By (Popular?) Demand - Our Ownership Story
- Thread starter Rhyph
- Start date
Jonah
Member
Exactly why we are concerned re HL product. Have seen several and like what we saw and almost dropped >$80k. We are also impressed with the level of support offered by the HL community. But we are planning to full time later this year and currently trying to decide on a fifth wheel and these issues appear to be significant (more than we would want to deal with ). We will not have a fall back position. As has been repeatedly pointed out, "all coaches will have issues", but it's also been stated that HL stands behind their family. Hopefully they will soon and we will hear about it. As for us, a MH just climbed higher on our shopping list.
We full-timed in our BH and now we're any-timers. We did a thorough PDI (including tests of water system, acs, furnace, level up system, electrical and electronic systems) prior to signing anything, had items fixed (yep there were some) and took our time making sure we were prepared for an extended time on the road. We did still have a few things crop up while on the road, but we worked with Heartland customer service who authorized road service or helped us find service or provided the parts so we could do the repairs. The manuals here on the forum and the forum members were immensely important to us during our travels.
For all of these reasons, we're still happy with our BH and would (and have) recommended Heartland to friends and family. We know that others may have not had our experience and may be unhappy with their decision, but as I read any posting (on any product or service by the way) I ask if this was a result of the manufacturer, the seller, or something else.
JMHO, Martha
jmgratz
Original Owners Club Member
We have stayed with the 5th wheel versus the motorhome because we don't want to have to put our mobile house in the shop everytime there is a mechanical issue. Also we don't want to have to tow a car behind the motorhome. Then you have two mechanical issues to worry about. We still have a home but do spend about 40 + weeks a year on the road in the Landmark. We really as much if no more confortable in the RV than the sticks and bricks house. And yes everything will have problems regardless of the brand. Heck even the stick and bricks house has issues.
'Lil Guy'
Well-known member
I'm not scared off. I have my second HL unit and have only a few simple minor issues. They were solved at rallys by people on this forum and in the Heartland family. I don't think I could change brands if I wanted to. I believe the HL group will be there if I need them on our next purchase and hopefully I won't need them. Still lots of people on this forum I want to meet and a lot I would like to see again. I think I'm destined to own another HL rig.
Jonah
Member
Appreciate your comments and faith in Heartland. We are not scared off either, just concerned about where we are about to invest a very large $$$. This has to be a wise decision for us and we are weighing all the options.
This is isn't about us (it's actually about all who have an interest in Heartland products). You/we deserve better than what is currently being produced, not just at Heartland but all brands.
And my apologies to the OP - didn't mean to hijack this thread. I, and others, sincerely hope you receive the assistance you deserve from Heartland. Please let us know when something good happens.
Hear what you're saying, Jonah. We all have thrown down some big bucks on our rolling dreams and we all want our dreams to be perfect. Guess our determination after over 3 years of research and tours of many many RVs and their manufacturers was that none are perfect and all will have some level of frustration associated with their operation. So, we found the manufacturer offering the floor plan and features we liked and went for it.
Thank you a bunch for this information. It does make me wonder why the community has developed this necessary information resource, where is Heartland in this matter and supporting their customers directly? My mind leans towards my experience when asking them for documentation and schematics which I've done plenty of times in the past with other manufacturers and received what I was looking for without trouble. That hasn't been the case so far with Heartland. I did find the power converter after my assumption of where it would be located proved true. I had to find it myself and replace it on site when it wasn't located where Heartland told me it would be.
The door closing and latching issue has not returned since the second repair round on it. If it does I'll grab an elongated strike plate and replace it.
We were originally shopping for a Landmark. If they had a Landmark in the floor plan we have (or similar) we'd probably be sitting in that today. Our sales guy did a good job of down selling us on the features of the BH vs the LM, and then up-sold us on our small laundry list of add-ons we wanted. Since we are not new to this rodeo, our list was long (B&W Companion OE compatible hitch, satellite, washer/dryer, dish drawer, slide out awnings, trail-air, etc). We got 75% of what we asked for thrown in, so we were happy and knowing we'd potentially have the community here to fall back on was also part of our consideration.
