New Pickup on 2016 Precept 35S

[sspano01]

Hello!

After our first year of RV owning - we are upgrading!
About a year ago .... bought my first RV. Sight unseen on ebay, a 2002 Winnebago Adventurer 37G. Its needed some DIY wrenching and repairs, but its been fantastic and very fun. We used it 25 weekends in the last 1 year!

So we went to an RV show and are upgrading to a 2016 Precept 35S. It looked like a nice unit, lots of storage, and the dashboard A/C worked!

We should be picking up the Precept this Friday.

Who has one of these? Is there anything particular I should make sure of etc during the pickup and dealer walk-through? Or any general advice

Thanks

[luv2camp04]

Congratulations on your new 35S!!! We have had ours since the end of April and love it!! That being said, we have some issues that we are dealing with.

The biggest thing we found after having it for a short time was that the outside tv compartment leaked. That's a big deal. We took it to our dealer for that and a few other issues. I don't think they ever water tested it and just decided it was the seal in the compartment. They have a new seal on order for us, however, after bringing it back home, my husband did his own water testing and found that the compartment hole was too big for the insert. He then added silicone to the top of the compartment, pulling it out so he could get the silicone down in and then did a good bead on top. That appears to have solved the problem. Now water now.

We also had an issue with the drivers seat. The armrests were higher than the passenger seat. I ends up that there are two sets of holes that the armrests can be mounted in. The drivers seat rests were installed in the top set of holes making them too high. They can't just lower them because then there is a hole in the fabric, so we have a new drivers seat on order.

We have an issue with pooling of water in the left side of the kitchen sink. Turns out this is due to a small warp in the countertop behind the sink. The only fix is tearing out the countertop which is too big of a deal so we will live with the water pooling and replace the sink at a later date and install it so it is more level. Not a huge deal.

My husband was vacuuming out construction debris from under the kitchen tv compartment today and he found that the tv was damaging wires below when the tv was lowered. He's glad he found this as it could be a fire danger. Husband is an electrician, so he can fix this and clean up the wiring below, but you might want to have them take the drawer out under the tv and check the wiring to make sure it's not being smashed.

We have had a few other issues, some that are more cosmetic than anything. The shade over the door wasn't centered. The cabinet pulls are not level (drives my husband nuts, but just not worth the hassle). All said, we are very happy with the coach. It's a lot of bang for the buck. It's not a Marathon Coach, but it's good. Do a thorough walk through and then make a list as you go along. You've got a two year warranty.

Again, congratulations!! If you have any questions, feel free to pm me. We love talking about our beast!!

Kelly

[sspano01]

great to hear that you are enjoying your 35S! I expect some minor items / annoyances to crop up. As long as all the major chassis and house appliances work well - we should have a good time.

[SherpaTravels]

sspano01
There is a Jayco PRECEPT Owners 'Social Group' in the Community section of this website. If you repost your questions there you will be overwhelmed with good advice and comments.

Additionally, the Precept owners have organized an informal get together the weekend after Labor Day at a campground near the Jayco factory, including a factory tour.

[Btandros47]

Yes'm make sure all the outside compartment locks work and also have dealer check in your presence the electrical connections to the ATS under the bed. Big time safety exposure. ALL the wire lugs seemed to be overlooked at the factory and dealership. Good luck !

[Timhill]

We just picked ours up Thursday. .and sure you inspect EVERYTHING. Our shower door was the wrong size so it would not close all the way. Bedroom tv bad picture quality with main blue ray player. We were there an extra 3 hours while they had the whole crew fixing things. Suggestion....have the head repair guy so the walkthrough they will notice everything.

[sspano01]

I wanted to write back with a littel update here, after owning the 35S for about three months.
We have taken in to a couple horse shows and race car events. My kids ride horses and I race cars, so an RV is a great item for us.
I'll start this off by cigars, dinner, and drinking - and also wathcing in-car race videos on the outside TV.

So what has gone wrong
Well, I'll say this - everyone who I have ever talked to says that all RV's are "quirky". Doesn't matter if its a
+400k or a 60k+ model. You are driving an apartment down the highway, thinks rattle, come loose/etc - that's just how it is.

So here are a few things we have encountered.

1) I see the "quality" issue people have mentioned. I am not that particular on stuff like that, meaning - I see
the door handles on the cabinets are not all in a perfect line/etc. There are some small workmanship issues like that
where I think you really have to be looking to find them. I don't mind small little things like that.

2) The door was difficult to close. Seemed like it needed alot of force, almost to slam it closed. I had some
down time at the racetrack and took the strike plate apart. I grinded down the face of it, chamfered it a bit more
and now it closes nicely. So that was a 30 minute fix - no problem.

3) The water heater. This was mentioned to us at pickup. Girard has some issue with the propane valves so the
water heater doesn't always fire up. My unit seemed only to be effected once. Meaning, once you get it running
it seems good for the whole weekend. Girard sent me a warrenty notice and I will be taking the RV back to a local
service center to have the new valves installed - hopefully this corrects the issue. TBD on that.

