By (Popular?) Demand - Our Ownership Story

Rhyph

Well-known member
Howdy fine Heartland community folks. As you can see I’m new to posting here, but I’ve been lurking around for some time now, about a year equaling the ownership of our first Heartland product. As was requested by some folks who took some level of interest in my “venting” on another thread, they asked to know more about what had happened to us.

So in all of it’s wordy details, here is the chronicle of our Heartland ownership experience to date. I’d like to also preface this with, one of the reasons we purchased a Heartland product was largely due to our research of this community site, and the mostly good ownership stories and helpful community support we saw here prior to our purchase; you can say it is what pushed us over the edge in making our purchase decision.

We purchased our new 2014 Big Horn 3610RE from Camping World in Oakwood, GA the week of June 22, 2014. Our sales associate worked with us through our deal and navigated the requested accessory add-ons we had made with ease. Not being new to RV ownership (this is our 6th unit - coming from an American Coach product), we know what we want. Upon delivery and through PDI, 5 issues were discovered as needing warranty correction:


  1. Lighting in utility bay inoperable
  2. Dinette window broken (chip in glass, windows were colliding with one another)
  3. Large Living Room slide out alignment problem, window nearest door scrubbing wall causing gasket tearing and wall stress
  4. Various MCD shades will not roll-up, no tension
  5. Living room TV soundbar has no sound from TV

With these initial issues noted, I figured the list wasn’t too bad, we decided knowing there could be more since we’re not new to this rodeo that we’d still take delivery of the 5th wheel for an inaugural 4th of July 2014 quick shake down trip to Chattanooga. On that trip up from our home base in Atlanta the following was discovered and as such an emergency fix had to be made, and some more minor issues were found:


  1. Residential side-by-side refrigerator was improperly installed and it slid partially out of it’s place while going down the road..
    1. We had to remove the fridge ourselves on the trip for two reasons:
      1. It was not secured and the factory installation was so poor the upper brackets that were supposed to attach to the fridge itself; one was laying on the floor behind the fridge (they completely missed attaching it) the other was installed cocked and two of 4 screws were in the top of the fridge, the 2 of 4 screws that were also supposed to attach to the wall had pulled out of the wall.
      2. We failed to test water to the fridge during PDI, I hooked up and turned on water on that first trip, discovered the ice maker line was off to the fridge - turned it on. Heard a hissing, I thought was the fridge and icemaker filling up. About 10 minutes later water is pouring out of the exterior of that slide out. When we pulled out the fridge, we also discovered that the icemaker line was crushed when they allowed the fridge to roll over it during installation.
    2. Had to goto home depot and do an on the spot fix for the icemaker line, secure it to the back wall. Also had to implement a way to secure the fridge itself, and I came up with a strap system to ensure this baby wasn’t going anywhere when going down the road.
  2. Hydraulic pump/motor issue
    1. It wasn’t immediately clear yet, but when we would operate the 6 point Lippert level-up system, the pump would only run for about 20 seconds then stop for about 20 seconds. I first thought this was a systematic process of the levelers themselves, but wasn’t sure until we went to return home. The same stall was then occurring when trying to bring the slide outs in.
  3. LED in-ceiling light over kitchen pantry become inoperable
  4. 6 cabinet door hinges separated from doors, doors falling off
  5. Bathroom sink will not drain
  6. Black tank valve doesn’t close/seal all the way
  7. All compartment door locks - keys inoperable/seized up

Upon return from our trip we decide to engage a different dealership since the CW location we purchased from had very poor service reviews and take it to another, very reputable dealership to begin working through all of the issues to date, minus the fridge problems. 2 months goes by and a few of the minor issues are resolved. We had a trip planned for late September. On that trip the major issues such as the slide out alignment and the hydraulic pump issues continued and worsened as the list grew some more:


  1. Kitchen slide out looks like it’s sagging in the center
  2. 4 More cabinet doors fall off their hinges, beyond the 6 that were fixed
  3. Bathroom sink drain is now draining, but the sink stopper is inoperable (disconnected)
  4. Black tank valve now closes, but black tank is now very difficult to get completely drained (not opening fully?)
  5. Slide outs and jack system stall every 10 seconds
  6. Slide out misalignment problem still present
  7. MCD shades were fixed, but all “spun-out” and lost tension again over the 2 week trip
  8. Kitchen sink is leaking from various fittings
  9. Bedroom door will not close
  10. All rear furnace floor vents inoperable (no air flow)

We return from this trip, give 5th wheel back to dealer for a month which they were only able to look at the slide out hydraulic problem and cannot determine what is wrong with it,plus the door issues; take it back out for a quick Thanksgiving trip to Biltmore, and some more:


  1. Electric fireplace has internal meltdown, burns out
  2. 12v converter/charger inoperable - replaced on site
  3. 2 more cabinet doors…
  4. Trim over entry door falling off
    1. Why? Because whoever installed it couldn’t be bothered to peel the backing off the wall facing side off 2 of the 3 double-sided tape strips that were supposed to attach it to the walls - this is the second sign of fairly shoddy installation handy work
  5. Bedroom door will not close again (was fixed/checked at dealer before leaving), frame is shifting
  6. Left side LP tank stops working

After the Thanksgiving trip, I invited Heartland to allow me to bring our 5th wheel to their location/factory as I’ve seen some manufacturers do when there’s growing concerns, and give them an opportunity to comb through the entire unit and fix everything as I was especially concerned about the slide out sagging. Heartland declined.