- - - Updated - - -
I'm really glad to hear that you've had success with full-timing/any-timing in your BH. While I don't think we'll get to full-timing, any-timing is certainly the current mode we're in. We've ramped up our travel and trip times to 3-4 weeks out at a time, home for a week or so between. We have this planned out through November of this year. I don't think we'll have been home a collective 2 months since March of this year going through November. I suppose we fit the definition of any-timing?
danemayer
Well-known member
The user guides and troubleshooting guides are mainly a collection of the information shared on this forum by owners and by Heartland over a period of time, organized into a common format. I'm not aware of any other brand of RV that has anything like them, whether produced by owners, or by the manufacturer. It's just something this set of owners does to help one another. The goal is to have help available in the middle of the night and on weekends and holidays when manufacturers aren't answering the phone.
Heartland has a very good customer service team answering the phones (not perfect, but very good). But the people who are on this forum use these RVs and often fix their own problems, and in my opinion they collectively have hands-on experience that is broader and deeper than what customer service reps can ever be trained to provide. And even better, they're willing to share.
One other thing. As many people have found out at local chapter rallies, if you pull out your toolbox at a rally, in 5 minutes, there'll be a half dozen guys gathering around to see what kind of help you need. And there's a good chance someone knows exactly how to deal with whatever problem you're having. Yes rallies are always a lot of fun, good eating, and socializing with good friends. But wait until you see a group pull the water heater out of the rig to fix a leaky check valve. Or when someone has a health problem, tow his rig a couple hundred miles while he's being flown home for treatment. There's a great community here. My advice is to take advantage of it.
An update - Out of the blue yesterday I received a call from Heartland. Super nice guy, who was extremely empathetic, apologetic and sincere about our experiences with Heartland to date. He reassured me that we would be taken care of, and every item they can conceivably address will be handled to our satisfaction. He really amped up the relation by offering to help us with some of the items I'm comfortable with addressing myself, such as the light that hangs over our kitchen island by directly shipping us a new one so I can replace it and stop worrying about the thing falling off the ceiling and doing more damage going down the road.
As I outlined our extremely tight travel schedule that will take us through November of this year to him with barely a handful of a couple weeks between each trip, he comfortably committed to our time line for when we could bring our BH back to the dealer and allow them some time to address everything over the winter couple of months we don't usually travel much. This is where I can say I'm becoming a believer again in what I thought was more the case with Heartland and supporting their owners. Time will tell and heal the wounds, and hopefully we can reach that place of happiness in our ownership dream.
Unfortunately to dampen the positive news, last night we had a bad leak develop at the top of the large rear window. Water was coming in at a pretty good rate in what was not the heaviest of rains we've been through so far and that's a bit concerning. So today I get to drag out the ladder and see if I can tell what's going up there.
As I outlined our extremely tight travel schedule that will take us through November of this year to him with barely a handful of a couple weeks between each trip, he comfortably committed to our time line for when we could bring our BH back to the dealer and allow them some time to address everything over the winter couple of months we don't usually travel much. This is where I can say I'm becoming a believer again in what I thought was more the case with Heartland and supporting their owners. Time will tell and heal the wounds, and hopefully we can reach that place of happiness in our ownership dream.
Unfortunately to dampen the positive news, last night we had a bad leak develop at the top of the large rear window. Water was coming in at a pretty good rate in what was not the heaviest of rains we've been through so far and that's a bit concerning. So today I get to drag out the ladder and see if I can tell what's going up there.
happykraut
Well-known member
Dan You are absolutely right about what a great community the Heartland family is. I had four volunteers (and several other offers) that drove my wife, truck and BH back to St.Louis from the Goshen rally while I was laid up in the hospital in Elkhart. That is about a 430 mile trip and then they turned around and drove back to the rally in one of their own trucks. Is that great or what.
JohnDar
Prolifically Gabby Member
Don't sell the collection of owner's manuals and maintenance tips short. When the warranties run out and you're out in the boonies someplace, they might come in handy. If nothing else, they give you information that may help talking with the manufacturer or service tech a little more informative. We're years out of warranties, so if something goes wrong, I look for a manual to see if I can fix it myself before calling a mobile tech or dragging it to a dealer. At the very least, a parts diagram will get you to the right part number for ordering a replacement, if that's what it comes to in a DIY repair.
I haven't heard back from Heartland on this - does anyone have any thoughts on how to stop the leak we've developed at the top of our rear window? They are frameless and there's no caulk around any of them. I'm assuming the lack of caulk is by design, this is the first coach we've had with this style of window.