4) The microwave - very odd!! It died and wouldn't heat anything after the third weekend. I bought a spare one
at walmart for $30 so we could heat breakfast sandwichs. I removed the microwave, took it to my local applicance center,
and they fixed it under the manufacturers warranty. I just re-installed the microwave today and it works again. Odd one.

5) The faucet. Ok - this quality issue is hard to overlook. The faucet is installed so it only rotates onto 1/2 of the sink.
You can rotate it almost to the window/backsplash, but not the the second half the sink. I will have this fixed at the local
service center when they take care of item #3.

6) The TV in the bedroom does not receive signal for the blueray player. This is due to the poor way they chose to
extend the HDMI signals. Using CAT5 and converter devices. There are much better ways to do this than with Cat5. H
I installed a spare DVD player in the bedroom so its direct to the TV. Problem solved there.

7) The biggest item was the ride quality. I heard the 35S had the "best ride in the industry". Ok. Well, when I picked it up
and we drove it on the highway, it felt a little disconnected from the road. It wandered a bit and I always had to apply
some inputs to the steering wheel to keep it going the direction I wanted it. Very subtle but I noticed. I then inflated the
tires back up to max cold PSI (about 105-110psi) and we took it out on a weekend horseshow. The ride quality had improved and
the steering seemed better - so I thought problem solved. Then - two weeks later, I put my race car trailer behind it.
Wow ... it was pretty sketchy towing. I had to keep countersteering alot and the steering wheel really had about a 2-inch dead
zone it of slop in the steering. Going around corners on the highway, you had to keep the steering wheel hard to the left/right
and then get ready to countersteer it out of the corner. I towed for 6 hours with it like that - wasnt fun. The next day at the
racetrack, I fixed it. The issue is "steering lash" and there is an adjuster on all steering boxes. I added about 1/2 turn of
adjustment and it drove very well on the way back home. Maybe as 1/4 inch of slop/lash. I could tow at 70ish mph and it drove fine.
Maybe Jayco/etc never reset the lash? That could have been a big headache for someone, luckily I knew what I was looking for
so it took 10 minutes to fix.

Overall - I do like the 35S and Its a nice upgrade from my 2002 Winnebago Adventurer. I bought that and drove it for a year.
We put 13,000 miles on it in a year between horse shows and race tracks. I think we all got hooked on the "RV Life" after that.

So that's my update - for now :P

[sspano01]

thanks - i checked the wiring under the bed and it all looks good

[NickM]

Picked up our 35S Thursday afternoon, 10/6. We spent Thursday and Friday night in it and have yet to encounter any major issues. Staying tonight and heading out on our first road trip and shakedown. Our unit was the last 2016 at our dealer and was a showroom queen so cosmetics are 100%.

The dash AC doesn't work so it goes back to the dealer on 10/24 to have Ford fix that. I agree with sspano01 on the steering, way too much slop. I'd like to learn how to set the steering lash or maybe Ford can do that when they fix the dash AC.

Water heater works great as well as coach AC and furnace. Auto level seems to be fine although we have had a tiny bit of settling on our gravel river side site.

Added the SiriusXM adapter today, took all of 30 minutes from start to activation. Need to find a good location for the antenna and dress up the wiring.

My fresh water tank is full and I'm not keen to be hauling 500+ pounds of water tomorrow so I need to find the low point drain for that tank. I have 4 low point drains but they are not identified.

We are happy so far with our purchase, upgraded from a 38.5' fifth wheel and F450. I'm going to miss that 800 ft. Lbs. of torque on demand but love the convenience of being on the road in 10 minutes.

[Vicr]

We're loving our 35S also, jump in and go! Yesterday I ordered the Blue Ox stuff to tow our 2014 Honda CRV. After we get the towing set up done I'll start on chassis upgrades.

[NickM]

Got the 35S loaded with our fifth wheel goods, did some thinning out too. Drained the freshwater tank down to 1/3 and headed out yesterday around 11am.

Ran it across the CAT scales in Northern KY and was surprised see just over 19000 lbs.

Drove I75 to Lexington, KY then I64 east to Mountain Parkway. I varied my speed from 60 to 65 during this portion of the trip with 55 on the 2 lane section of Mountain Parkway. The majority of this trip was without tow/haul mode selected. The only time I engaged this feature was when I had a few hills to climb.

Steering was much better with the added weight, no handling complaints at all. At this point I'm not sure if I need to do the "cheap handling fix" modification, can't imagine getting any improvement over what I have now. Think I will adopt a wait and see attitude on the chf.

The only issue for now is the drivers rear view mirror needs to have the 3 set screws tightened. It tends to develop a lean while traveling so this will be an easy fix. So far we have spent 4 rather uneventful nights since we took delivery.

