RV Weekly

Several months ago, Dometic announced a recall on some RV refrigerators built between April 1997 and May 2003. While the company says a serious problem resulting in a fire may occur in an exceptionally small fraction of Dometic two-door refrigerators, others suggest the issue could affect up to a million units. Unfortunately, due to a disagreement between the company and dealers who must complete the repairs, some fear the recall will be ineffective. 

At the heart of the issue is the amount of compensation Dometic is offering dealers to repair the units. Currently, the company pays a $40 flat rate to complete the repair for what they say is a 10-minute task. Dealers, on the other hand, say the repair takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour once the unit is pulled into the service bay and another 10 to 15 minutes to complete paperwork to order parts and submit the warranty claim. At average current shop rates of $100 per hour, dealers say they are losing $80 to $120 for every Dometic refrigerator they must work on as part of the recall. Consequently, I’ve learned some dealers are deliberately not alerting customers that their refrigerator may be subject to a recall. Unless the customer comes to the dealership specifically to get the recall work completed, the dealers don’t mention the recall. 

They rationalize this decision on the grounds that they need not cooperate in a venture that will result in their losing money. If true, this oversight means thousands of RVs may still be at risk for fire simply because their dealers don’t take the time to advise owners of the unsafe situation. I suspect some dealers have a tendency to exaggerate the amount of time it takes to complete a warranty repair. I had one OEM rep tell me a year or so ago that if his company were to pay dealers to go to the bathroom, they would bill the firm 20 minutes to do the job. 

The fact dealers would deliberately not tell customers about a recall doesn’t sound right to me. If the units are already in the bay for another repair, technicians don’t have to invest the time to send someone to the lot to pull the unit in and out of a bay simply to complete the recall. That cost would be factored into the other repair. It should be as simple as banging out the repair and billing Dometic for a portion of the service call. However, that brings me to the second point of the dealers’ concern. Several have noted that the proposed recall does not truly fix the problem. According to a master certified technician I spoke with, installing steel panels around the refrigerator compartment do little other than contain a fire when it starts. 

Dealers fear this creates a liability issue for them now because the customer believes he is bringing a unit in for repair and that the dealership corrected the problem to PREVENT a fire. If the unit later catches on fire, the dealers fear they will be left hanging in the wind for not completing the repair “correctly.” It becomes a sort of “who touched it last” scenario. According to Brad Sargent at Dometic, as long as the secondary burner housing kit has been properly installed in accordance with step-by-step video instructions available online, dealers and service centers should incur no liability.  

Sargent said the company hired a team of industrial scientists who invested thousands of man-hours into developing and testing an appropriate solution to address the one out of every 1,000 refrigerators that could, eventually, develop a fatigue crack in the burner area. He said the solution involves creating a secondary burner housing of galvanized steel to provide a buffer between the burner and the propane coils. A double-redundant set of fuses is also installed so that whenever an unusual amount of heat is detected, the fuse trips and shuts down the refrigerator. In order for dealers to protect themselves, the master certified technician I spoke with said they need to check for propane leaks on the system before releasing it back to the customer. Yes, that important safety step adds more time to the recall portion of the work order. But, it also decreases dealer liability if they can show that such a test was successfully performed. 

Some dealers have tried pawning off all recall work on one technician on the grounds that after completing a few work orders, he would be able to do the job far more efficiently and thus reduce the financial hit the dealership will incur. That seems to make sense. Dometic admits that up to 926,000 refrigerators could be affected by the recall. A smart service center would figure out a way to get the job done quickly and accurately, then advertise that fact to generate a lot of traffic from customers who may not visit the dealership for any other reason. If just one work order could be converted into a trade-up, would that make the whole process profitable? 

According to Sargent, the company has prepared an online video that clearly shows how to complete the necessary work by following step-by-step instructions. A timer running on the video shows a standard repair can be performed in 10 minutes and 10 seconds. Time to complete the paperwork is kept to a minimum thanks to a postcard included in every recall kit. The installer simply fills out the postage-paid card with the customer information and drops it in the mail. That seems to be a simple, easy and very reasonable way to get dealers paid quickly. Some dealers are frustrated because, apparently, Norcorld offered to pay dealers their normal shop rate to complete a similar recall on its refrigerators a few months ago. Sargent said if unusual circumstances require a longer period of time to complete the repair, dealers can receive more money by calling a toll-free number and describing the problem. 

Dometic’s desire to save money is understandable considering the scope and size of the recall effort. If 926,000 units are truly affected, Dometic stands to lose $37 million to fix the problem at its current reimbursement rate. And that’s just the cost to pay dealers to complete the repairs. It doesn’t include the company’s cost to produce, stock and ship the kits.  If Dometic had to tack on any more money to complete the job, soon they’d be looking at about the same amount of money taxpayers spent to send a single congresswoman to Greenland to see if glaciers were, indeed, melting. 

Is it too much to ask for dealers to cut Dometic some slack and accept the $40 payment recognizing that doing so will save their customers’ lives and cover most, if not all, of their cost even in those instances when people bring their RVs in solely to get the recall work repair completed?

