General RV

[nickbnick]

I have had.two camper and one significant purchase from General RV in Michigan. 3 strikes and they were out. I will never buy anything from them again. Very dirty business practices in every case. Personally, if I lived in Michigan I would buy from a dealer close to Elkhart. Dealers close to the manufacturer save money on transportation fees and usually have a close relationship with the manufacturer.

[Donzidan]

General was The worst dealer. I wouldn't buy a roll of toilet paper for them!

[Incampnut]

Colerain RV recently purchased an RV dealership in Columbia City Indiana and I'm pretty sure they carry Grand Design. Can't speak for them just know they purchased it and not very much farther south from Elkhart

[tbray]

We bought our camper out of state and needed a dealer reasonably close. General RV was pretty good at taking care of our camper. We upgraded several items on our Jayco and had them do all the work and they did most of the general maintenance and winterizing over the previous 3 years.

I am not sure if they are suffering from lack of talented personnel due to Covid or what but last year we had them do some additional work on our camper. The work included replacing a bad rear axle, installing solar panels, wheel bearings, and sanitizing the water system.

Pretty much everything they worked on had problems.

While they were doing the sanitizing of the fresh water system they found a leak in the fresh water fill line. They claimed they replaced the bad part but when we took it out and tried to fill the fresh water tank I had a large puddle on the floor. While they claimed to have done the work, they have no record of doing it. Additionally they didn't flush the sanitizing solution out of the fresh water tank. When we got home, I removed the fitting, which looked original and tried to get a new part from their parts department - they didn't have it and they couldn't order one. I recreated the part out of PEX components.

The solar panels were properly mounted but the service underwriter informed me that the solar power connectors on the camper were backwards and they had to swap them (on the camper). What they did was use a cable that was intended to go from the solar controller directly to the solar panel connector, instead of ones configured to extend solar panel wires (connectors are swapped depending on direction). I knew the connector on the roof of the Jayco were correct because I had hooked a solar panel to the connections previously and it worked fine.

I saved the best for last. They replaced the rear axle. That part was fine. The biggest problem is that they didn't properly secure (or something) the electric brake lines and they got caught up in the brakes shoes and shorted out. There were also issues with the bearing seals and one of the bearings was damaged. The repair was to t replace the backing plates and redo all the bearings.

When the brakes went out we were about a 100 miles from the dealer we originally purchased the camper from (CrainRV in Benton Arkansas). We limped up there and they fixed the problems, provided pictures, and sent us on our way. I am really glad I had the brakes on the truck completely redone prior to the trip.

[Brownie]

I used to live in Michigan and have purchased several camping accessories at two different General RV stores; but I've never purchased an RV there. After talking to several (former) General RV customers and reading many reviews, I've concluded that they have earned a reputation similar to that of Camping World. It's OK to look there but be very cautious about buying an RV there. And if you do buy there, plan on taking your RV elsewhere for servicing!