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Old 08-18-2015, 09:07 PM   #1
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New Trailers, Quality and Modifications.. Advice?

Hello!!

well, now that i have the Tow Vehicle dilemma resolved, and am fairly confident we can tow any trailer we would 'want' (we don't want anything crazy big really), now it comes down to choices.

Really want the 8 CF fridge, and thats not something you can modify(easily), so the Jay Flight series is where we are at the moment. Currently considering the 28BHBE and very likely will go with it - even if our TV can do more, we aren't sure (yet) that we would want to do more.

That said, The elite package, with thermal package, and a 15k A/C unit are on our shopping list.

My concerns: I see a LOT of posts about having to rescrew, reglue, fix this and that, etc - on a BRAND NEW trailer. I'm not shying away from maintenance, but it does seem a bit sad that you have to 'rebuild' a new trailer. So I am wondering what the frequency is for these issues. if it's a couple hours on a weekend just tweaking a few things after you get it, thats one thing. if it's major over haul, or weeks at the dealership getting resolved, thats not something I want. Also heard about staying away from models made after 2012 or 2013.

I'd LIKE to order my 28BHBE with what we want - but am not sure ordering, with the recent quality issues, is a good idea. If we get used, we likely won't have a warranty, and also won't necessarily get what we want, so just looking for some input.

you guys have been GREAT with the input so far - helping us move toward a new/different tow vehicle, I am looking forward to your advice on this as well.

thank you so much!
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Old 08-18-2015, 09:11 PM   #2
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Does your favored dealer have one on his lot you can purchase instead of ordering? At least you could go through it with a fine tooth comb before you actually pay for it.

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Old 08-18-2015, 09:13 PM   #3
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nope. unfortunately what we want is not easily found (the combination) and the closest thing to it WAS a couple hours drive away but that was sold too. I don't think we have a choice other than to order it fresh - and run the risk
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Old 08-18-2015, 10:28 PM   #4
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I was very nervous about getting a new trailer for similar reasons to yours. We ended up with one off a lot, but it was brand new. The dealer went over it well before we got there to pick it up, and only missed one thing (the black water flush was installed, but the line to the outside of the trailer wasn't completed), which they rushed to fix right then and there. I assume that the dealer's level of care in pre-inspection plays a big role in this situation. We have found a couple small things since then, but nothing that interferes with travel, and we'll have them fix those this fall.
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Old 08-18-2015, 10:39 PM   #5
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I ordered the 28BHBE in my signature and have yet to pick it up, so my experience with this trailer is limited to the 2014 and 2015 versions I have seen on the lot. I have quite a bit of experience in and around travel trailers and RVs over the years however, and I can say the biggest issues I worry about are leaks that cause big repairs or total failures, and appliance failures. Since most TT manufacturers use the same group of vendors, appliance failures are not immune to any one manufacturer in my opinion. It appears Jayco uses good appliances in their JayFlight models, so I will utilize the two year warranty, vs. the 1 year in most competitors, as my hedge there.

For leaks, my research led me to believe the 28BHBE has the same or better leak prevention/performance as others in its price class. I will do my own inspection and maintenance to ensure leaks are avoided or kept to a minimum. Again, the 2 year warranty has an advantage over several others in this class.

In regards to build quality issues in other areas, I have been disheartened by some of the QC issues I've see in this forum, but I've seen the same issues in other forums when talking about other TTs. The way I see it, folks are more apt to be vocal about problems on the forums which creates an impression of a high-level of QC issues in the industry. I think in reality, the experience for most is probably very positive with only minor issues here and there.

This has been my experience staying in family and close friends trailers over the years. I am prepared to do some minor modifications to the dinette and queen bed areas of the 28BHBE, e.g. some wood glue, dry wall screws and some support lumber to bolster these known issues. To me this is akin to minor maintenance on my 1950's home, and in the end, I feel that I can do these types of modifications and repairs more conveniently and confidently then hauling it in to the dealer. I know I will get some satisfaction out of customizing and caring for my investment in these cases.

Being out there on the road and in remote locations, having the gumption and ability to perform minor repairs and modifications is a necessity and will lead to long-term satisfaction. I am usually a glass half-full type person however, so others may have a different view point.

I hope this helps!

