Getting your RV serviced is a broken process in many cases. If you have tried to get your RV repaired under warranty you know this may take a lot longer than you thought. Sometimes it can take an entire camping season. What’s the issue?
Writing as someone who actually worked in the warranty department of an RV dealership for several years, I can understand why there’s an issue aside from the severe lack of technicians.
How RV warranty service works
The way RV warranties work is strange, to my way of thinking. You drag your RV into the dealership where you bought it. They take the RV in and the process begins.
First, they have to be able to repeat whatever the issue is. If it’s a cosmetic issue, that’s easy. But if it’s an electrical issue, that can be more challenging. For example, if half the lights in your RV only work occasionally, they have to be able to repeat and document the fault.
Then the technician has to figure out what the actual issue is. It may be just a connection, a bad wire, a controller, or other things.
Once the diagnosis is made, then the process starts where a warranty claim is filed with the manufacturer and that claim involves photos. Lots and lots of photos.
The manufacturer looks at the claim and then asks for more photos. Always. I don’t ever remember filing a claim where this didn’t happen.
Then they deny the claim, so the warranty manager (that was me) pleads your case and they begrudgingly approve the issue.
Then you do the actual repair and, if there are parts involved, you order replacement parts.
Wrong or damaged parts received
Here’s another headache. I would say that about a third of the parts I got were the wrong part or arrived damaged. If you ever wonder why I think windshields in travel trailers are truly stupid, know that I had a trailer that arrived with a cracked windshield and it took 6 months and four shipments of windshields before we could fix the problem and even put the trailer up for sale.
Once you get the actual repair parts and do the repair, you close the claim. At some point, the dealership actually gets paid. A pittance.
More problems with RV warranty service
Unfortunately, the reimbursement of warranty work typically doesn’t include all the time it takes to diagnose the issue. If it’s an electrical issue, these can be particularly time-consuming.
Sometimes a leaky seal can ultimately reveal greater damage once the repair is underway. Then the process starts all over again.
So, when you buy an RV at one dealership and expect your local dealership to do the warranty repair, you can see why there’s no incentive for them to do so. Warranty work is, by most estimations, a loss for RV dealerships. The profit is selling RVs and doing paid service.
But the weird thing about all this is that a number of the things people think are faulty with their RV are just things they didn’t remember how to operate or just are doing wrong.
You’re saying service is RECT?
This whole process is called Repair Event Cycle Times (RECT).
According to a recent study, the average warranty repair takes 50 days—if the part is in stock. If not, it can take 73 days for a repair to be completed.
Bish’s RV, a chain of dealerships based in Idaho, has one solution to help with this issue.
What is BishFix?
BishFix is a solution that dealership chain Bish’s RV has demonstrated that can help quite a bit in this process. You may already know of Bish’s RV as their RV reviewer, Josh Winters, was voted as your favorite RV video reviewer in a recent poll at RVtravel.com.
I had a chance to speak with Winters recently about this program.
Essentially, this is much like Telehealth. You contact the BishFix people and they establish a video chat. You can use this to show where it hurts, er, where the issue is and they use this to help resolve the problem.
Sometimes the issue can be resolved right over the call.
“What we found was that some people just didn’t remember how things worked. We’re able to resolve about 40% of the problems over the phone. A lot of times it’s a really simple issue—we’re able to filter out perceived defects. About 85% of the rest of these you’ll have your RV back in three days. The 15% where we can’t resolve things quickly, it’s 30-45 days—which is still better than the industry average,” said Winters.
Average repair times best in the industry
Proof of that was that the company’s Traverse City, Michigan, location was the test bed for this. They showed that average repair times at the facility were five days, which was cited as being the best in the industry.
“We’re taking out a lot of processing time for these warranties.”
If a claim is to be filed, the technician at BishFix already has the videos generated in the call—which can really expedite the process.
The best thing is that, in this process, your RV remains in your possession rather than in what Winters referred to as “RV Jail”—the dealer’s back lot.
Even if parts are needed, if the issue doesn’t affect most of the RV and you can still use it, you can still use it.
“In a lot of cases, RVs are still usable and it doesn’t leave your possession.”
Further, by having these images, Winters says, “We’re taking out a lot of processing time for these warranties.”
Can I get BishFix?
At the present time, Bish’s is working on refining the program and expanding the availability. There may be an opportunity that you can pay to utilize this service even if you did not buy your RV at Bish’s. Details are available here.
Also, other dealership chains have been watching this and are beginning to work on their own version of it.
This is one of those truly unusual situations where everyone wins. You get more use out of your RV, the dealership isn’t storing your RV waiting for manufacturers to get off their butts, RECT (service cycle times) are faster and the cost of providing service can go down.
This leaves the service department more able to provide maintenance—which is really what they’re in the business of doing.
What can you do?
You can help if you have an RV warranty claim. As Winters indicated, 40 percent of the calls are just from people who didn’t remember a portion of their walk-through. I can corroborate this—many, many of the people I dealt with at the dealership simply didn’t recall how something worked.
This is especially true as RVs come out of winter storage and a valve isn’t turned or something like that. I had plenty of people drag their RVs back to our dealership and I was able to simply figure this out. But they may have driven hours, spent time hooking and unhooking their trailers, and all of that.
Being able to simply see their RV over the phone would have made this all much simpler, as is borne out by what Winters told me.
I’ve always said, the more you understand your RV, the better your camping experience will be. I think BishFix is a great idea and I’m certain it will expand to other dealership chains.
For now, perhaps lots of customers will have wishes they bought at Bish’s.
