Between what I’m reading here and the other place, I’m second guessing my decision to stay with Newmar. I met a guy last week with a new Newmar coach who asked me if I was sure I wanted to get a new one because of the problems he had encountered with his. This statement was made as a mobile mech was replacing the starter on mine.
I’ll just keep my head firmly implanted in my colon and continue whistling past the graveyard. That’s my safe space/comfort zone.
My intent is not to dissuade anyone from purchasing a Newmar, that’s not my style. It is to inform others of my experience and to allow them to take that into consideration when deciding whether or not to make a purchase.
Newmar has been there for me solidly on two occasions. Once when my slide became misaligned, they sent NewServe to my location the next day to fix the problem on the spot.
Prior to that, with my drivers seat footrest having failed on the very first night of FPU, they sent me to NorthTrail to have it repaired. Unfortunately the repair only lasted a day before it failed again and it was finally permanently fixed at the factory in September, but the point for me was never the issue at hand. I knew full well going into this that it was always going to be something with this machine. What I cared about was how the company deals with the issues when I present them. The vast majority of my issues have been cosmetic or somewhat superficial. The chassis has been bulletproof.
Getting Newmar to agree to address these cosmetic or superficial issues has taken multiple calls, multiple emails and multiple escalations for the majority of them. To be clear, I’m not talking about minuscule issues. I’m talking about cracked countertops, grey tank sensors that never work, damage incurred at the service center, incandescent basement lights that literally burn out, failed MCD shades, a domestic toilet that flushes on its own whenever it feels like it...there’s more.
Again, the issues themselves are not my problem. It’s getting Newmar to do the right thing takes too much effort for me and I sincerely hope that I am an outlier and maybe I irked someone at Newmar and ended up on a blacklist of some sort.
Others do not seem to have this resistance when getting support or maybe they are less sensitive to the need to constantly escalate and send several emails and follow ups, justifying it to themselves as “just how the game is played”. For me, if that’s the game we’re playing then that’s fine. I’m just going to cash out some of my chips and consider what’s left on the table as sunk cost.
