Originally Posted by gmtech16450yz
Unfortunately this kind of thing is much bigger than just Thor motorhomes. I truly feel it's a sign of the total collapse of this country's infrastructure.
Specifically, here's why you had to deal with this cr@p... Starting at the manufacturer, they're trying to make a product that is cheap enough that they'll sell. To do that they need to cut every corner they can, and use the cheapest parts available. Since having them assembled in China isn't an option (yet, but probably will and should be in the future) they have to pay overpriced (relative to China) and underskilled most likely union labor to do the assembly. That workforce is then pushed to beyond their limits to work faster and produce more, which just makes them pissed and un-motivated to do a good job. They quit if they can, and that just puts more pressure on the few people that can put up with the stresses of being an assembly worker in America. Their pensions are cr@p or completely gone, so there's no worker loyalty to stay at any particular company so if they get yelled at because they aren't working fast enough, they just quit and go elsewhere.
That's just the assembly side of it. So now you're at the dealership. The service department has HUGE overhead, having to pay to keep up with all the government regulations, liability insurance, health insurance for workers, keeping their operations "green" which means more costs dealing with chemicals, waste oil, etc. Huge building, utility and property costs in a lot of the country, especially California.
Then they have to have qualified workers that actually show up and can fix things. Yeah, they don't exist anymore. I've worked in the auto industry for almost 4 decades. People that want to, and CAN do what I do are simply going away and not being replaced. My dealership lost 4 highly qualified techs in the two years before I myself quit. That makes 5 techs out of a total crew of 15, the 5 of us had a combined experience of over 150 years! 4 of us GM Master Techs with thousands of hours of training, licenses and certificates. I myself was one of the top GM techs in the entire San Francisco Bay Area, if not the entire country. I'm only 56, too young to actually retire and guess what? I'm not fixing cars anymore. (Neither are the 4 other guys that quit.) Why? because the pay sucks, our pension has been red-flagged by the Feds so after 33 years paying into it, I'll probably get none of it, and the stresses of trying to perfectly fix anywhere from 8 to 12 cars a day just isn't worth it.
And it's not only the auto or motorhome industry that's falling apart. We're having a major problem here in California finding workers for jobs like waiting tables, cleaning houses or hotel rooms, plumbers, cops, carpenters, gardeners, store cashiers, etc, etc. The jobs are simply too hard or stressful for the money they pay, and that wage won't even cover rent in a tiny apartment. This millennial generation wants the easy jobs, they expect to make 6 figures to simply sit in front of a computer for a few hours a day. Nobody knows how to WORK anymore. How many people under 30 have ever shoveled gravel, or chopped wood, or even mowed their own lawn? They simply don't want to get their hands dirty.
The end result of all this? Your motorhome is going to be build like cr@p. You're going to have to wait 4 months until somebody actually looks at all the stuff that doesn't work. That guy doesn't know how to fix it, doesn't have time to fix it and doesn't really give a d@mn if he fixes it. So then you complain to the company. They're making a profit building motorhomes the way they've been building them and have no reason to change their approach. Doing anything differently will cost their board members, owners, CEO's and VC people to lose money. They won't tolerate that. It's all about money. If those people aren't making money, they'll simply move on to another venture. No pride, no company loyalty, no worker obligations. It's all gone and I don't see it coming back anytime soon.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer! It's f'd up and terribly sad to see, but it's how I see it being on the "inside" of some of this stuff. I could be working in a motorhome dealership and would ABSOLUTELY fix every one of the issues you're having IF I had the support of the dealership and the manufacturer and was paid a decent wage. None of that happens anymore so sorry, I and thousands of other qualified guys who CAN fix things and CARE about doing a good job are gone forever.
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