##RVT1146
Bish’s bought the local RV center in 2022/2023 where I live. This business was family owned and 10 years ago was great to work with. Since then customer service declined probably due to not enough trained techs… I’m guessing. It took months to get an appt. and communication disappeared. I hoped this would change with new ownership but when I was there (shortly after the name change) it seemed status quo. To be fair, it takes time. I called them the fall of 2023 to get a quote for damage to my motor home after another driver hit me and ins. (theirs not mine) would cover the repairs. They told me I would be charged $229 or $225 for the quote… I said “No Thank You”. Is this common?
We bought our Aritic Fox from Bish in 2019 which was a nice rig ( 5th wheel ) but had a few issues to be repaired….one item was a shock for one of the wheels….said they had to order it and then get it ok’ed… 2 months later nothing so I went in just as a customer and bought it off the shelf and fixed it myself then asked why they couldn’t do it…..said they had not heard back from Northwood so couldn’t do anything…..then another item was still under warranty but took over a year to get the part “covid” then said it was OUT of warranty now even though it was ordered before warranty period was up….so they wouldn’t fix it….needless to say words were exchanged….BISH are CROOKS….sell and forget you
I don’t know anything about how Bish’s does collision damage but the dealership I worked at farmed it out to a local company that did outstanding work on collision damage. Fiberglass repair (and all the substrate layers) is truly an art form that few do well.
I can imagine there is a good amount of time involved in a collision repair because you have to look beneath the skin and spend time figuring out all the damage that happened in a collision. Since there’s no guarantee that you’ll come back as a customer to finish the repair I’m not overly bothered by charging for the estimate for this reason.
The charge for an estimate is like being held hostage. When it came down to it I declined because I have no faith in them to do the work properly due to past encounters.
I never fully appreciated how much work went into the dealership part of warrenty claims. A most interesting article.
I understand dealers have to jump thru a lot of loops to get the work done but they could schedule you out in the schedule que. Example if the parts wil take 2-3 weeks then go ahead a schedule the work one week after parts are de in.
Sure there’s a shortage of technicians but if they would pay more they would get the techs they need. Instead of one tech working one thing at a time, how about having the several tech work all problems at the same time. I once worked at a bank where down time on the computers is money lost. So in a major move of offices instead a one mover working eight hours to get the job done the bank would have 8 movers doing the job in one hour, same cost.
I truly believe there needs to be a LOT more outreach by the RV industry in general to get more techs and, as you wrote, pay them better.
RV dealers should be at high school career days sharing what a great opportunity being an RV tech is. It’s not expensive to get fully certified (thank you RVIA!) and this would help alleviate the shortage.
Curtis Trailers in Portland & Beaverton, Oregon has been doing pretty much the same thing. We have had our trailer in for warranty issues (very minor), I took photos and emailed them to the shop, they ordered the parts needed and called to set up an appointment when they had the parts on hand. One issue they said that they weren’t able to duplicate what I said the solar system was doing, so upon picking up our trailer the next day, we accidently ran across the error, shall I say owner/operator? Both times we’ve taken the trailer in, it was done in one day. I have also called them a couple of times with questions and they have been more than happy to assist.
Bish’ isn’t the first place to work to improve warranty processes and customer service. But it appears to be one of the first to charge a bunch extra to do what the industry should be doing anyway. The article would show they are saving money and time with the process, so they get that benefit plus charge extra for it.
Hmmm. Not sure I want to see THAT catch on in the industry.
I have dealt with warranty issues several times over the last 24 years. I hate driving 200 miles round trip to get my warranty done but the worse thing is getting there and the dealer tells you they got the wrong parts and they need to reorder and I would have to reschedule to come back on another 200 mile trip. How about when the dealer receives the parts instead just tossing them in a pile how about checking the parts to make sure they are correct before you ask the customer to bring the rv in.
I always been impressed with Josh from Bish RV. He tells you about all the pros and cons of each floor plan. My next rv purchase will be from Bish RV.
Thank you, Tony! Seems an excellent idea. I certainly hope it is, and, if it is, that it becomes the industry-standard. Your comment of the pittance the dealership received from the manufacturer as payment for warranty work reminded me of how our service center (Northgate Parts, Hixson, Tennessee) does warranty work. At least this is how they did/do Newmar warranty work. They document the problem (e.g., return the defective water pump) with Newmar and fix it (install new water pump from Newmar). I pay Northgate Parts’ charge. Days later, I get a check from Newmar paying me whatever Northgate is due. I “eat” the difference, and all (even me) are happy. Safe travels! 🙂
Wow, Neal, I have never heard of someone doing it this way before. I know Newmar operates differently than most companies but this direct-to-consumer approach is not a bad idea.
Certainly, I cannot see REV group (manufacturer of RV #1) doing it, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Newmar did things this way. We later had a storage bay door hinge fail and they did the same thing. The difference between what I was charged and what Newmar allowed/paid was much less than the fuel cost of a trip to Nappanee from Chattanooga.
Nice flowery article about Bish-fix. NOT our experience at all. Bish,s in Junction City Oregon took our sizable check, offered us an upgraded warranty for $24,000 (which we declined) and forgot who we were before we drove off. Between their policies and the ridiculous Roadtrek warranty we got no help with multiple flaws for 6 months. That seems to be the Bish standard. If we had taken days to read all the fine print we would have run from the closing.
We’ve done our own repairs and replacements since at great cost but blood pressure is down.
Our review: Disabled Seniors, bend over!
Oh dear – this is truly unfortunate. Other than sharing this with my contacts at Bish’s I don’t know what to tell you but I hope it can be resolved. RV service and even general vehicle service continues to be a point of frustration.