Brett Davis from NIRVC on Inflation, RVs & Truths About Motorhome Industry Decline

[Joe Dutchstar]

My $2.... as we move away from Family owned businesses and more to a Public Stock style Ownership of the MFG, the engineers and QC folks take a back seat to the Accountants and Finance teams.
Every year costs must be shaved to X% of sales to meet budget. The sophisticated groups change product mix or work the supply chain. The rest just slash where they think no one will notice. At least until warranty runs out.
Long Term thinking is Qrt to Qrt. Then the yearend scramble to meet Street expectations.

The mix of RVs is changing. With the popularity of large 3/4 and 1 ton plush family Pickups, towables become a more reasonable alternative. Campers have become less inclined to manage the RV themselves. Motorized RVs are more maintenance intensive, more expensive, harder to manage.
Most full timers are in a Towable of some sort unless they are fortunate enough to have the resources (Money/SKill/Time) to manage an expensive Class A.

RV Market trends see PDF

 

[DennisT]

** At this point, I am not even raising any issues relating to safety defects or other defects that from time to time are ignored (read swept under the carpet). However, in due time.

I do know that at least a couple of the issues we had fixed at the Newmar mothership have resulted in a bunch of meetings as to “how / why” they happened.

Largest one was the missing exhaust in our Oasis system. Wasn’t just not hooked up properly, it was not there at all. So, assembly missed, final QC missed, dealer missed, and our master certified inspector missed.

When we met our service rep for our coach line she mentioned how many meetings and changes were being made as a result of that miss.

A couple of others have led me to make recommendations as to what could be done differently to make things better. Those have been welcomed and passed along for consideration.

Nice to be working with a manufacturer that cares.

No excuse for the issue in the picture posted though. Should have been noticed by the dealer and fixed before being posted at a minimum.

 

[TheLooks]

In houses, we found people took in the whole thing, not focusing on details. My old business partner said the most important thing to get right and finish well is whatever is in front of the toilet. He was not wrong.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

In houses, we found people took in the whole thing, not focusing on details. My old business partner said the most important thing to get right and finish well is whatever is in front of the toilet. He was not wrong.

So let me verify what you just said! When you stand in front of the toilet, you should try to get it right!

 

[DennisT]

So let me verify what you just said! When you stand in front of the toilet, you should try to get it right!

My take is that whatever you can see while sitting on the throne should be finished properly as people will have some time to look at that view more than other places in the house.

 

[TheLooks]

DennisT has it right.