Last Tuesday’s blog was probably the most unusual of all those I have posted in terms of the response it generated. Little did I realize that a simple inquiry into why seals are missing from some recreation vehicles on dealer lots would mushroom quickly into a story of huge significance for the entire RV industry.   

Last week, a dealer wondered why some seals were missing from RVs. It was puzzling to him because most RVs from the same manufacturer had seals, but a handful did not. He wondered aloud if that was a signal manufacturers were trying to sidestep quality and control issues put into place by the RV Industry Association.

Maybe dealers are just genuinely skeptical about quality issues after dealing with so many problems with so many years. But, he knew the seals were somehow tied to construction standards. If an RV bore the official seal of the RVIA, that meant it was constructed in accordance to strict standards put in place to ensure quality workmanship –at least that’s what he has been telling his customers. So, in his mind, if an RV was missing a seal, that must signal that the unit somehow didn’t meet the standards. I am very happy to report that is not at all the case. If an RV is missing a seal, it does not indicate the manufacturer has failed to live up to some type of quality standard. It does not mean the RV is unsafe. It was likely built on the same line by the same workers to the same level of quality for which that particular manufacturer is known. Quality is not at all the issue. The lack of a seal simply means the vehicle was constructed illegally. 

I have posted a full report on this issue that has already polarized a significant segment of the RV industry. You can read that report by going to our Web site at www.rvtradedigest.com and clicking on the featured article box on the center of the home page. But for those of you who would rather golf this weekend than wonder why seals are missing from your RVs, here are the facts in a nutshell.   

• If an RV is less than 8.5 feet wide and its total interior space when erected is less than 320 square feet, it’s a “travel trailer” regulated by National Fire Prevention Association rule 1192. Units built to this standard by RVIA members bear the seal of the RVIA. 
• If the RV is 8.5 feet or wider (when traveling down the highway) OR the interior space is between 320 and 400 square feet, it is a “park trailer” regulated by the American National Standards Institute rule A119.5. Units built to this standard by members of the Recreational Park Trailer Industry Association, bear the seal of that organization. 
• Any unit without an engine and larger than 400 square feet is a “manufactured home” regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. These units bear no seal from any RV industry association. 
• If the RV can be driven down the highway, it’s a motorhome regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation regardless of its size. 

Here’s the problem. Thanks to slideouts, some RVs are larger than 400 square feet when fully erected. That means the RV becomes a “non-conforming recreation vehicle.” So what? Constructing and selling manufactured homes opens OEMs and dealers to a bees’ nest of regulation – rules and laws that are currently being ignored by the industry as it operates under the radar. 

This week I learned the RVIA’s board of directors has instructed the RVIA staff to lay the foundation for legislation to eliminate all size requirements for fifth wheels and, thus, is inviting the federal government to regulate a segment of the RV industry. Those of you who own businesses know what that means. The federal government just doesn’t regulate a portion of any business. Once the beast gets its snout in the door, it pushes the door wide open and heads for the cash register. If RVIA is successful in its effort to change federal law to eliminate size requirements for fifth wheels, it could pose significant challenges to RV dealers and RV users around the country. Why? Because although they were successful in changing federal law, there are 50 state governments that may not be so easily convinced that 55-foot fifth wheels driven by 70-year-olds behind the wheel of a 20-foot toter don’t need special licenses. A few years ago, the industry was embroiled in a size issue as only a few states allowed 45-foot RVs on the highways and others cited drivers for crossing their borders. 

But that’s just one of nearly two dozen concerns people have already identified with this issue. The RVIA initiative is already being strenuously opposed by the Recreational Park Trailer Industry Association and the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds. For the full story, visit www.rvtradedigest.com.

Due to the complexity of the issue, the fact senior staff members are traveling and because other key people at RVIA are feverishly getting ready for Committee Week in nine days, the staff at RVIA has postponed comment on this story. When they can take the time to comment, they’ll be afforded full access to this forum. So, I’ll apologize in advance if anyone thinks the story is one-sided.But, even others outside the RV industry are scratching their heads over the direction this issue is moving. “Why, in God’s name, would the RV industry want to give up the security and sanity of building anything in a self-regulating environment and even dare risk bringing their industry under the control and authority of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development?,” asked one person involved in the manufactured housing industry. His struggling industry is heavily regulated by HUD code.  “Rather than dealing with association ‘regulators’ periodically visiting a manufacturing plant for a routine inspection, the RV industry is inviting federal regulators to make unannounced visits to their plants. The interpretation regarding compliance with a variety of complex federal laws can be made on the spot by an inspector who may be upset because his kid kept him up all night or he didn’t have enough cream in his coffee on the way into work that morning. 

“For years, I have admired the RV industry for its ability to operate under the radar,” he added. “By opening up this can of worms, the RV industry better hope it doesn’t get what it wishes for. Why make units so big they invite regulation and fall under the realm of the HUD code?”  That’s a good question.