We leave the 5th wheel with the dealer until March 2015. We had another small trip planned for February. Almost everything is corrected, except three significant conditions, and while I won’t point a finger directly at the dealer being at fault, Heartland and their various reps did not help the matter and this is where I found Heartland to be less than helpful.

I had to demand (after several failed requests to be heard by Heartland reps who I have seen named here) to be escalated. They were denying claims and it was almost as if they were ignoring details and mine & my dealer's escalation requests. They were not taking the seriousness of the issues and the on going time to resolve them into account. Their escalation matrix has serious issues is still unsuitable to this day. Our issues ultimately were brought to the Director of Southeast Warranty claims (had to request him to give me his title) attention to finally deal with the broken window, but I had to fight to get there, and the customer service remains generally deplorable.

To add to the comedy of errors and problems, Heartland at some point tried to tell our dealer that our warranty was up in April 2015?! We clearly didn’t buy the 5th wheel in April of 2014.

The window finally got authorized for replacement at that level, then Heartland sent the dealer the wrong window. The hydraulic issues remain, and the slideout alignment problem continues and Heartland has refused again to deal with it. I had to pay the dealer to correct the slideout issue in the way they were recommending. At least this fixed the wall and gasket scrubbing.

We are out on a trip now, this was one of our longest drives up to the DC area, and basically the warranty is expiring and our trailer is continuing to fall apart:


  1. Both opposing slideouts in the living room area have now started to dig into the carpeting when brought in
    1. The carpet is getting bunched up going down the center of our living room area. I have to trample it back down so it will lay flat.
  2. Kitchen slide out now has a full-bubble of structural sag (measured with level) inward to center - you can visually see it as well
  3. Found a 3” crack starting to form in the fiberglass shower surround up high on the wall - this thing is huge and I’m sure is not replaceable since it won’t fit through the door, I’m sure this was a built-in place type unit due to its size and being one-piece.
  4. Floor in bedroom developed an un-even spot clearly present under carpet, feels like a joint between two pieces of plywood has lifted or become uneven with one another?
  5. LED strip lighting under awning now has dead and flickering segments
  6. The last 3 unrepaired cabinet doors - guess what?
  7. Convection microwave making a horrible buzzing noise, has an electrical burning smell
  8. 3 of the MCD night shades lost tension again on their second use
  9. A dining chair seat bottom broke out (cheap stapled construction and it let go)
  10. Two kitchen drawers missing their ‘catches’ and now opening going down road, handles rubbed opposing kitchen cabinet and damaged finish
  11. 120v water heater switch has gotten spongy on turn-on
  12. Rust (?) coming out of both roof A/C units, causing nasty orange/brown streaking across roof, down side walls
  13. Kitchen pendant light broke two welds on inner shade, was hanging loose over sink, upper stem is stress cracked and it swings freely - I expect to find this laying on the counter when we get home from DC
  14. Kitchen sink drains are leaking again - had to fix myself
  15. Two BlowMax tire failures on Father’s Day on drive up to DC
    1. One catastrophic, ripped out fender well, caused sidewall damage, rear hydraulic jack line broken - while this isn’t Heartland’s fault directly, they did put under-rated garbage tires on this trailer - insurance claim
    2. Second tire on opposite side was caught a mile after first and started to exhibit full belt separation when I stopped to check air pressures at next exit after first failure and spare swap on roadside.
    3. Replaced all tires with appropriately rated G-load range Goodyear G614’s via emergency service call

We are worn out from our terrible ownership experience to date. We’ve used our 5th wheel 6 times now, and while we are very experienced owners, we try to say with every positive bone in our bodies we love our 5th wheel. It looked great until recently with the rust staining. We are not loving Heartland and our experience to date. About 9 of the almost 12 months of ownership has been spent at the dealer instead of in our fully covered, partially enclosed storage unit.

This is why we have not joined the owners club, not sure I see any point if we exit ownership unless Heartland magically comes through and our story makes it to the most senior levels of management in the company. We are trying to protect our asset and fix everything but Heartland has shown zero empathy and has been complacent in listening to us so far.

