By Chuck Woodbury
editor, RVtravel.com
The “internal reorganization” statement below is from the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA), which represents the RV industry, mostly manufacturers of recreational vehicles.
The statement notes new or redefined goals for the organization. With all the problems with the bad quality of today’s RVs, you’d think at least one new goal would be to improve the quality of RVs rolling off the assembly lines. Sadly, if you read through the list, you will see there is no mention of this very important concern, where such protection would encourage manufacturers to build better units for fear of having to take back inferior ones. Instead, consumers who buy “lemons” may wait months, even years to get serious defects fixed, or in some cases never get them fixed.
Watch this video we ran in mid-December about an RVers defective Thor A.C.E. motorhome — and don’t miss the dozens of comments where RVers tell their own horror stories.
By the way, one purpose of the RVIA not covered in the statement is the mission of the RVIA to fight state lemon law legislation — protecting manufacturers but leaving consumers hanging.
##RVT775
The Onan 2800 generator is an expensive pain in the dump to a very large number of RV owners. Why can’t builders choose some other brand? I had a 1973 American Road with a 4K generator. It started EVERY TIME I pushed the start button. WHAT HAS HAPPENED?
Unbelievable arrogant for an organization who wants us to buy more RV’s. We are all very tired of performing beta test and quality control for manufacturers because of the crappy products they produce. They send us out with tire pressure too low, with systems breaking or not working. We need to try some of the European manufacturers and ask our legislators for protection. We were told by a factory rep that several states are allowed to sell wrecked vehicles without informing us as long as the repaired damage is less than X% of the vehicles price.
With the amount of RVs purchased each you would think the buyers would be pushing for a adequate lemon laws to protect our interest. Until there are some laws on the books, the words we must live by are, “Buyer Beware”. We must educate ourselves regarding which manufactures stand behind their products and will be there when a problem arises. Unfortunately the largest manufactures produce some of the most defective RVs. And the way the industry is heading with smaller quality companies being taken over the few major brands, we are very limited in what is available. Grand Design RV comes to mind, a very well built trailer/5th wheel company. Which was started by three gentlemen who were dissatisfied with the way business was being conducted, by their previous employer, and started their own production company, which from all accounts was doing very well for a start up. But last fall 2016, Winnebago bought them out. Now time will tell if companie’s products will retain their quality and fine workmanship.
Chuck thanks for looking out for us, and keep up the great newsletter.
WE have a 205 Newmar Ventana diesel pusher with an Onan generator. In the almost 2 years we have had it the Onan generator has started. I pray it continues.