Trying to Figure Out the Winnebago Warranty System

[jbellona]

This is my first Winnebago, it was purchased in March 2018, I have had other brands and really never had a problem with warranty service even though I live in a rural area in Nevada. My Vista is a few months old and I have discovered a couple of issues that seem to be warranty issues. Some were identified at time of purchase, and because of timeframe could not be fixed before we took delivery. Those issues still have not been resolved as of yet and getting a call back from La Mesa RV in San Diego is horrible at best. The newer issues seem more pressing than the ones that have not been fixed. Most of these issues have been discovered on the 3000 maiden voyage, we took 2 short trips prior and discovered the water heater issue only to keep getting the buck passed. The issues are as follows
1. Hot water heater high limit sensor is not working on gas or electric, I called Winnebago and they passed the buck to Atwood
2. Inverter will not switch over automatically consistently sometimes it does sometimes it does not told by Winnebago that would not be a warranty issue.
3. Toilet has a water leak, I am not sure if it is a water line, bad seal or cracked bowl
4. Dometic electric awning does not work 
5. Rearview, side cameras stared working only intermittently, Winnebago customer service passed the buck to ASA (ASA has said it is a Winnebago issue) No mater whose issue it is they still dont work

I have now contacted every Winnebago dealer that we will be passing close to and get the same answer from all of them. "You did not buy it from us so we cannot work on it until the end of July or maybe sometime in August.
I talked to RnR RV in Liberty Lake WA. service today and was told look you didn't buy it from us your lucky we will work on it at the end of July. I asked if they didn't have to honor the Winnebago warranty and I was told yes but only at their convenience because I didn't buy it from them.

My questions is this how Winnebago allows their dealers to treat Winnebago owners? After getting pissed of at the service advisor at RnR RV and saying I was going to call Winnebago regarding this all of sudden a date opened up on June 19th to fix the water heater and the toilet leak. That is all they are willing to work on none of the other warranty issues will be addressed. I live 10 hours from the dealer I bought the coach from and was assured by La Mesa RV and Winnebago customer service I would have no problems getting any Winnebago dealer to provide prompt warranty service from their extensive dealer program.

I am hoping this warranty issues does not cause me buyers remorse and wishing I would have bought a Tiffin or Newmar. 

Have others experienced this type warranty discrimination by dealers?

[sstgermain]

Welcome to the RV world and their warranties. That is how it is just done in the industry. It is discrimination but he dealers do that every day??

"Did you purchase from us?" . . . No "sorry can't help till MAYBE next year".

 

Stuff like the water heater is warrantied by the individual manufacturers. There needs to be some type of legislation where if it is put on the rig it is warranted by the manufacturer. Could you imagine if Ford did this . . . Well we don't manufacture the brake calipers they are made by xxx  so you have to go to xxx for warranty work.

[ianbullock]

Have you contacted Winnebago in Forest City directly for assistance?

[wayne77590]

A dealer around us sold WB's but eventual dropped that line. I purchased my last WB from them and had no problem. Just last month I stopped by to see if they would look at a problem and was told that since I didn't buy it there they would not work on it.

I got the problem solved by myself but it was very disappointing to hear their reply. 

[jleamont]

I don't believe this is limited to Winnebago. I follow many RV sites on social media, not one manufacture seems to handle RV's in a manner to please the owner.

[txiceman]

First problem is you should NEVER accept delivery until the RV is 100% to your satisfaction.  Even if this means waiting an additional weeks to pick it up.

Your best option is to make an appointment at a Winnebago dealer and get it in and leave it as long as necessary.

Ken

[wolfe10]

2 hours ago, IanBullock said:

Have you contacted Winnebago in Forest City directly for assistance?

Best answer.

With a call from Winnebago, a dealer's service manager is very likely to work you in. 

Be sure to explain that you are traveling, not looking for service from your local dealer when you bought elsewhere because of price, etc.

[fpresto]

Of course it works both ways. If you had purchased from a dealership and was scheduled for maintenance but were bumped for someone passing through you would be upset. You are never going to be a repeat customer so you will usually go behind those that might be.

[richard5933]

With the seemingly endless line of people with RVs trying to get factory-authorized service done and the apparent lack of authorized service facilities, why aren't there more service facilities out there? Strikes me as a perfect business opportunity, so there must be something blocking it from happening. Could it be the RV manufacturers and the way they interact with repair centers? I don't normally fall into the conspiracy theory camp, but I'd love to be a fly on the wall and know what goes on behind the scenes in the RV manufacturing facilities when they discuss the problem of quality control, repair issues, and related subjects.

[jleamont]

The issue is warranty reimbursement from the manufacture to the dealer is often very, very poor. Most manufactures will only pay 10% or less of what the dealer has into a unit to make it correct. This is a 2 part problem, a dealer knows this going into it so they will rush through a repair and short cut it to keep their losses at a minimum. One step deeper, the poor technician is often paid by the job. Here's how that unfolds;  warranty time pays 12 minutes to diagnose and make a repair, due to the part location it might take this individual an hour to complete and then road test the vehicle to make sure its actually repaired correctly, don't forget this person might have to pull the vehicle in and out of the shop as they might not have the parts. That 12 minutes is long gone by now! This throughout the week might make this person physically be "working" 60 hours but only getting paid for 30 hours. Some dealers will inflate their hourly rate to help and will often feed customer pay work to help keep the technician, this also drives up customer pay work as they are often trying to over bid cash work to offset their low hours for the week. 