P.S. I plan on performing a very thorough PDI and will not take delivery if there are any major or significant issues. Dealing with problems before delivery will likely handle most of the initial stress-inducing issues before that first big trip.
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Old 08-18-2015, 10:39 PM   #6
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There's an old saying, "You either need to be handy or rich to own an RV" While the dealer may catch some stuff it's latter down the road when things happen.
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Old 08-18-2015, 11:10 PM   #7
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I have had 2 new trailers and found that the Jayco is more solidly built. That being said, anything from cars to ships need a "shake down" cruise to discover things that weren't done correctly. Thankfully, your dealer should schedule a time to fix what went wrong. Perhaps a little inconvenient, but if it was not a production product, few of us could afford the end result.
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Old 08-19-2015, 06:21 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Monterey Diver View Post
I have had 2 new trailers and found that the Jayco is more solidly built. That being said, anything from cars to ships need a "shake down" cruise to discover things that weren't done correctly. Thankfully, your dealer should schedule a time to fix what went wrong. Perhaps a little inconvenient, but if it was not a production product, few of us could afford the end result.
That's what we need: Builder's Trials!

The buyer takes the thing for an extended outing with a representative of the seller along. Together they create a written punch list of all the shortcomings still remaining.

The seller then has xx days to get everything right.

The buyer has their own copy of the punch list. Only after every item has been cleared, the money changes hands.

What Say All? Is this a good idea? How can we implement it?








(or is this all just belling the cat)
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Old 08-19-2015, 03:36 PM   #9
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Hi OhioRVMom,

We ordered a 2016 28BHBE Elite through The RV Express with the thermal package, 2nd AC, and electric stabilizer jacks at the end of April. It arrived for pickup at the end of July at their dealership in Southern California. While we were waiting, I did a lot of reading through the forum and saw a lot of quality concerns and issues people were having. It certainly made me extremely nervous reading these stories, especially since we were making a trip to pick up the trailer over 10 hours away. I also know that you tend to hear more about things when they go wrong and a job that's done right is generally always expected and not always talked about. That certainly did not stop my stomach being in knots on the day of the walk through though.

To put your mind at ease, the walk through was thorough and I didn't feel rushed at all. We had the opportunity to look through the entire trailer and they did a great job prepping it. We spent the 5 days following our picking camping on our way home. During that time, I found a few "quality" issues that developed:

- The second day in, I pulled aerators off of the sinks and cleaned them as they had pieces of the PEX tubing blocking them and had little to no water pressure at the bathroom sink. The shower head needs to be pulled as well as you can see the small pieces of blue and red tubing in the spray nozzles but by first glance, it looks like it will be a chore. Many members have recommended upgrading to a different shower head by Oxygenics (I think) and plan to do so.
- A few loose screws were tightened in various places.
- A bracing piece for the dinette bench popped out because they missed it with the screw. The seats and supports are pretty lame in this area and I was able to put it back in with no issues but I'm going to be beefing up the dinette down the road.
- There's some scuffing on the dinette end wall between the dinette and couch and it really bugged my wife. I'll be filling it with some putty/stain to blend it.

These are all things that I fixed or easily can fix.

The only item I will reach out to Jayco on is the door between the bedroom and kitchen is on a barn door slider. While towing, it slid past the "open" stop catch and got caught in the bottom guide which did some damage to the bottom corner of the door. Otherwise, all the systems have been working great. There are things that are cheap. For example, the plywood used for the short queen bed is very flimsy and I'll replace that down the road. It's a bit disappointing because of the amount of the money that is spent on a trailer like this one shouldn't involve having to "upgrade" things like that. Same with the dinette. I will say that having looked at various other manufacturer's trailers and similar floor plans, Jayco's quality surpassed them all. Plain and simple, she's sexy

Regarding the 2nd AC - both units are loud but with the second unit located right above of the queen bed, there's no way I could sleep with the unit on for AC, heat or fan. No joke, it's really loud! I'm actually a bit disappointed we spent the money to add that in; however, it will definitely help keeping the place cool when we aren't worried about sleeping and it's triple digits outside.

