Warranty work and service work is income. Whether the customer bought the RV from you or not, doing work on their RV is income. However, there are several dealers across the country that turn this type of work away for this simple fact that you did not buy the RV from them.
Below is a conversation from a customer that purchased a Keystone Passport from us earlier this year and Cooper's RV Center in Pennsylvania. I am not posting this to talk bad or to stir anything up, I am just simply making it known to the RV public that these horrible situations do exist, unfortunately.
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The Conversation:
Our Customers Initial Email to Cooper's RV Center
I have a 2010 Keystone passport 2950BH that I bought new in May. The pressure regulator (propane) leaks and the furnace will not stay lit. Keystone advised me you could look at it and fix it and that it should be under warranty. Let me know when I can bring it in. Thanks
Cooper's RV Center Response
D&D Customer,
Where did you purchase the camper?
Thank you,
Keith
Customers Response
I bought the RV from D and D RV out by Dayton OH.
Cooper's RV Center Response
Why did you buy there when we are the local dealer for Passport?
Customers Response
I tried to buy it from you guys but you sold the last one you had in stock. I had a trip planned in May so I was under the gun to get one right away. So unfortunately I had to drive to western OH to get one. Believe me, I wanted to get it from you guys, you are 15 minutes from my house and a lot of people I know recommended you guys.
Cooper's RV Center Response
Passport does not make a 2950 model. If you are talking about the 2590BH model we have had that floorplan in stock all year. If I am out of a floorplan I normally can get what I need in about a week or two. D and D is a wholesaler and I don't know the history of the unit so I suggest you take it back to them and see if they can correct whatever the problem may be.
Thank you,
Keith
Customers Response
You are right the 2590 BH. I can get you the vin if it helps with the history. Keystone thought it wouldn't be a problem to handle repairs through you guys. Is having the repairs done through you guys a problem?
Cooper's RV Center Response
Yes, because I don't know the unit. We did not sell it or prep it so I do not know anything about it. D and D is where you should get your unit repaired at because they know the unit. I always stress to people to purchase off of their local dealer because where ever you buy your unit from that is the dealer that takes care of you after the sale. I know we take outstanding care of my customers who purchase off of us and we make sure they are satisfied. I have never had 1 Passport in for service after we have dealer prepped the camper and I have sold many Passport's. Call D and D and see if they can send some one out.
As you can see, Cooper's RV Center in Pennsylvania is being rather hard to work with from a customer's standpoint.
Let's take a look at the Cooper's RV Centers final response and dissect it a bit!
First: Yes, because I don't know the unit. We did not sell it or prep it so I do not know anything about it. D and D is where you should get your unit repaired at because they know the unit.
This statement seems funny to us. All Passports are built the same, the same parts, the same assembly line. They say that they didn't prep it so they don't know the unit?! This in no way makes any sense seeing how all passports built for the US are the same. It is mearly a dealer upset to the fact that our customer did not by the Passport from them and now they do not want to work on it out of spite.
Second: I have never had 1 Passport in for service after we have dealer prepped the camper and I have sold many Passport's.
This statement maybe true and for a customers standpoint I hope it is. For all the Passport's that we have sold, non have came back either based on anything that we had control over in the prep process. Sometimes believe it or not, a part on a camper like an LP regulator can be bad which could cause it to not work properly. We test the LP lines and when it left our lot everything was fine and driving several hundred miles traveling, somethimes parts can work loose. The part could have been bad from the factory in which it would be no dealers fault.
In today's day and age with the Internet it is making RV dealerships to be honest and upfront with selling their product. There are a lot of dealers left that are mad and upset about what the Internet has done because they can no longer make HUGE profits off of a single sale. These are the dealers that have higher pricing and that will refuse warranty work if you did not but the RV from them.
Just a quick post to make our customer aware of situations that are occurring around the country. A lot of dealerships out there operate on the same basis as us, good honest upfront low pricing and will not turn warranty or service away just because you did not buy from us. There are still some RV dealers out there that try the tough guy approach if you did not buy from them, but that in the long run will just hurt their business and many future customers planning on buying will be turned off!
Thanks,
D and D RV
