New to RVs and Hopeful Warp Core RoadTrekkers

[gerrym51]

Duc Le I hope I don't come across as a complainer. But I mention things that i sure wish someone would have warned me before I purchased.

Roadtrek corporate wants to make everything sound all rosy as evidence of me being booted out of the Wendland fb group. If you look on the forums with other peoples rt issues. Things aren't so perfect after all beyond the facade.

I do enjoy my Roadtrek however. Its fun to use. And works for the most part.
Like · Reply · 1 · 37 mins · Edited
Diane DeCastillia
Diane DeCastillia Duc Le, you're not alone. You have lots and lots and lots of company. Your issues will get taken care of. It takes a lot of patience or a lot of screaming.

[booster]

Diane is on the Yahoo board, also, and has had way more issues than anyone, anywhere deserves with her Zion SRT. And, yes, the problems include Voltstart and lithium batteries.

[B Eventually]

Originally Posted by booster

The fact that Hymer hasn't changed the administration would seem to say they are OK with the situation, so that has been a big disappointment.

+1 Hymer

[WingedRyno]

Any advice on taking the step from exchanging emails with a dealer to putting money down and putting in an order at the factory? Any tips on making sure the order put in correctly reflects what you think is being purchased and avoids miscommunication as to expected delivery time (which I know is a moving target we won't be able to nail down completely)?

Is there any way to get a tracking number and do my own follow up with the factory just to make sure everybody is on the same page?

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

Any advice on taking the step from exchanging emails with a dealer to putting money down and putting in an order at the factory? Any tips on making sure the order put in correctly reflects what you think is being purchased and avoids miscommunication as to expected delivery time (which I know is a moving target we won't be able to nail down completely)?

Is there any way to get a tracking number and do my own follow up with the factory just to make sure everybody is on the same page?

are you dealing with a dealer face to face? after a few emails i went to the dealer to make a deal. of course my dealer is 1/2 hour away.

you can forget expected delivery time. the dealer can only quote what roadtrek tells them. Roadtrek tells you in the fine print that these things are subject to change.

[WingedRyno]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

are you dealing with a dealer face to face? after a few emails i went to the dealer to make a deal. of course my dealer is 1/2 hour away.

you can forget expected delivery time. the dealer can only quote what roadtrek tells them. Roadtrek tells you in the fine print that these things are subject to change.

We are not dealing with any dealer face to face. Delivery time is fluid, but at least having a statement of intended build time would be better than nothing. Would like to make sure all are on the same page with intended build time even though that may shift.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

We are not dealing with any dealer face to face. Delivery time is fluid, but at least having a statement of intended build time would be better than nothing. Would like to make sure all are on the same page with intended build time even though that may shift.

I realize you have an intent-however- the dealer has absolutely no control-you can forget it. Roadtrek tells them 1 thing-they tell you-roadtrek tells them another -they tell you-roadtrek tells them another,then never says anything else and the dealer tells you its not here. they call and find out it hasn't even started yet. I've also seen a few times where they come in much faster than promised-although very few.

what usually is a 'key component' is suddenly not available-in your case it will probably be the 'ecotreks'. if they are having a run on ecotreks-either because of replacements or multiple ecotreks at same time.

for example=they will not hold up 4 zions with 2 ecotreks each to make your 8 ecotrek warpcore. . Not saying that will happen but it's an example

Mine was late-i facebooked Jim Hammill-this was before i was kicked off roadtrekking. He looked it up on his computer and told be the exact build date in the que and finish date on the system. He told me when it would be at the dealer-one month after when it should have been at the dealer I got it-MINUS some options that they were waiting for but not critical to using it-the screen package-and they did not tell me in advance or the dealer that the screen package would be sent out later.

Don't fool yourself on date dealer will get it. if you really want it just wait-roadtrek and the dealer want to sell it to you just as much as you want it

[WingedRyno]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

I realize you have an intent-however- the dealer has absolutely no control-you can forget it. Roadtrek tells them 1 thing-they tell you-roadtrek tells them another -they tell you-roadtrek tells them another,then never says anything else and the dealer tells you its not here. they call and find out it hasn't even started yet. I've also seen a few times where they come in much faster than promised-although very few.

what usually is a 'key component' is suddenly not available-in your case it will probably be the 'ecotreks'. if they are having a run on ecotreks-either because of replacements or multiple ecotreks at same time.

for example=they will not hold up 4 zions with 2 ecotreks each to make your 8 ecotrek warpcore. . Not saying that will happen but it's an example

I'm not talking about my intent. I just want to confirm that the dealer and RT are on the same page about RT's intent to build on a particular date. I realize it may flex, but ensuring RT intends to meet a date is better than having no indication of an intent.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

I'm not talking about my intent. I just want to confirm that the dealer and RT are on the same page about RT's intent to build on a particular date. I realize it may flex, but ensuring RT intends to meet a date is better than having no indication of an intent.

sigh! roadtrek will not give a build date UNTIL they have signed contract.

your dealer will submit it and roadtrek will give a build date.

[BBQ]

.

