What Did You Do To Your Redwood Today?

[Dave&Ginny]

The short memory of the Redwood amazes me. The suspension issue of Redwood had been evident and reported since 2012 because my rig "the Beauty" was one of their test units.

Last June I found a guy at a campground with a 6 month old MB that had lost a axle in Dallas during rush hour. When I petitioned Redwood to resolve this obvious failure on their part, I was told by Jim that he wasn't aware of any suspension issues pertaining to Redwood. For this reason the owner was denied any warranty work. Giving Jim credit he did honor the repairs on this particular MB but it shouldn't have been denied to begin with and it shouldn't have taken a fight to resolve the issue.

Redwood must start their day with a clean piece of paper each day and simply disregards the previous day's issues. They've had problems with their suspension systems ranging from the cheep nylon bushings, wet bolts that wouldn't take grease, missing grease zerks, spring hangers coming off, bad grease seals and broken springs. Yet....when called, they have no knowledge of suspension issue. Maybe somebody should show the office which end of the trailer the suspension is located.

For 2 years they didn't have any tire issues either with their Marathon tires that tended to blow apart before 10,000 miles. Reluctantly they agreed to change out the tires and miraculously the explosions stopped but they never admitted that the tires were an issue. Instead they said that the owners were being over cautious and nit picky.

I think it's a shame when a company like Redwood builds a good looking rig but puts JUNK suspension under them made by a company known for cutting corners on quality (Lippert).

Thankfully no one has been physically hurt, but emotionally, well that's another story.

[atom ant]

I admit it is all junk, but at least all brands in this class are consistent junk.

[Ford truck guy]

Originally Posted by atom ant

I admit it is all junk, but at least all brands in this class are consistent junk.

True that !

[Char & Steve]

Installed a new dishwasher, screen door protectors and bars.

Steve

[hoosierguy]

Originally Posted by Dave&Ginny

The short memory of the Redwood amazes me. The suspension issue of Redwood had been evident and reported since 2012 because my rig "the Beauty" was one of their test units.

Last June I found a guy at a campground with a 6 month old MB that had lost a axle in Dallas during rush hour. When I petitioned Redwood to resolve this obvious failure on their part, I was told by Jim that he wasn't aware of any suspension issues pertaining to Redwood. For this reason the owner was denied any warranty work. Giving Jim credit he did honor the repairs on this particular MB but it shouldn't have been denied to begin with and it shouldn't have taken a fight to resolve the issue.

Redwood must start their day with a clean piece of paper each day and simply disregards the previous day's issues. They've had problems with their suspension systems ranging from the cheep nylon bushings, wet bolts that wouldn't take grease, missing grease zerks, spring hangers coming off, bad grease seals and broken springs. Yet....when called, they have no knowledge of suspension issue. Maybe somebody should show the office which end of the trailer the suspension is located.

For 2 years they didn't have any tire issues either with their Marathon tires that tended to blow apart before 10,000 miles. Reluctantly they agreed to change out the tires and miraculously the explosions stopped but they never admitted that the tires were an issue. Instead they said that the owners were being over cautious and nit picky.

I think it's a shame when a company like Redwood builds a good looking rig but puts JUNK suspension under them made by a company known for cutting corners on quality (Lippert).

Thankfully no one has been physically hurt, but emotionally, well that's another story.

Dave............very well said. Much of the RV industry is either in denial or something more sinister. They don't have to change because we, the consumer, keep buying their product. If their sales started going down and they discovered it was actually do to their poor design practices, poor quality and poor quality control the industry would change. But, as long their sales continue to rise with the product they are currently producing, there is no incentive for change.

The improvements that I and many other owners have made to their RW coaches would have been an insignificant cost adder if done at the manufacturing level. Who knows what the impact would have been to improvement in customer good will.

[atom ant]

I think their sales are declining - and the bigger market is the lower end. I think they are all migrating designs to the lower end units at lower cost. I can't stand to see what happened to Montana this year - it's where the budget Mountaineer used to be.

[Ford truck guy]

Originally Posted by Char & Steve

Installed a new dishwasher, screen door protectors and bars.

Steve

Looks Good Steve.... You have been busy ! ! !

[Dave&Ginny]

Originally Posted by hoosierguy

Dave............very well said. Much of the RV industry is either in denial or something more sinister. They don't have to change because we, the consumer, keep buying their product. If their sales started going down and they discovered it was actually do to their poor design practices, poor quality and poor quality control the industry would change. But, as long their sales continue to rise with the product they are currently producing, there is no incentive for change.

The improvements that I and many other owners have made to their RW coaches would have been an insignificant cost adder if done at the manufacturing level. Who knows what the impact would have been to improvement in customer good will.

Guy,

not ALL RVs are having these problems. I was nervous as hell spending the money I did on my Entegra, BUT I can assure you there are companies that still take care of their customers. There are a few other companies but unfortunately they're all upper dollar rigs. It's a shame because after spending $50k to $120K a customer should be able to trust the RV companies.

