Quote:
Originally Posted by Rockhead
Agree take your time n check e everything. They forgot to run a couple of 12V runs I asked for. Reace came out and took care of them asap
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I've never posted specifically about our awful pick-up experience with our 21C last September. It was 180-degrees different than the pick-up of our 19 back in May of 2019. I was so upset for the first few months I just decided to not post much, angry doesn't help, so best to wait.
The only issue we had with the 19 back in 2019 was the hitch coupler, so during the build I specifically told Samuel that we had a hitch issue last time and would like to avoid this time. Well, those were wasted words, but I'll get to that in a second.
So at pickup there were some gaps in some of the moulding that were sloppy and needed caulking. The bathroom door was not plumb to the door frame. Yet another known issue I spoke to Samuel about. So Escape seemed to fix the bathroom doorframe and door being wacky when you look at it straight-on, but when you look at it from the side or inside the bath you can see that the door does not hang straight vertically (bottom has a bigger gap across than the top) and Escape had to bend the bottom hinge for the door to close properly. I probably should have refused delivery on this one issue, but the door closed so we decided to work with it.
We checked the water and electrical systems, and Escape was nice to install my two 100Ah Lithium batteries we brought with us, but that was about all that went right.
We followed the driver to the Sumas pickup spot as the trouble continued. We went to hitch up the 21 and it would not go on the hitch. This is a mess since the driver can't bring it back, but we finally got it back across the border to Escape. They repaired the tongue latch, and about 4 hours after our original departure time we left again.
So we are at this Casino near Sumas (great spot for a first night) trying to setup, but now it's late and getting dark. Then the refrigerator begins to give us problems, beeping and finally not working. The MaxxFan would work, but after running for 2 to 3 seconds it started beeping loudly, so it had to be shut off and we had little air movement that night. There were also several minor things to fix that are probably more typical that I do not mention.
So, back to Escape the next morning. When we got to the parking lot it occurred to me to check the Fridge outside panel, where I discovered the Fridge was not plugged in. How hard is it to plug in a Fridge correctly? It worked when we left the first time, so it never occurred to me that it would just be unplugged. Lazy installation. They also replaced the MaxxFan, and we found they never really plugged the Fridge into the outlet, so it fell out during the short drive to the Casino. It took several hours to get everything squared away and it was late in the day again.
With not much sleep from the night before, we pretty much insisted that they put us up in a hotel for the night and they agreed.
We got the trailer home the next day where we discovered the hinges on one of the cabinet doors were not installed properly - two screws were missing. I called Escape and they offered to send me two screws. Since I'm not a warranty labor source, I took it to a local RV dealer for repair and submitted it to Escape. Again, sloppy attention to detail that was not there on our 19.
A few months later I was under the trailer and noticed one of the propane lines was kinked coming out of a distribution box. Again, Escape asked me to be their warranty labor source, and again I refused. Good thing I did because the line was cracked and ended up being a bigger repair that I had no business trying to fix. It also ended up costing about $700 to fix.
I do want to post an opinion about warranty work. I know we "can" fix many of the things that may go wrong, but my argument we should not when possible. If Escape is saving thousands of dollars of labor costs by having customers fix things there is no incentive for them to improve their manufacturing processes. So my recommendation is to take your rig to an RV dealer for warranty work. It will help the next customer buying a trailer.
One ironic note, is when we got home I found a pickup "Quality Control" Card from Escape in one of the cabinet drawers. It was unsigned.
So with all this is it horrible? No, it is still a fairly well made trailer and still better than most stick-built models. It was easy to see the attention to detail overall is not what it was on our 19, again still better than a lot of trailers out there. The components are also better. Better cabinets mostly, and some of the fixtures and appliances are much better.
Hopefully Escape is getting back to better quality control. I spent most of my career at the Department of Defense reviewing acquisition programs and I always found trouble when one company bought another and merged and then changed the manufacturing process to improve production rate and lower costs. It almost never worked out like the companies said it would, at least at first. When we were there, I asked if the production line looked anything like it did when Reece owned the company, and was told it was completely different. They also outsourced the bathroom fiberglass insert and the front storage box (a prime reason it went from about $600 to now I think $1,200, so double in 5 years. Not helpful when you outsource and it costs more, but it did free up space for more trailer production.
So overall it is still one of the better travel trailers out there, but they need to be held accountable for their workmanship. Now that Karl is gone I can only hope the next person does a better job of overseeing quality control. He may have been good at opening up options, but he let quality control slip.