By Wayne K.
COVID’s affect on RV Production
The last few years have brought changes to the RV market place with COVID-19 affecting this market like many others. Initially RVs were purchased to allow people and families to get out and feel safe. These purchases cleared out dealership lots. COVID-19 has also affected the manufactures; shutting them down for a time and then the supply chain shortages and issues maintaining and hiring qualified personal have affected RV production. The RVIA indicates that “total RV shipments ended the month with 49,135 units, a new record for the month of November 2021 and an increase of 15.6% compared to the 42,513 units shipped during November 2020, the previous record for November. Year to date, 559,743 RVs have been produced, the most RVs ever built in a single year (2021).”
A blogging couple, the Morton’s, indicated that 2021 is not a good year to buy an RV.
Unlike automobiles that are built in automated factories, RV are for the most part handle built. The quality of the new RV is dependent on materials being used and the personal that are responsible for building out the RV.
While the RV manufactures have quality checks at the end of the production process and the dealerships do PDI’s it is clear from doing inspections of new RV’s in 2021 that the factory and dealers are not able to find all of the equipment and production defects.
New Class A Diesel Pusher
I recently inspected a prospective customer’s 2022 Class A Diesel pusher motorhome that had a Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) complete sticker in the windshield of the coach. There were 26 Major issues identified on this new coach! The Life Safety issues found were low tire pressure and Emergency Windows that required excessive force to open.
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“What a mess! First trip in our brand new 2022 RED 33AA. On the first cold night we fired up our Aqua-Hot furnace. Middle of the night a strange odor, next morning find much fluid dripping on the pad under passenger side slide out. Oily fishy smell…antifreeze!! Aqua-Hot shut down with low fluid reading. Called selling dealer, LazyDays in Tampa to see if they could get in to see the local LazyDays dealer. They would check but said most likely it would be next month!! Never called back. To shorten this read Aqua-Hot gave us the name of a certified local mobile tech who arrived an hour later. After dismantling the under sink cabinets he found the tube leading to the heat exchanger NEVER had a clamp put on the connection. A gallon and half of oily smelling antifreeze pink solution under cabinets and soaked into the carpet. Two hours later and $958 we have the system up and running. Now what to do with the ruined smelly carpet? He also found the three heat exchangers under cabinets were never wired up. Suspect a trip to Red Bay is in our future. Just a small oversight during installation caused this major inconvenience. Anyway Merry Christmas to all, and if this is the worst thing we have to deal with, Life is Good.”* This story was edited to remove personal details.