I think trying to track down where every unit that has a bad inverter is would be a daunting task.
Once units are built, they get crammed into a holding yard like sardines. Not easy to just pull a few and haul them back to the factory.
2nd, transport companies take possession of them and they may sit in their holding lot, waiting in a driver.
Then, individual drivers haul each unit to an RV dealer. Not in a caravan, just whenever the transport company can get a driver to go there. So they all arrive on the RV dealer lot at different times.
Lots of time for affected units to get "lost in the shuffle".
And shipping inverters when you don't know if bad ones are installed or not is a waste of money and time.
HL should have sent a bulletin warning dealers of the possible failure, and dealers should have tested all their units. -- but again, this must be proactive on the dealer part to hook units to a power source and test.
RV Dealers are interested in selling, not doing maintenance before someone buys it.
Not giving excuses, just sayin' the industry has plenty of inefficiency in the process so I can see how they get to the customer.
First and foremost this problem should have been caught in the factory. The fact that it happened proves that the there is a hole in the Heartland post build testing process in the factory. If the fridge was tested on 12 volt power from the inverter, this would have been found immediately. It is a solid failure within 30 seconds of powering on the fridge.
I understand what you are saying but have some specific comments about some of your points.
- "And shipping inverters when you don't know if bad ones are installed or not is a waste of money and time." Yes, proactively shipping inverters is a bad idea which I have never advocated for. Bad idea.
- "RV Dealers are interested in selling, not doing maintenance before someone buys it." Wrong. The dealers very interested in ensuring they deliver quality products to the customer. The entire PDI process is meant to catch issues before the sale.
- "Not giving excuses, just sayin' the industry has plenty of inefficiency in the process so I can see how they get to the customer." Selling products through a distribution channel is no excuse for not managing problems of this type more proactively. The auto industry is good example of how this can be handled more maturely.
I apologize up front but I am going to get on my "soapbox". This not meant to be rude, mean, or disrespectful - just my very passionate opinion derived from years of commercial experience with channels and customer support.
[SOAPBOX START]
Over my career have I have worked for quite a few companies that created products that were sold through a distribution channel. I have spent many years working in customer support and channel management. Selling RV's through a dealer network is simply channel distribution selling. For some of my companies in the past, the complexity of their distribution channel makes the RV reseller network look simple. The point is yes, the factory does loose control once product is shipped to distribution but distribution selling is not an excuse for having known product issues in the channel if proper record keeping done in concert with mature channel management practices.
This problem was discovered after units left the factory and were placed in the distribution channel. It is unfortunate but it does happen. It happened to my companies in the past. Once the specific serial number range of refrigerators that drew more power was known, the problem should have been more proactively managed by Heartland. A mature channel process is NOT a simple one way notification to dealers - hoping they will take the time to read it and deal with it. An example of a mature channel process is to proactively reaching out to service managers via phone calls to warn them of these types of issues. Yes this takes time, but it also is the mature and proper way to manage something like this. The point is own the problem - don't make it the responsibility of the dealership. Heartland "kicked the can" to the dealership plain and simple. Service managers are busy people and if you think they are reading service bulletins in a timely fashion you are sadly mistaken. This is especially true at dealerships which represent multiple RV manufacturers. Furthermore this is not typical service bulletin data. In this case, it was a blatant product failure - known by the factory to a definitive number of units. There was no chance of this ever working - period. BTW most car manufacturers have factory service reps that routinely and proactively contact dealerships via phone for a variety of reasons one of them to help deal with issues like this. There are way more Ford or Chevy dealerships across the country than there are Heartland dealerships so it can be done on a very large scale with the proper resources if you are serious about product quality. The automotive manufactures have extremely mature processes for issues like this - don't reinvent the wheel Heartland - hire a channel service manager from the auto industry and implement their best practices.
BTW, I spoke with the service manager at the dealership, they had no knowledge of this issue until it was discovered on my RV. Furthermore I had more info than they did based on what I learned from this forum. (Thank you everyone that helped.) I have no idea if Heartland sent notifications to dealers or if this dealer was lax and didn't read it or what. The point is - this is definitely a problem that should have been managed more proactively by Heartland and they should not rely a process of "hoping the dealership reads the service bulletins".
Finally, while I love my Big Country RV - I am skeptical of Heartland's QA process at the factory and their channel management. I am not trying to bash them or make them look bad, just stating some facts and my opinion based on those facts. I continue to be impressed with this forum and I still have a positive attitude towards Heartland in general. However, my hope in expressing all of this is that someone at Heartland will read this post, learn from it, and hopefully make the right process improvements. If problems are not exposed, then improvements won't be made. For my channel products in the past, I would have killed for feedback like this.
Thank you Heartland for allowing your customers to express issues and opinions on this forum. You build good products and provide good customer service. However, the job is never done and improvements can always be made. Hopefully my comments help.
[SOAPBOX END]
Have a great day!!
Regards,
Chris