And now we have electrical problems. The only 110v outlet in large living room slide has just mysteriously died, just like this thread and the support from the community once it was moved into the black hole of this forum so it would stop receiving so much exposure I guess. I just love me some mystery electrical problems, nothing ever comes good of that. We haven't moved in a week, today is our last day at our current location and it just quit, so I can't even relate it to "movement".
danemayer
Well-known member
Hi Rhyph,
Regarding the outlet, I assume you've checked the circuit breaker panel to see if one tripped. Sometimes they don't trip very far, so you may have to flip them all off and on.
Another common cause is the bathroom GFCI outlet tripping.
A few people have found the wires not seated well in the outlet. You'd have to pull the outlet out to check.
In slide outs, the power usually goes through a junction box on the underside of the slide. On occasion there can be loose wirenuts. If you don't find any tripped breakers, it's unlikely that you have a misrouted wire scraping on something. Use care around the junction boxes. It's a good practice to disconnect power before opening them in case there are exposed wires.
Your thread did get moved to a better area, but for all the regular visitors to the forum, that doesn't reduce visibility at all. Most of us use the "What's New" button to see new posts since our last visit. For infrequent visitors, it doesn't matter much where a thread is located unless they're browsing for a particular topic.
Regarding the outlet, I assume you've checked the circuit breaker panel to see if one tripped. Sometimes they don't trip very far, so you may have to flip them all off and on.
Another common cause is the bathroom GFCI outlet tripping.
A few people have found the wires not seated well in the outlet. You'd have to pull the outlet out to check.
In slide outs, the power usually goes through a junction box on the underside of the slide. On occasion there can be loose wirenuts. If you don't find any tripped breakers, it's unlikely that you have a misrouted wire scraping on something. Use care around the junction boxes. It's a good practice to disconnect power before opening them in case there are exposed wires.
Your thread did get moved to a better area, but for all the regular visitors to the forum, that doesn't reduce visibility at all. Most of us use the "What's New" button to see new posts since our last visit. For infrequent visitors, it doesn't matter much where a thread is located unless they're browsing for a particular topic.
Bones
Well-known member
Go to home depot or lowes and buy your self the AC sensor that beeps when a live circuit is on. It will help you trace the problem where a hot line can be picked up through the electrical jacket. Next if all of the supply lines are good turn the breaker off and pull out the outlet to see if one of the wires came loose.
Thank you for the responses. I did check all breakers, cycled them off/on just in case, also checked the GFCI, all good there. I ran out and grabbed one of those contact-less testers and stuff to replace the outlet, just in case. The outlet is hot but nothing works when plugged in to it. The line out from the junction box under the slide is also reading hot with the tester. So I shut off power, pulled the outlet and found it was installed very, very badly where the wires were barely shoved into their blades, the hot side was only half in and was even causing the backside of the outlet cover to bulge out where it couldn't be closed completely to engage all the little latches on it.
How could any one on the factory line let this out the door like this?! Here is yet another shoddy build installation item from Heartland; this time safety and electrical fires come to mind, I wonder how much more is like this.
I moved forward with the outlet replacement. After I powered back up, everything reading hot again, nothing is working plugged in to that outlet. Hmm! So I grab an old, incan nightlight, low and behold, it's got power, but it seems barely enough to make the filaments in the nightlight bulb glow. Darn, wish I had a multi-meter now. I can only assume we've got very low volts and something is still bad upstream. We are leaving today to go to our last destination on this particular trip for a week. When we get there, I'll tackle the junction box.
How could any one on the factory line let this out the door like this?! Here is yet another shoddy build installation item from Heartland; this time safety and electrical fires come to mind, I wonder how much more is like this.
I moved forward with the outlet replacement. After I powered back up, everything reading hot again, nothing is working plugged in to that outlet. Hmm! So I grab an old, incan nightlight, low and behold, it's got power, but it seems barely enough to make the filaments in the nightlight bulb glow. Darn, wish I had a multi-meter now. I can only assume we've got very low volts and something is still bad upstream. We are leaving today to go to our last destination on this particular trip for a week. When we get there, I'll tackle the junction box.
Everything in the junction box under the slide looks fine, good connections at the wire nuts and dry. Should I assume the issue is possibly at an upstream outlet that this leg passes through? Any thoughts on where I should start back tracking to? If this gets messy, I may just have to leave it for the dealership to handle along with the absurd amount of other problems to be dealt with.