Feel free to ask any questions about the trailer and I hope that helps. Definitely expect there to be things to fix, if you guys are handy in the slightest, you'll be able to fix them in a few minutes. We were fortunate to not have any big issues for sure.
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Old 08-19-2015, 03:48 PM   #10
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The majority of things you hear about are fit and trim issues that you will find with any manufacturer. I can say in our case, all of the new units we have purchased over the last 38 years, have been basically flawless. However we always go to the same dealer who has a reputation of making sure all is right before you even come to pick it up. To me the dealer is the weak link when people have issues.
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Old 08-19-2015, 05:04 PM   #11
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The majority of things you hear about are fit and trim issues that you will find with any manufacturer. I can say in our case, all of the new units we have purchased over the last 38 years, have been basically flawless. However we always go to the same dealer who has a reputation of making sure all is right before you even come to pick it up. To me the dealer is the weak link when people have issues.
Very interesting! what dealer do you use? we are in northeast ohio - about 5 hours north of cincinnati. Maybe we should check out the dealer you use - that is an important link! though hopefully not too far of a drive

thanks!
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Old 08-20-2015, 08:48 AM   #12
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I won't say our 2014 28BHBE was perfect right out of the box, but it was pretty close. None of the items we had to fix in the first year required more than a screw driver.

We did have one major issue with the diamond plate on the front. The edge popped loose because it wasn't overlapped correctly. Dealer came to the rescue and fixed it right, along with some other items on my punch list at the time. I did talk to him recently and he mentioned that Jayco, along with other manufacturers are "tightening the belt" so to speak on warranty repair. My warranty is almost up, so I'm not too worried about it at this point.

I will echo the other members in that the dealer makes a BIG difference. I think it's true that most if not all trailers will have some problems. And Jayco seems willing to authorize repairs under warranty (at least so far) but the fact remains that the actual labor performed is on the dealer, and IMHO the dealer is key.

Mine is fairly close, but I will still try to work with him on getting things fixed. I like tinkering on my trailer, so I almost always offer to perform the labor myself. Not only do I save the time and money it takes to get the trailer to the dealership lot, but I get to learn something about how it all works in the process. And perhaps save the dealer a few bucks too. But if it's something I can't handle, I have no qualms with asking his service department to handle it for me.
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Old 08-20-2015, 10:06 AM   #13
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I won't say our 2014 28BHBE was perfect right out of the box, but it was pretty close. None of the items we had to fix in the first year required more than a screw driver.

We did have one major issue with the diamond plate on the front. The edge popped loose because it wasn't overlapped correctly. Dealer came to the rescue and fixed it right, along with some other items on my punch list at the time. I did talk to him recently and he mentioned that Jayco, along with other manufacturers are "tightening the belt" so to speak on warranty repair. My warranty is almost up, so I'm not too worried about it at this point.

I will echo the other members in that the dealer makes a BIG difference. I think it's true that most if not all trailers will have some problems. And Jayco seems willing to authorize repairs under warranty (at least so far) but the fact remains that the actual labor performed is on the dealer, and IMHO the dealer is key.

Mine is fairly close, but I will still try to work with him on getting things fixed. I like tinkering on my trailer, so I almost always offer to perform the labor myself. Not only do I save the time and money it takes to get the trailer to the dealership lot, but I get to learn something about how it all works in the process. And perhaps save the dealer a few bucks too. But if it's something I can't handle, I have no qualms with asking his service department to handle it for me.
That's the perfect attitude for owing any RV.
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Old 08-20-2015, 12:45 PM   #14
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We bought the 28bhbe with everything on it including the second a/c new off the dealer's lot here in Phoenix in February.

We had lots of issues with the plywood on the bed breaking and after the 3rd fix by the dealer we installed a beam under the middle (a very easy fix with some scrap lumber I had) and it held up great all summer. This winter we may change out the wimpy plywood used for the bed to something a bit thicker. The dealer has fixed the problem each time, but has said that since this is a warranty item they can't beef up the plywood even with the known issue.

After several weeks on the road this summer our shower door hardware came undone and jumped off the tracks going down a dirt road to a campground outside of Yellowstone. Fortunately the glass doors didn't break.

The 3rd item was really my husband's fault as he tried to put a lock box that had his gun and ammo in his front closet and it was too heavy. The entire bottom of the closet fell straight down. The look on his face was pretty priceless. I would note that I have had shoes, a laptop and other smaller items on my closet floor without any issues. I will probably add a few screws into the bottom this winter (too hot to do much this time of year except when we are out in it, but then things are being used) just to make sure the staples hold. I don't care for certain items being held together with just straight staples.

Our last "big" issue was we were getting way to much sway with the standard weight distributing hitch the dealer put on. We switched to the Equalizer hitch and it has made an AMAZING difference. Almost ZERO sway now.

