Camping World: Our Review of their Product, Sales and Service, RVs and Company Standing

We have come across Camping World several times before, in search of other RVs that we have bought over the years. Luckily we found one we liked at an affordable price elsewhere, because the Camping World company philosophy has always seemed the same. In our ever so humble opinion, their company motto should have been "Buyers Beware!".

Unfortunately, the only floorplan we have liked in a 5th Wheel is the 3812MS, and the only one in our price range is a leftover 2021, and the only one like that was at Camping World (CW) Pocatello. Well, I had been talking with Gavin James in CW Idaho Falls, and he seemed like an honest and conscientious salesman, as opposed to the salesperson BilI talked with at the Pocatello store, so we offered him the opportunity to dealer trade for it and sell it out of the Idaho Falls store (a big mistake).

 

Imagine that... a unit sale that he did not even have to earn... just a freebie that fell in his lap. Now, we were not asking for anything special, that he shouldn't have given to EVERY customer; BUT we were expecting honesty and common consideration. When they brought the unit over from Pocatello, they said that it had still not been detailed and that they would do so as soon as we did the paperwork for it. They did not budge on their asking price, not one cent... so the least we expected was at least being able to count on their cleaning it inside, and ideally getting a sewer hose and water hose, as all other dealers include in their sales. Heck, motor homes even get a full tank of gas. 

During our walk through, upon actually seeing the trailer for the first time, we pointed out several 'issues' to Gavin, that were wrong with the trailer, like a door that rubbed the valance in the hallway window, and a door handle that had been scratched by rubbing on another handle on the full opened door, and scratches and chips on the closet doors, plus others, like a lot of sawdust in the main closet, and black glue on the living room floor. In all cases Gavin  would say "Don't worry, we'll take care of that... it's not a problem", and since we were not going to take delivery of it until three days later, they would have plenty of time to take care of those issues, since according to Gavin that would all be taken care while they were 'detailing' it. We also told him that we wanted to go over the trailer before we took it to make sure that all our issues had been taken care of. 

Factory sawdust is all over the cabinets. You would think IF they had 

detailed as they promised, we would not have had to deal with this.

The headboard is completely separated from the wall on 

the LEFT side, and partially separated on the RIGHT

Sealant or Glue or whatever sticky gunk this is all over the floor tile

 (which looks like someone stepped on it and wiped their feet instead 

of cleaning it, is all over the floor tiles.

Perhaps more of the stuff on the floor is also on the leather of the Thomas Payne recliners.

The non-carpet carpeting under the stove has a small tear on it.

There are several dings on the wood edges of the slides, which is really minor but could have been corrected at the factory with a marker of the same color as the wood... or included in the RV such a marker, as it being a color/shade that is not common (like brown, this is greyish), there is nothing the buyer can fix it with.

Something that we had not even noticed when we first looked at it, because the front door was already opened... the front  door was warped (bowed in the middle), which proved to have difficulty closing fully and locking (as the video shows). It turned out that either because the door was warped or because it had been installed incorrectly, the striker plate was out of alignment with the latch, and even if the door was slammed hard the striker plate was installed about 1/8" too low, so the handle latch would not go in to the striker plate. I had to move the striker plate up 1/8", so as not too leave a screw hole showing in the door frame. It now closes and locks, but one still has to slam the door hard to get it to latch. It needs a NEW DOOR. They could have told us that too, instead of hiding it.

We had agreed that in order to help him attain his 'delivered units' for that month (March 2022) we would pick it up on March 31st, but give him those few days to fix all the issues he had promised to fix... and true to our word, WE did just that... HE didn't. He LIED and then covered it up. Unlike to him, to us a promise made needed to be kept. Unfortunately, unbeknown to us, Gavin does not hold to the same values. When we arrived to pick up our trailer (as promised) he had positioned the trailer in the parking lot, headed out at the exit of the dealership, so once we hooked it up we could just LEAVE. Later, we found out that he also had another delivery that day, which explained WHY he was so eager to get us gone, so that we would not notice that he had NOT DONE ANY of the things he had promised to get done..... NO Detail... NO Repairs... NO CLEANUP... NOTHING, which we only found out about when we got it home. That's what we get for trusting in Camping World RV Sales. 