[upacrick]

upacrick;
We have had sooo many problems with our 2016 Jayco Precept 31UL... we have been to the factory twice... still having problems. Water in the basement storage, they said they fixed it... NOT, still happening. Poor headlight placement... can't see the road at night properly, only with high beams, which you can't leave on. Monitor for side and rear camera placement is horrible. You have to take your eyes off the road and lean back to see when making a right hand turn to see if there is anything along side. Driver side and passenger side windows whistle when locked. Outside TV cabinet gets water in it. Drawers and pullout cabinet in galley pop our while driving. Driver and passenger seats fell apart. Lock assembly on water heater door fell of the first time I tried to open it. Jacks retract when you turn the key... when staying in an RV park for 3 months... I always start the engine to make sure it will start. Takes a long time to stop when applying brakes. And... many, many more too numerous to mention. Like I said we went to the factory twice already... not ready to go again. Very disgusted.
Not sure how to use this site... but we are sooo frustrated. Thought maybe someone could give us some advise. Thank You

[JacqueTanis]

We have had our Precept for a little over two weeks now and are very happy with it. We are traveling so made our purchase in Kaysville Utah . We had to take our rig back before we left to have a few items repaired.

1. The finish had been removed from a 2x2 area on the countertop and also the top of the pull-out cabinet, repaired.
2. There was a bubble in the floor, repaired.
3. The microwave was not level making the backsplash look crooked, semi repaired. Will be taking it to Camping World in Anthony, NM when we get home to have it properly repaired.
4. Also to be repaired in Anthony: the carpet in the bedroom is not stretched tight near the door resulting in a bubble; one of the glass panels on the shower door is not seated properly in the rubber bracket makeing it hard to open and close; it needs a front end alignment, the steering wheel is one click off; the bracket on the rear awning arm obviously came loose at one time and scratched up the decal; pull-out cabinet in the kitchen was installed crookedly so it does not sit evenly.
5. When we arrived in St. George Utah the back AC quit working. Needed a new circuit board, Camping World repaired.

There were a few small item s my husband repaired, I will call them quality-control issues. The toilet was installed sitting at an angle. That one was a little ridiculous, incredible; mud flaps only has two small short screws in each; he added a stronger full-length piano hinge on the bed flap. The others with their two small piano hinges ripped out the first time my grandson lifted up the bed. There were numerous other small things but nothing serious, just the kind of repairs that working on makes the RV your own.

We pull a 16 foot enclosed trailer with our motorcycles and have had no problem up and down mountains. The gas mileage has been great, even with pulling the trailer - we keep it under 70 mph. The ride has been very comfortable and even in the wind and passing semi's we have not experienced any problems.

[JacqueTanis]

Did I mention we love our new rig ...

[NickM]

Originally Posted by upacrick

upacrick;
We have had sooo many problems with our 2016 Jayco Precept 31UL... we have been to the factory twice... still having problems. Water in the basement storage, they said they fixed it... NOT, still happening.

Need to stay on top of Jayco

Poor headlight placement... can't see the road at night properly, only with high beams, which you can't leave on.

Jayco has a procedure for adjusting headlights that may require fabrication of new brackets. Insist on receiving the procedure.

Monitor for side and rear camera placement is horrible. You have to take your eyes off the road and lean back to see when making a right hand turn to see if there is anything along side.

This is a gimmick option, worthless in my opinion. You don't want to be taking your eyes off the road, use your side mirrors, that's what they were designed for and provide good visibility. Ignore the side cameras but use your backup camera.

Driver side and passenger side windows whistle when locked. Outside TV cabinet gets water in it. Drawers and pullout cabinet in galley pop our while driving.

The pullout cabinet slides out in our 35S, we use a bungee cord with rubber coated ends to secure it. Jayco engineers probably thought this was a great idea but they didn't count on the cabinet sliding out while traveling. Just poor implementation of a good idea.


Driver and passenger seats fell apart. Lock assembly on water heater door fell of the first time I tried to open it.

Jacks retract when you turn the key... when staying in an RV park for 3 months... I always start the engine to make sure it will start.

I think this is correct operation, they don't want you driving off with the jacks down. My 35S does the same thing and I don't mind as I like to relevel once per week, especially on dirt or gravel.

Takes a long time to stop when applying brakes.

You do realize you're driving a very heavy vehicle? You need to plan ahead for stops, it will not brake like a car, truck or many Class C coaches.

And... many, many more too numerous to mention. Like I said we went to the factory twice already... not ready to go again. Very disgusted.
Not sure how to use this site... but we are sooo frustrated. Thought maybe someone could give us some advise. Thank You

My advice is to find someone higher up in Jayco Customer Service that will pay attention to the real quality issues. Failing that Trailer Life magazine has a resolution service that aids customers who feel they are not getting good customer service. I realize that you have a motor home so not sure if Trailer Life can help but maybe Motorhome magazine has a similar service for Motorhome owners. At any rate, good luck. We have had an excellent experience with our 1 week old 35S, spent the last 8 nights in it with only very minor issues.

[JohnTanis]

Originally Posted by Vicr

We're loving our 35S also, jump in and go! Yesterday I ordered the Blue Ox stuff to tow our 2014 Honda CRV. After we get the towing set up done I'll start on chassis upgrades.

Try moving the front and rear sway bars to the rear holes if your're getting a lot of rolling from side to side, makes a big difference in handling. You will find the bedroom furnace duct gets most of the heat as the furnace is so close, restrict it some and the living room gets toasty also. I have a list of things I repaired and items that will need warranty work if you want it just pm me.JT