Roadtrek warranty change?

[mumkin]

Has anyone been to the Pleasureway factory? I recall hearing that they also have one crew that does the whole van. Not that many complaints about their QC. But they are smaller and a family operation that looks at things differently than a corporation like RT.

My two tours were the original GWV and LTV... and they were traditional lines where the rig moves along.

[wincrasher]

The Winnebago line is second to none in terms of quality production processes.

All parts are indexed in a database and you can get a complete set of drawings for your coach.

The production line is clean and orderly. You may not like some of the design decisions they make, but the production is very uniform.

[avanti]

I am not convinced that the "one crew per van" model is necessarily a bad thing. With few exceptions, the process of uplifting a B-van is not a high-skill proposition. It is more a matter of care than of deep skill. And working on "your" van is probably a pretty good way to promote care.

At the end of the day, I think it comes down to whether management cares about quality and is willing to give the teams what they need (training, encouragement and most importantly, time) to maintain it.

[gregmchugh]

Winnebago may do fine with the Class B line but they have had problems on the top of the line Class A units. This incident got them a lot of bad press with the full time RV community.

Winnebago – No Sale of Special Ordered Coach – Lack of Build Quality | Outside Our Bubble

[wincrasher]

Actually Greg, this has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. I chalk this up to someone who is extremely picky about and extremely expensive top-of-the-line coach. It must have devolved into something pretty ugly for WGO to just throw up their hands and let them out of their order.

[gregmchugh]

Sorry to suggest that Winnebago might produce anything but a perfect RV, but they clearly didn't build that one right. From my view, None of the major Class B manufacturers are doing a great job of quality control. If you want guaranteed quality get in line at Advanced RV and pay the price to get it. The only non custom RV manufacturer that seems to have their act together with quality control is Entegra and their prices are in line with the competition. No reason others can't do the same thing to differentiate themselves.

[booster]

Originally Posted by avanti

I am not convinced that the "one crew per van" model is necessarily a bad thing. With few exceptions, the process of uplifting a B-van is not a high-skill proposition. It is more a matter of care than of deep skill. And working on "your" van is probably a pretty good way to promote care.

At the end of the day, I think it comes down to whether management cares about quality and is willing to give the teams what they need (training, encouragement and most importantly, time) maintain it.

I agree, a team build is certainly not a bad thing in small quantity production. It totally eliminates the "pass the problems on to the next station", which is always a problem with ass'y lines. It is how nearly all limited production machinery is built.

Also ditto on quality and management. All it takes is for management to overrule Quality a time or two, and everyone in the building knows that out the door is more important than making it right.

[wincrasher]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

Sorry to suggest that Winnebago might produce anything but a perfect RV, but they clearly didn't build that one right. From my view, None of the major Class B manufacturers are doing a great job of quality control. If you want guaranteed quality get in line at Advanced RV and pay the price to get it. The only non custom RV manufacturer that seems to have their act together with quality control is Entegra and their prices are in line with the competition. No reason others can't do the same thing to differentiate themselves.

Ha! I'd be the last one to say they are perfect.

My point is that they have what you'd call modern production methods.

But you want to paint with a broad brush by bringing in one problematic coach that is not only an old example, but those type of coaches are built in a completely different way than B's are and have about 10,000 more parts, if not more.

Advanced RV's production methodology is not all that different than Roadtreks's, but they run a neat and orderly shop.

[Davydd]

You gotta be kidding comparing Roadtrek production to Advanced RV unless you consider a 9 day turn out process to 4 months. ARV does a week of QA at the finish before turning over an RV.

[wincrasher]

Easy there Davydd. The comparison is in using a team approach and not rolling them down a line. That's about it.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by Davydd

You gotta be kidding comparing Roadtrek production to Advanced RV unless you consider a 9 day turn out process to 4 months. ARV does a week of QA at the finish before turning over an RV.

i thought you were on a trip? why bother with this stuff until you come back-lol

[gregmchugh]

I was not claiming that Winnebago might not be better than the others, only that they all can do better...

[gerrym51]

just posted by dave steinheider on roadtrekker site

Help! Did something really dumb last night. Was showing off the Zion at our SB home to some friends. They were very impressed. Went in and had some wine, talked for a few hours (including more wine) and went to bed. Forgot to go shut everything off in the Zion. Got up this morning and the Z house side is totally dead! I mean dead. Plugged it into shore power. Nothing. Solar control panel has no lights. Drove around for a while (under-hood generator), still dead. Called RT - no body home. Called Dealer, service dept. closed. Ecotrek 400 - so 2 Lithiums. Has worked perfectly until this morning.

he;s had it for 2 weeks

[eric1514]

^What could he have left on that would drain that much battery?

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by eric1514

^What could he have left on that would drain that much battery?

I think it is either the batteries themselves or the BMS system. they have 360 usable amp hours.

unless the air condtioner was on nothing should drain that much overnight

however the BMS is suppossed to prevent the btteries from being totally drained.

it seems to do this by locking out the batteries totally to recharging from any source

[eric1514]

Sounds to me like the batteries never received a charge in the 2 weeks he owned the van.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by eric1514

Sounds to me like the batteries never received a charge in the 2 weeks he owned the van.

who knows-he has solar- however again-the issue is he can't seem to recharge

same issue with mumkin

[obgraham]

I suspect RT did not test this scenario in their product development.

[wincrasher]

Any number of things could have happened. I'm sure they thought they had a solid design coming out of testing.

But going into production, you could have had someone in supply chain change a part they thought was equivalent, or a supplier goofs up a circuit board, or a minor software update totally borks something. They are now scrambling to figure it out. I think that's evident with all the "solutions" being thrown out there, trying to put out the fire.

What would be re-assuring is if they found the one thing that fixed all of them. If each van needs something different to fix it, then that is very troubling.

[booster]

Originally Posted by obgraham

I suspect RT did not test this scenario in their product development.

X2

My bet is that more than one thing is happening. Maybe a failure to charge properly kills it, and then no method of recovery.

This all points out something that very few management types understand, that it is that the most valuable engineer you have is the one that can see the things that can make a sytem fail, including multiple things happening together. VERY few have the complex associative thinking type mind required to this type of analysis. It is almost never the most creative guy.