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Time in the Shop

Yahoo Message Number: 20963
Recent posts that vent frustration with repairs to our coaches usually lament "days lost" or "time in the shop".

In reality, we all know there are too few qualified repair facilities out there to serve the explosion of coach owners. Much of the "repair time" is really wait time.

Further, there aren't enough quality technicians to do the job right, the first time. It's bad enough to have to wait for days or weeks until your turn comes, but to have the job done improperly adds insult to injury. I believe the JC factory service center is not immune to this since it is, in many ways, the "teaching hospital" that trains techs, only to have them lured away when they get good. This revolving door is a killer. If CCI could match the pay and benefits of the service centers, maybe their hot shot up and coming young wrench-turners would stick around like many of their dads did.

Demand exceeds supply. I sure hope there are entrepreneurs out there who are recognizing this need, and doing what good profit seekers do to close the gap. Talk about a money maker!

But you need a good location and good enough working conditions (including wage) to attract and keep good techs. And you need thick skin and an abundance of self restraint to deal with (a handful of) screaming, drooling owners (we've all seen them).

Since I am not a full timer, I will admit that my down time to repairs is not as frustrating as yours. But I have also found that a little bit of patience and a civil tongue will take me a lot farther than the opposite.

HEY! Consider the alternative - - we could be stuck in some apartment in the big city or, worse, living in the frozen north!! The fact that we have the means to own luxury motor coaches places us in a very small, very fortunate group of folks. And when all is said and done, we'd do it again.

Nice blizzard, Northeast.

Jay in St Augustine

05 Inspire daVinci 51457
and very happy with it.

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 20970
You have really hit the "nail" on the head! Plus the fact that todays "kids" haven't experienced a depression or a real war and most don't have the necessary descipline to tough it out. ! TWI 11731

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 20977
Add one more component to the situation. Unscrupulous buiness owners who think nothing of charging over $100 an hour and then bumping an hour's worth of work to 5 or 6 hours to enhance their revenues even more. So, not only do you get shoddy work, you pay a premium for getting the shoddy work. I don't blame the "kids" for this, I blame unethical management of the businesses. If they provided proper training, paid decent wages and then developed follow up systems to assure a quality product then you'd get what you pay for.
Unfortunately, too many of the businesses are looking at the short term profit and as a result in the long term they will be out of business.

And, I don't think you have to experience a war or a depression to have the necessary discipline, you just have to have a conscience that tells you what is right and wrong and then follow that conscience. Most business owners aren't into that, they're into enhancing the bottom line regardless of the damage they're doing to their long term business prospects. Unfortunately, the RV business is just the tip of the iceberg....take a look at the major US car assemblers for evidence of this. That is the reason you see so many Honda's and Toyota's on US highways.

Ray

2000 Intrigue 11040

Quote from: TWI
You have really hit the "nail" on the head! Plus the fact that

todays

Quote
"kids" haven't experienced a depression or a real war and most

don't have

Quote
the necessary descipline to tough it out. ! TWI 11731 >

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 21062
We recently had our coach in for repairs at Beaudry RV in Tucson. We had waited several weeks for the appointment to get our furnace, heat pump, and battery charging system repaired. My wife and I are full-time RVers, so we had to find something to do during the day while Beaudry worked on our coach. Late in the afternoon, we called on our cell phone for a status report. "The technician had your coach for 5 hours and found nothing wrong," we were told. We spent the night in a motel, and went out to Beaudry the next morning. The technician accompanied us to our coach, and in the course of operating the furnace and heat pump, he finally acknowledged that neither were working properly. The furnace would not come on and stay on, nor would the heat pump produce warm air from the vents.
The chassis battery was completely dead, as was later discovered by a CC service tech., but apparently the Beaudry tech. couldn't find that problem in the 5 hours he had our coach. We thought we finally got the heating problem resolved and returned to the RV Park, but it still won't come and stay on. The new AGM battery was replaced under the warranty. Now we have to go back to Beaudry and go through this misery all over again, and we have no assurance the problem will be fixed.
It's not easy to decamp, as everyone knows, but we will do it in the hope of getting needed repairs.

This RV service center is so busy most of the time that they can't pay enough attention to any particular coach, if the problem takes more than a half-hour to resolve. When the warranty expires at the end of this month, repairs will cost $90 per hour at this facility, whether they fix anything or not.

Gary Collins

'05 Inspire 51491

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 21065
This is not the first incident we have heard of poor service from Beaudry RV in Tucson on a Country Coach.
You should send a letter to the Factory, an let them know that the service for Country Coach is very poor at Beaudry in Tucson.
Maybe with a little urging from the Factory, things will get better at Beaudry.

Good Luck

Bo and Kathy Lee
2000 Magna 5896
2006 Jeep Unlimited

kaena65_80 wrote:

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 21066
Call Jack's RV 520-889-4444. We use him when in Tucson. He Can work on CC and does real good work.

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 21068
Jack's does not do chassis work, correct?

Quote from: James Turner\[br\
]
Call Jack's RV 520-889-4444. We use him when in Tucson. He
Can work on CC and does real good work.

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 21070
I have used Jack's on three occasions, the latest being last March (2005) and he told me that he does not do chassis work.

Brian Davis
'05 Intrigue LE
42' OVTS
Coach #11901

Quote from: Bob Stephens
 

Re: Time in the Shop

Reply #8 –
Yahoo Message Number: 21103
I don't think so, but he could tell you the best place to go and have it done. He has done some things on all parts of my coach, but not the heavy stuff.

Janes Turner RV Having Fun 541-915-4951 93 Affinity