I am here just to complete the story. It gives me no pleasure to report the story was not the happy ending so many of you thought, and I hoped, it could be.
When Kyle did send some pictures it was immediately clear they had not done the build as it was supposed to be. First glaring item – they had glued in the kitchen mirror when it was not supposed to be there. PC warns you to make sure if you don’t want the mirror to say that up front as it is near impossible to remove. That lead to conversations and questions about other items they were supposed to do but were not covered in pictures.
They confirmed they did have my specifics in regards to the mirror, the way the cabinet doors were to swing, the pantry, the under bed storage area – yeah it was not just one thing they didn’t do right. They accepted it was their fault. They told me (though it took some push back from me) that they would replace the wall where the mirror was. They would replace the trim pieces in the wood work where they had created holes etc by putting stuff in wrong. When I checked back with them to see how it was going and if we were still on schedule then for the pick up, I was told everything was fine.
When I arrived to pick it up – nothing more was said about the repairs. But in fact they had not replaced the wall nor the wood trim. They had tried to cover up holes with more of the tape they use to make it look like it is the real wood. Apparently they thought I was just too stupid to notice. When I told Earl how I felt about them not doing what they agreed to and not even having the guts to tell me, his comment was that he thought what they did looked OK.
So no I am not at all happy with the people and their meaningless promises. I do not believe that I should have patched items in my new RV that are there just because they got their part of the process wrong. But once you arrive for pick up, you are at a disadvantage – where would you go while they tear it all apart, even if you could make them do what they had two weeks to do and chose not to. What about getting back to work. And for me that after I got to the pickup to learn my father had gone into the hospital which affects whether I can stand and fight. (Thankfully that part ended well.)
To the gentlemen who have had such good rapport with Earl, I am happy for you that your builds went so well. I suspect the difference in experience comes back to a basic issue in how some groups are treated. Yes they can go out of their way to accommodate when they want to. Or like me – I can spend lots of money to travel there, for a date they picked, and then find at the end of the day I cannot get a test drive – being told that “it drives fine.” Then when they were in PA, and could have done something special like delayed their departure by an hour so I could drive it there (having forked over the $5000 deposit) they instead made me go to the expense of another trip to come to Elkhart JUST for the test drive – of the same coach they had in PA.
I put up with this because I loved the feel of the living area of the PC that much. Because I hope and pray that it is built and will perform over time as well as so many of you have indicated. But I can not in any way excuse or understand this type of treatment of a customer, the lack of attention to the order they accepted and mostly to the lack of integrity shown by the falsehoods I was told. Don’t patronize this “little lady” – deal with me honestly.
To those looking at a PC I would say make sure everything is in writing. Don’t be put off by them being too busy at shows, etc. Instead keep on them to get the answers you need. If you are having items done differently, get an agreement to have pictures done as the items are put together. Mostly you need to decide how hard you can and will push back if you find they did not do what they promised. If they find it easy to treat any customer less than honestly, they can do it to any of you in matters big or small.
For now I will try to put this behind me, to try to get past my disappointment in my patches, hope that the service end of the business is far more reliable, and hope to just enjoy the future with my RV and meeting some of you folks out there on the road.