Dealers will often push out the time they can work on it to discourage the consumer from bringing it to them in the first place. Some will refuse any warranty work unless they sold it, which they will do for THEIR customer only. Service after the sale hoping for future repeat business form a current customer, they know the consumer that went down the road and purchased elsewhere did shop at their store but didn't purchase, probably over a few dollar difference.  This is why I am a firm believer, buy locally, shop the other guy first, then go to you local dealer and try and beat the other guys number, or at minimum match it.

Coming from the automotive/truck business we had customers drive 2 hours away for the same car/truck to save $50.00, when they broke guess who went to the end of the line, especially if they only used us for warranty work. That work sat out back until we were slow and needed fill in work. We also had another issue, the more of a model/power train we sold gave us more warranty power, if we didn't sell many and we did to much warranty work we were penalized for it. That's were the upfront refusal to work on it often came into play. 

Our sales manager would drop a list of names with the service manager weekly, if that name popped back up for warranty service, they knew.....

As you can see the manufactures create most of these problems for the consumer long before the sale. 

[hermanmullins]

I handled all of the Warranty Claims for a boat Dealer. Which I agree has a different mind set. Here is how the Boat dealer worked. We were dealers for Skeeter and Champion Bass boats with OMC, Mercury and Yamaha engines. 
There were certain guidelines for payment. If you qualified by meeting all of the requirements you were paid at the standard Flat Rate. I had to request replacement parts for what we used. Both the labor and parts were credited to our account and deducted from you statement. I did have to review all statements to be sure we received credit. On any part that was supplied with their product but not manufactured by them had to be returned before credit was issued. 

Plano Marine was and is still considered one of the most reputable dealer in the industry and know far and wide that if you had an issue that was under warranty on matter where you purchased your unit, you would be taken care of in the order where you came in. We gain many new customer in doing so.

I can't understand this in the RV industry. Treat a customer fair and you will gain a customer for life. Treat them like second class folks and the negative publicity will follow them forever. 

Herman

[manholt]

Your Vista was built in Oregon.  WB bought the Country Coach Plant and property & is now using it for their West Coast Manufacturing plant.

[nansue58]

On 6/4/2018 at 11:05 PM, jbellona said:

This is my first Winnebago, it was purchased in March 2018, I have had other brands and really never had a problem with warranty service even though I live in a rural area in Nevada. My Vista is a few months old and I have discovered a couple of issues that seem to be warranty issues. Some were identified at time of purchase, and because of timeframe could not be fixed before we took delivery. Those issues still have not been resolved as of yet and getting a call back from La Mesa RV in San Diego is horrible at best. The newer issues seem more pressing than the ones that have not been fixed. Most of these issues have been discovered on the 3000 maiden voyage, we took 2 short trips prior and discovered the water heater issue only to keep getting the buck passed. The issues are as follows
1. Hot water heater high limit sensor is not working on gas or electric, I called Winnebago and they passed the buck to Atwood
2. Inverter will not switch over automatically consistently sometimes it does sometimes it does not told by Winnebago that would not be a warranty issue.
3. Toilet has a water leak, I am not sure if it is a water line, bad seal or cracked bowl
4. Dometic electric awning does not work 
5. Rearview, side cameras stared working only intermittently, Winnebago customer service passed the buck to ASA (ASA has said it is a Winnebago issue) No mater whose issue it is they still dont work

I have now contacted every Winnebago dealer that we will be passing close to and get the same answer from all of them. "You did not buy it from us so we cannot work on it until the end of July or maybe sometime in August.
I talked to RnR RV in Liberty Lake WA. service today and was told look you didn't buy it from us your lucky we will work on it at the end of July. I asked if they didn't have to honor the Winnebago warranty and I was told yes but only at their convenience because I didn't buy it from them.

My questions is this how Winnebago allows their dealers to treat Winnebago owners? After getting pissed of at the service advisor at RnR RV and saying I was going to call Winnebago regarding this all of sudden a date opened up on June 19th to fix the water heater and the toilet leak. That is all they are willing to work on none of the other warranty issues will be addressed. I live 10 hours from the dealer I bought the coach from and was assured by La Mesa RV and Winnebago customer service I would have no problems getting any Winnebago dealer to provide prompt warranty service from their extensive dealer program.

I am hoping this warranty issues does not cause me buyers remorse and wishing I would have bought a Tiffin or Newmar. 

Have others experienced this type warranty discrimination by dealers?

We bought our Winnebago Trend in April 2018. We are having issues also and we’re told by the dealer “Oh just go to anyone that sells Winnebagos and any Dodge dealer for the cab”. RIGHT!  Our parking brake light kept going on while driving the Rocky Mountains.Three different Dodge  dealers told us the same thing!  We live in Florida and we were in Utah!  3 weeks or so before anyone could look at it!  We finally said to H... with it and drove to Oregon where a dealer took us the next day and said it was a faulty switch and just have it replaced when we get back in October....no charge.  Thank you Withell motors!  We have other issues as well.  We bought a Winnebago because of their reputation, but are very disappointed!

Not related but..you have to be 6’ tall to reach the overhead cabinets, the Ac is so loud you can’t watch tv with it on, the under bed storage is impossible, and on and on..But my husband loves the way it drives and we get between 16-18MPG