When we got the RV home and walked through it, expecting to find that all the issues we had pointed out to Gavin had been resolved, you could not imagine the surprise and pain we felt at the betrayal of Gavin's lies. We called him to let him know that we were not happy with their lies, since the coach was not 'detailed' as promised (floors still had glue on floors, scratches were still present, door still rubbed against the valance, and door handle was still gouged, etc. His response was simply... "Oh, you mean Jesse (the tech) didn't tell you?... We did not want to just repair it so we ordered you a whole NEW door and handle." So how is that going to fix it... are you expecting us to have to take it back to you at some point in the future, at an extra expense to us of a 182 mile trip, that we have not planned for??" we asked. Gavin says Yes, we'll call you when they are here".  THE NERVE!! In all the time we were there to pick up our trailer, fulfilling our promise to him to take delivery by the end of the month, he never had the honesty to look us in the eye and tell us that he had not lived up to his end of the bargain and that he expected us to have to return the trailer in the future... because he knew that we would have said that we would not take delivery, until those issues were resolved, which would have hurt his 'delivery schedule'.        

Finally, with every other RV we have purchased: a 2013 Coachmen Encounter (used), a 2016 Thor Challenger 37LX (new), a 2015 Fleetwood Discovery 40E (new), a 2020 Tiffin Phaeton 40-IH, all motorhomes, each dealership has always included a sewer hose and a water hose as gifts to celebrate the purchase (sort of as a good-will gift). However, with this 2021 Montana 3812 MS  5th Wheel (also new), purchased at Camping World, where they sell all sorts of camping equipment and one would think that they would want a new customer to continue to buy their camping equipment there, they could have included a sewer hose and water hose (neither expensive gifts) and both of very little cost to the dealership, but NOooo, not Camping World. So we'll return the favor and will never buy anything else from that or ANY OTHER CAMPING WORLD.

We love our new 2021 Keystone Montana 3812 MS 5th Wheel, however, but we are very disappointed (even disgusted) with the Camping World organization and sales force...   We have a follower of our website, who is looking to buy a large Toy Hauler and was interested to know what Camping World RV Sales was like, as they had not heard good thing about it. We wrote them back to explain that we had not had any experience with them, but would report our experience through this purchase. They probably won't be buying there after hearing of our experience with Camping World that is.  Apparently Camping World has not learned that you get more from buyers by living up to your promises and dealing with honesty and good-will, than by lying, hiding things and making decisions for your customers and not consult it with them. We still don't think they will, but they should.  Hopefully dealing with Keystone will be more pleasing.

UPDATE
Since bringing our new baby home, we found another issue, unbeknown to us before, as it had not rained before. After a rainstorm, we found a roof water leak in our Salon (Livingroom), coming from/through the driver-side rear A/C vent, apparently from the rear A/C (see photos and video). We have a little tray to hold the water, but hope that Keystone will give us an appointment to take it to their service center, as we obviously cannot depend on the dealer, Camping World to fix anything. (See photos and Video). A further UPDATE post will be published when/if all these issues are resolved by Keystone.

 

* Thanks for following our Travels Blog. As always we love to share with you our many travel adventures and destinations. We try to evaluate new products and apprise you of their positives and negatives, and warn you of the ones that are either dangerous or not in the best interest to the RV community. We are NOT PAID for any evaluation, so you can be assured that our views are strictly based on the facts... the positives being because they work and the negatives because they don't. We call them as we see it, as things are presented to us.

We'll see you on our next post, and as always feel free to write us with any questions or comments you may have.... roughingitgently@gmail.com