At one time we even had aspirations of upgrading within Heartland’s line in a couple years as we see our travel increasing, but we are now live in fear of what will go wrong next. We were led to believe that Heartland offered a premium product lauding the Big Horn as a Luxury 5th Wheel at this price point, and a best in class ownership experience.

Perhaps we got a lemon in more ways than one. I’m not sure what can be done beyond replace the trailer at this point considering what could be major structural issues developing. I keep asking to speak with executive management and they refuse to give me contact information.

Have a great 4th!
 

buddyboy

Well-known member
We had a few issues with our Big Horn during walkthrough and on our subsequent shakedown run. We enumerated them with our dealer and sent a copy of the list to Heartland. We stayed in contact with both and any item that failed after repair was immediately brought to a manager's notice. From your list, it looks as though some repairs were improperly done since they failed again.

You have had a lot of problems, which is evident.
 

TravelTiger

Founding Texas-West Chapter Leaders-Retired
I am sorry for your issues, I'd be in tears! It does seem like an excessive amount of failures occurring on your unit. I can certainly understand your frustrations. I am still not sure why items are not being fixed properly and HL is denying claims... Are you talking directly to HL, or is this info referred from the dealer?

HL now has a 14 bay customer service center. You might try engaging them again about bringing it to them for repairs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Westwind

Well-known member
Keep us posted - I definately woud personnally contact the factory, it sounds like the dealer's repair staff is not skilled enought to make the repairs - once should be enought on that list. We should expect a few problems but your list is overwhelming.
 

Jonah

Member
I personally don't think your coach should be fixed. It should be replaced - by Heartland. So many issues on a single coach? It's nuts and not right. I too am drawn to the Heartland product because of this forum and the many good things stated by the owners about Heartland standing behind their products. We are preparing to go full time and your issues (and HL lack of response) are giving us serious pause. I can't imagine putting my wife through your ordeal while starting a new full timing life. Thank goodness you have a fall back option.

Heartland should replace your coach and use yours as a QC instrument for training their factory staff (ok guys, this is an example of what we Don't do!!). Come on heartland, take a negative and turn it into a positive. And put some faith back in your prospective customers.
 

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
That is totally unacceptable. I don't care if we own "rolling earthquakes" and the roads are crap, that's just too many things to go wrong with a new rig while still under warranty. It is time for Heartland to step up to the plate and make it right.
 

kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
Not a lot of help...but two things...the slides/levelling stopping and starting is the 50 amp auto resetting fuse, needs to be replaced. MCD shades coming unraveled is from.traveling with them.down...always put.them up when traveling, per MCD...retentioning is simple. MCD will.provide written instructions.
 

Rhyph

Well-known member
I am sorry for your issues, I'd be in tears! It does seem like an excessive amount of failures occurring on your unit. I can certainly understand your frustrations. I am still not sure why items are not being fixed properly and HL is denying claims... Are you talking directly to HL, or is this info referred from the dealer?

HL now has a 14 bay customer service center. You might try engaging them again about bringing it to them for repairs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting, when I spoke to them about bringing it and dropping it off with them they made no mention of having a service facility at that point in time. I was told they didn't have provisions to easily work on customer owned product. I'll try again. The denials were coming from Heartland both to the dealer and directly when I engaged them. With the window for example, I have epic email chains going 'round and 'round with Heartland and documented proof that the 5th wheel was delivered to us with the window broken. It took an act of congress and a mountain of unnecessary communication to get what was due to us.

A few items have been repeat issues, but some of them have been pretty tricky. For example the hydrualic issue - it took them time to work through fixing it 90% of the way, where they found bad grounds to the motor were that 90% cause. Now that I've been forcing it to run off bad grounds, I'm pretty sure it's damaged the motor to where the other 10% of the time it's stalling out due to overheat. Another repeat issue was the bedroom door, while that has not happened again, if we're experiencing excessive chassis flex, the dealer will never be able to fully correct that. We've had a 5th wheel where the overhang gusset welds broke causing a separation at the left front slideout frame. Ever towed a 5th wheel 1000 miles where you thought the bedroom would just rip apart from the rest? I have, even though Lippert assured us it can't happen, and it didn't. I'm no stranger to chassis flex and the commonality here would be Lippert who then wouldn't do squat for us on that 3 year old trailer, Fleetwood had to and did eat it all with a complete rebuild of the front of our trailer.

I really cannot fault the dealer, they've been working their collective butts off in my opinion to try and work with us. They are very reputable and well known for doing good work and service. They're also probably motivated to earn me as a customer on our next whatever we buy.
 

Rhyph

Well-known member
That is totally unacceptable. I don't care if we own "rolling earthquakes" and the roads are crap, that's just too many things to go wrong with a new rig while still under warranty. It is time for Heartland to step up to the plate and make it right.