Our only other big issue is after several weeks on the road this summer our shower door hardware came undone and jumped off the tracks going down a dirt road to a campground outside of Yellowstone. Fortunately the glass doors didn't break.

The front a/c unit is a bit noisy, but traveling through Idaho this summer it was really hot and we did end up using it more than we ever expected (we actually preferred having an operable vent in the front vs the a/c, but this was already on the trailer). When it was hot in the evening we didn't care. We only ran it long enough to get the trailer cold and then just opened up the vent from the main a/c to the bedroom. It wasn't any noisier than other RV air conditioners we have been around.

We have had a few other little warranty items that needed fixing, but that is to be expected and all were done without question from our dealership. Otherwise we have loved our trailer!

I LOVE that the double wide bunks actually accommodate 2 sleeping bags without 1 badly hanging off the end of the bed (we did lots of sleeping bag tests when we were looking - most don't work as a double bunk). We loved having the exterior door to the bathroom, with 4 young kids we had to make some potty stops along the way. We also loved that the "U" dinette actually allows 6 people to sit around the table (and fits 6 plates). Many we looked at did not. We found we had more storage space than we needed (I am sure this will change as our kids get bigger). We loved that we have the huge 80gal fresh water tank and we could easily make it 4 nights (we do conservative showers) in place w/o water hook-ups and still had extra water to spare. We have no regrets about buying this trailer and I would recommend this trailer (just beware of the bed issue). We are looking forward to our 6 weeks trip next summer and all the little trips before then!!!
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Old 08-21-2015, 11:54 AM   #15
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I hate to say it but if quality is your biggest concern I wouldn't be looking at a Jayco. Northwood Manufacturing or Outdoors RV would be my first two choices. I like my '16 JayFlight 23MBH but it's quality is well below satisfactory. I've only owned it 2 months and have had to fix so many things I feel like I own a used trailer again.
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Old 08-21-2015, 12:56 PM   #16
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Regarding the 2nd AC - both units are loud but with the second unit located right above of the queen bed, there's no way I could sleep with the unit on for AC, heat or fan. No joke, it's really loud! I'm actually a bit disappointed we spent the money to add that in; however, it will definitely help keeping the place cool when we aren't worried about sleeping and it's triple digits outside.
.
When watching TV etc run the bedroom A/C, when sleeping run the living area A/C - Whisper quite.
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Old 08-21-2015, 04:35 PM   #17
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Our 2016 had one major problem - a dead short that didn't manifest till a few days after we took delivery; we tested all the electrics at the dealer's and everything was fine, and continued to be fine for a few days, and then wasn't. (It's back at the dealer's now, getting that fixed.)

Everything else has been either us needing to figure it out, or cosmetic. We took a detailed punch list to the dealer, including even the things we could fix ourselves, and they're taking care of everything.

From what we've been able to tell on this forum and the Forest River counterpart (FR being what we traded in for the Jayco), the units are in pretty good condition from the factory; all of them need some little adjustment or other. It's the dealer you have to worry about (as Grumpy and probably others have pointed out). We are fortunate to have a really concientious dealership, with a good staff, so while we note the problems, we don't worry about them.
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Old 08-21-2015, 06:44 PM   #18
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Grumpy hit the nail on the head."The dealer is the weak link" Growing up my parents bought a new Airstream every 2 years and they also had little qurps. Over the past fourty years we have bought 6 RVs new and 1 our White Hawk used (2 months old). All the RVs we bought for the most part never went back for warranty. The small stuff I fixed my self to save time and money. No matter how much you spend or what brand you buy there will be little things.
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Old 08-21-2015, 07:01 PM   #19
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Grumpy hit the nail on the head."The dealer is the weak link" Growing up my parents bought a new Airstream every 2 years and they also had little qurps. Over the past fourty years we have bought 6 RVs new and 1 our White Hawk used (2 months old). All the RVs we bought for the most part never went back for warranty. The small stuff I fixed my self to save time and money. No matter how much you spend or what brand you buy there will be little things.
And out of Warranty! Your the second owner ...... I know
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Old 08-21-2015, 07:32 PM   #20
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OhioRVMom, Colerain RV it the dealer in this part of the state (Cincinnati). They have other locations in Columbus, Dayton and Indianapolis. Their website is colerainrv.com.

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