RE: Crossroads Stops 2+5 Year Warranty
Lyle,
I also agree with you here as well. Many people mistakenly blame the line workers at the RV assembly plants. The blame resides with their management. Management sets the line procedures and defines what is acceptable and what isn't.I would be a large sum of money that the management in each RV manufacturing plant knows they are producing a product that typically has a a high incidence of less than stellar quality. But for some reason that is acceptable. Quantity produced is more important than product quality. That problem emanates from the top. Until that changes nothing will change.
And in the case of Crossroads their new management is now the same ones that drove Carriage down the path of closure. Seems like they are following the same path with Crossroads. Maybe that is what Thor had planned to begin with and brought in the best management team to accomplish that mission...
This is not true.
Don Emahiser left Carriage when it was profitable. He has much of the reputation for building the company for its owner, Glenn Cushman. The owner continued to leverage the firm for investment in other businesses and interests at the detriment of Carriage. Emahiser left when other opportunities arose and nearly everyone that worked there followed him to Redwood. Cushman found "new" people, but didn't have the liquidity to obtain real talent and made poor choices after Don's leaving. The Carriage rejects that "tried" to build RVs after the professionals left have all gone on to Lifestyle RV now to build.
Emahiser can't be blamed for Carriage - you likely won't find any one with a credible understanding of the events with any firsthand knowledge that feels Carriage's surmise is directly his fault. It has to do with Cushman and his homes in Tangiers, Paris, Maui, Lake Havasu, South Bend, Miami, and who knows where else.
RE: Crossroads Stops 2+5 Year Warranty
I believe the biggest reason this warranty program changed is that the component suppliers have lowered their warranty term to better compete with the lower-cost suppliers. New companies have popped up (and vendors from other industries have started marketing in the RV industry) with much lower overhead costs to many established firms in the industry causing a riptide of margin cutting. The bigger and more stable players have agreed to cutting their costs, but with the concession of a shorter warranty term. If the RV you're producing is made entirely of components with a 1-year warranty, how do you go out and double the warranty term without support from the original manufacturer? THIS is most likely why CrossRoads has been forced to lower their term.
Recall that the following companies/brands have 1-year GENERAL warranties:
All Forest River Brands
All Keystone Brands
All Dutchmen Brands
Some GulfStream Brands
Open Range (2 year limited structural)
Evergreen
Coleman
DRV (3 year limited structural)
Cruiser RV
Winnebago Towables
Starcraft
Coachmen
2-Year Warranties:
Jayco
K-Z
Some Gulf Stream (But their warranty doesn't hardly pay according to forum perspective)
Redwood
My guess is that 80%+ of the industry in towables is warranted for a year.