The frustration I have is that Redwood started out being a good product but their evaluation stopped. No improvements in quality control

[41WILLYS]

Im in the market for a nice 5th wheel .Reading these threads for a couple of days.To me their lacking suspension is a deal breaker.Otherwise appear like a nice unit.Onto looking at other units like drv,more money yes but more ryde equipped.Maybe posts like this can help the rest out.Pay attention redwood.

[atom ant]

Cmon - We don't need to turn this site into a MH endorsement and a Redwood slam just because the moderator bought one - who used to be a ra-ra about Redwood and Ford.

I personally couldn't give a rats about customer service, as I fortunately haven't found myself in the predicament where I have to return the rig to the very people that jacked it up (cross my fingers), and I don't even care about the warranty anymore.

[mhs4771]

Yep, there are issues that have been there since "Day One", like the Washer Drain on RLs & REs, the Convection/Microwave Vent alignment, location of the Water Filter, etc. And RW has been notified numerous times. I sent a large list of items to Jim L concerning our MB, received a phone call from him assuring me they would be brought up at their next meeting an acted upon. Well from the reports on this forum it doesn't seem anything has been done.

[Dave&Ginny]

No Not just MHs there are some good 5th wheels like Mobile Suites, Continental Coach and New Horizon.

[Shane Wood]

Originally Posted by Char & Steve

Installed a new dishwasher, screen door protectors and bars.

Steve

Nice job when you comin to do mine

[mhs4771]

I personally know several folks with 2 to 3 hundred thousand MHs that have been having just as many quality problems as us RW folks.
We're not trying to bash anything or anybody, but with just a little more care and attension to detail RWs would be really topnotch.

[atom ant]

But we aren't really talking apples to apples here - sure there are nicer 5ers like DRV (now Heartland), Continental Coach and New Horizons (ugly by the way), but look a the price tag! That's like buying a Chevy and expecting Mercedes customer service.

For the price of a New Horizons, I would expect to be provided a driver and a girlfriend, but I bought a midrange Redwood with some nice features but the same haunting construction as similar industry.

There are a lot of disappointed DRV owners at there as well - I know a few.

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by 41WILLYS

Im in the market for a nice 5th wheel .Reading these threads for a couple of days.To me their lacking suspension is a deal breaker.Otherwise appear like a nice unit.Onto looking at other units like drv,more money yes but more ryde equipped.Maybe posts like this can help the rest out.Pay attention redwood.

The two upper end DRV models use the Mor-Ryde IS - nice suspension!

[Piper Guy's Gal]

Originally Posted by atom ant

?...For the price of a New Horizons, I would expect to be provided a driver and a girlfriend...

That was before the recession. Now you have to choose one.

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by Piper Guy's Gal

That was before the recession. Now you have to choose one.

hahahaha - Dory just chose for me

[hoosierguy]

Originally Posted by 41WILLYS

Im in the market for a nice 5th wheel .Reading these threads for a couple of days.To me their lacking suspension is a deal breaker.Otherwise appear like a nice unit.Onto looking at other units like drv,more money yes but more ryde equipped.Maybe posts like this can help the rest out.Pay attention redwood.

The weakest part of almost any RV include suspension system, wheels/tires and brakes. Redwood offers improvement upgrades for wheels/tires and brakes but not the suspension. I have taken care of the suspension myself by changing to the MorRyde SRE-4000 and heavy duty shackles kit (less than $500.) and changing to Timken wheel bearings (approx. $225.). I plan to add the Joy Rider Shock Absorber kit (approx. $420.). With these changes, I feel like I have as good of a coach as I can afford and will handle all of the traveling that I will be doing. At this point we still love our Redwood. I am just disappointed that a company like Redwood doesn't hold true to their original statement of purpose of continuing to build a high quality coach for for full time use. I think that taking some of the shortcuts (mostly little things) that they do hasn't saved them money but has actually cost them more in warranty costs. Of course now, you have to have a battle with them to get them to cover some of their issues under their warranty. That is just not right.

DRV is a quality coach. But, it is more money, it is a much heavier coach and will require much more truck to tow it. It was way beyond my budget in 2011.

[spindrift]

I'm with you, Guy, we love our Redwood but that "love" didn't come without a price. Thank goodness we haven't experienced a major failure. I gotta' tell you though, I really feel terrible for some of our members and the hoops they have to go through to be serviced in a professional manner. It's a little embarrassing, quite frankly. What do you say to someone who comes up to you in a campground and asks you for your opinion on RW? Well, assuming you haven't had a problem with your coach, you speak like an attorney so as not to impugn the reputation of RW because you know darn well that RW hasn't gone out of its way for its customers. The other route is to give the good the bad and the ugly.

I suspect RW believes that the Forum membership is so insignificant relative to units sold that they really don't put a whole lot of weight to what information comes out of these pages.