Hehe, love it, I'm stealing that statement. But I agree, I can even see little things like the kitchen drains leaking being caused by some initial 'shake down' trips, but it keeps coming back every time we move it seems which makes me wonder if things are moving around too much. This plumbing is in the kitchen island, which does not travel in a slide out.
 

Rhyph

Well-known member
Not a lot of help...but two things...the slides/levelling stopping and starting is the 50 amp auto resetting fuse, needs to be replaced. MCD shades coming unraveled is from.traveling with them.down...always put.them up when traveling, per MCD...retentioning is simple. MCD will.provide written instructions.

Never travel with the shades down, I learned the lesson of what damage is done to them and mini blinds back in 1997 or there abouts with one of our first 5th wheels. I read the MCD's were like the second coming of a certain religious figure. So far, I'm not sold if they don't hold tension. I'm not interested in shades that have to be re-tensioned almost every time we use them and they are a PITA to get to in their valances. Heartland won't replace them because "they are repairable".

Like trying to have Heartland tell me where the converter/charger is - they had no clue and wouldn't give me schematics, I had to root around and find it myself when it wasn't under the kitchen island, behind the fuse center like they thought. I have also tried to hunt the elusive resettable breakers and didn't find them either. In the front compartment, there is a pretty large power distro block, but I can't find resettable fuses, any thoughts on where they are for that pump motor so I can monitor it as it happens/hit it with my multimeter to confirm?
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi Rhyph,

The buss bar with 12V DC mini-circuit breakers are near the batteries. With the residential refrigerator, it's almost certainly located in the front compartment. The breakers are usually covered by a red rubber boot. The breaker for the hydraulics motor is one of two larger wires. I'm attaching a diagram that will help you identify the correct breaker. Your actual layout of breakers may be different, but you'll probably only have two large wires. One has a matching large wire on the input side. The one you want does not.

The location of the Power Converter on Bighorns is behind the rear pass-through storage wall. That's also where the water pump is located, and if you have generator prep, that's where the transfer switch is located. I'm also attaching a picture of the stuff behind the wall. It's not from a 3610RE but yours should be similar, although your water heater is probably on the other side.

On your bedroom door latching, very slight frame twisting can occur during level up. It's enough to change the alignment of the door so the latch and striker plate are sometimes misaligned. You can have this adjusted over and over, but the best way to fix the problem is to buy a $3 elongated striker plate from Home Depot. Takes 5 minutes to install.

Regarding the service facility people are talking about, it just opened after the North American Rally. Rally attendees got a tour a few weeks ago just before the opening. So it's only been available for maybe 2 weeks.

We have a number of owner-written user guides and troubleshooting guides that you might find useful. When it comes time to winterize your residential refrigerator, take a look at the Residential Refrigerator Guide.

Hope this helps with some of what you're going through.
 

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pegmikef

Well-known member
I read the MCD's were like the second coming of a certain religious figure. So far, I'm not sold if they don't hold tension. I'm not interested in shades that have to be re-tensioned almost every time we use them and they are a PITA to get to in their valances. Heartland won't replace them because "they are repairable".

I don't know if the MCD shades coming with the newer models are the same as the ones I had installed at the MCD factory over a year ago, but we have never had a tensioning problem in 7500 miles. . . but we always travel with both the day and night shades in the up position. I know this doesn't help the OP, but it may emphasize what others have already said about shades up when traveling for other readers.
 

happykraut

Well-known member
I've always traveled with mine down. No problems so far in well over a year. Didn't know they had to be up. In the process of talking the wife into leaving them up when on the move. Wish me luck. LOL
 

kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
I've always traveled with mine down. No problems so far in well over a year. Didn't know they had to be up. In the process of talking the wife into leaving them up when on the move. Wish me luck. LOL

This is most important for the ones in the rear of the coach....that is where you will get the most "bounce". We don't worry too much with the rest of the shades...they seem to ride fine....
 

jmgratz

Original Owners Club Member
We installed the MCD shades ourselves. We travel with them up so they don't move back and forth since they are not anchored at the bottom. Have not have any tensioning issues.
 

GOTTOYS

Well-known member
Sounds to me like the MCD shades are the least of their problems. I would demand that it be shipped back to the factory and not returned until everything is right....Don
 

'Lil Guy'

Well-known member
Do all Bighorns come off the same assembly line or are they separated by size? Also what Bighorn model are we talking about here? We're looking to go to a BH at the end of this year. For my money, I would be more than a little upset with this many issues. I wish HL would accept this unit and reply back as to the causes of all of these issues. I also wonder if the same lemon law applies to RV's as it does to automobiles. Sorry for your problems and let us know how it gets handled by HL You're thread is scaring me into keeping what I have. I certainly would expect more for the price of the BH.
 
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