Like gerrym51 said, the schedule depends on the availability of parts. Many of which are beyond RT's control.

eg. Earlier this year Sprinter 4x4 were in short supply. Most of the 4x4 orders were pushed back a couple of months.


If you call up RT's head office in Kitchener Canada, you can demand to speak to the CEO Jim, he will speak to you. You can ask him for a build schedule, he will give it to you...

[WingedRyno]

I'm not seeing where we differ on the build date conversation, seems we're all in agreement there, so I'm going to move on from that discussion.

One of the things that is frustrating is the difference between the MSRP on the RT website (build your own) and the MSRP calculations from a variety of "order forms" that dealers use. It's leading to widely different numbers. The forms have different MSRPs and package types depending on dealer, and the website has different MSRPs and packages too. MSRPs are differing by as much as $30,000 just based on if using the website or a dealer using one form versus another form.

[booster]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

I'm not seeing where we differ on the build date conversation, seems we're all in agreement there, so I'm going to move on from that discussion.

One of the things that is frustrating is the difference between the MSRP on the RT website (build your own) and the MSRP calculations from a variety of "order forms" that dealers use. It's leading to widely different numbers. The forms have different MSRPs and package types depending on dealer, and the website has different MSRPs and packages too. MSRPs are differing by as much as $30,000 just based on if using the website or a dealer using one form versus another form.

We found similar pricing issues when we were looking 8 years ago, so things look to not have changed much. RV Direct was far and away the worst, with highly inflated retail on their price list and build your own. Roadtrek was also all over the map, with the dealers having different "suggested" prices and even more bizarre "invoices" with pricing on them.

We would take the lowest of the pricing we had in writing with us when shopping, and if they gave us grief, tell them to call Roadtrek and check, and give it to us in writing from Roadtrek. They would really squirm at that point. It appeared that they were setting their own MSRP.

[WingedRyno]

Originally Posted by booster

We found similar pricing issues when we were looking 8 years ago, so things look to not have changed much. RV Direct was far and away the worst, with highly inflated retail on their price list and build your own. Roadtrek was also all over the map, with the dealers having different "suggested" prices and even more bizarre "invoices" with pricing on them.

We would take the lowest of the pricing we had in writing with us when shopping, and if they gave us grief, tell them to call Roadtrek and check, and give it to us in writing from Roadtrek. They would really squirm at that point. It appeared that they were setting their own MSRP.

Some of the confusion seems to be that order forms for 2016 are more a la carte with options where you have more control of picking what you want and leaving off what you do not want, while the 2017 order forms got rid of that and replaced it with packages to be selected. But the packages are not the same as the packages on the website. So the XL Platinum package on the website isn't on the order sheet, and is replaced in the 2017 order form with an XL package that is much more expensive and has many more things in it than the XL platinum package on the website. So it drives the MSRP up significantly.

[WingedRyno]

Any advice on reviewing a purchase agreement for a factory build before signing and giving a deposit? Any pitfalls to look out for?

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

Any advice on reviewing a purchase agreement for a factory build before signing and giving a deposit? Any pitfalls to look out for?

give the minimum deposit required. in my case it was 2000 dollars. far easier to walk away if the amount you have to fight about is not too much.

[WingedRyno]

Thanks to everybody for all the great help you offered us in this thread. We put down a deposit today on a new CS Adventurous XL with Warp Core and we're looking forward to contributing to this forum's tech section as we outfit our ride to make it a mobile recording studio for a long format YouTube/podcast channel. What a great way to explore our beautiful world and the realm of ideas!

Thanks again all for your insight.

https://convotrek.blogspot.com/2017/...-hit-road.html

[WingedRyno]

Well it turns out that despite the dealer confirming our order with RoadTrek and us putting down the deposit, RoadTrek has now decided the cost of the unit is actually considerably more than agreed. A RoadTrek rep said he had bad information and apologized to the dealer for passing that along. The RoadTrek website is still giving out erroneous "build your own" information, and so we're still in negotiation to see if we're going to purchase. At this point it looks like we'll likely be cancelling our order and going with another RV company but we'll see how the negotiations go.

[BBQ]

.

I doubt price is the reason.

RT had a few bad experiences in the past year with finicky customers.
My guess is, you fit their profile, so they would rather forgo the sale than to deal with you.

Just my wild guess. Don't take it too seriously.

[WingedRyno]

Originally Posted by BBQ

.

I doubt price is the reason.

RT had a few bad experiences in the past year with finicky customers.
My guess is, you fit their profile, so they would rather forgo the sale than to deal with you.

Just my wild guess. Don't take it too seriously.

If RT thinks that customers who want an advertised, agreed upon, product for an agreed upon price are "finicky" then we certainly fit that profile.

[booster]

If you have money down and a written price and contract, I would think they have to honor it. It is questionable, though whether you should push for that that, as Roadtrek can be disagreeable under the best of circumstances, and probably would be even worse with you if you had an issue.

I agree with BBQ that they probably got scared off as they don't like folks that actually want good product, and accurate information about it. Past history has shown that over and over.

Of course, they also could have found out you were posting here, and that put them off, as they truly don't like many of the people here because they have dared to question Roadtrek's often blatantly false claims, and question their quality.