can figure out how to make a truck of high quality, than Heartland can do the same. That's not to say that there will never be a customer issue. Even Toyota gets some vehicles back for repair. But, every single RV has to come back for something. Even if the dealer does a perfect PDI, invariably within the first year something will go wrong.
What bothers me is that we have been trained to accept that. The reason is that the Indiana RV industry has no competition from higher quality manufacturers. So, if you want a RV, you go to Thor or one of its competitors. Have you noticed that not one of the RV companies makes quality claims. Heartland does claim better customer service than anyone else, but not that their products are more trouble free. I know that this board is read by some Heartland executives. I suggest that you guys consider LEAN manufacturing. It's worked for Japan, Detroit, and some of the high tech companies here. Production quality issues can be solved.
Having said all that, I am delighted with my purchase. Why? Because Heartland has won my heart. Even now, before my PDI, at the Seattle RV show, the NW regional sales manager took a lot of time to answer my questions and help me see the value in my new trailer. More importantly, he gave me his card and cell phone number to call him if I have any problems at all. Gotta love that! Combine that with a great dealer, Fife RV, and I am comfortable that my camping (hard to call it that when I have a luxury hotel on wheels) will be wonderful with my new fiver. I have to resign myself to dragging the trailer to the dealer a few times to correct manufacturing issues.
According to my dealer, the RV companies pay quite poorly for warranty work. This is one reason why it is sometimes hard to get a dealer that didn't see you your RV to do warranty work. This is another area of improvement for the manufacturers. As long as it costs less to pay a dealer to fix errors then to take the time and labor to avoid the errors in the first place, things won't get better. Heartland says it was founded on the principle of making the best RV's, not the most. Certainly everyone I have met who is affiliated with the company seems committed to that ideal. The problem is not spending the money in the factory to assure that at least 90% of the customers never have a warranty claim. That isn't pie in the sky. Ford and GM have done it. You can too.
