Coachmen Responds to the Horrible Brake Installation on our RV!

what's going on guys so today's video is an interesting follow-up video to a problem that i actually uncovered with the coachman brookstone uh several weeks back when i was doing an installation of an aftermarket accessory and we're here to talk about it actually with a representative from coachman who's flown down so he can specifically see what was wrong see how we're addressing it and make a comment and answer some of my questions that i have in regards to some of the issues we've had with the brake system on this unit so we're going to get to that hang tight i'll be right back [Music] all right so you guys probably remember my good friend dave hofer from coachman you want to introduce yourself real quick david hofer regional sales manager at coachman fifth wheels yep so he's been on my channel several times actually i'm from the early collaboration stage to when we actually revealed this and we towed it home that day so you know they flew him down here so he could specifically see some of the concerns that i had with the brakes on this brookstone they were discovered while i was doing an installation of a different accessory underneath and you guys saw it i saw it and i did not want to make this one of those things where i just leave it be and i just hope for the best because we all know brakes are probably the single most important safety feature on your rv once we uncovered what had what had happened in terms of the installation you know i reached out to coachman and i always reach out to david if i uncover something or find something out just so i can see what their response is to it and it was kind of a wow moment it was kind of this shock and awe moment and real quick before we dive into talking to david too deep on this i want to explain that i approach rv construction perhaps in a different way than your traditional consumer might because i've kind of had the ability to pull the curtain back and see not only from a production standpoint but from a personnel standpoint from you know a design standpoint all the different pieces and components that go into building an rv i'm very lenient for the most part on how rvs are constructed as long as they do a good job only because again i know that this is one of the few objects one of the few products that's manufactured entirely from people's hands it's not a robotic process it's not things going down the assembly line with robots and sparks flying everywhere this is something that's still you know put together with people with screwdrivers and nail guns and glue and all those different things yep so and i can appreciate that you know i can understand that there's going to be a certain amount of manual error human error that is incorporated in simply because of that process um until this goes to a completely computer automated system which it will never because of the kind of like why your home is always going to be built by people and not by robots right now of course all the rigors of the road and things like that dictate how it might arrive at a dealership and all that other stuff but when it comes to the breaks that's one area that it's hard for me to give a pass it's hard for me to say oh well you know that's just one of those things right so yep so i wanted to bring it up to them and i wanted to make sure that that this was addressed and this was one of those areas i could have fixed myself quietly behind the scenes and then showing you guys a how-to video on how to change brake lines and switch from one type to another type but this was a great opportunity to reach out to the folks at coachman and see how do you respond to a situation like this absolutely i do want to keep in mind i understand that i am a fairly sizable youtube channel that you know a comment people will typically say is you're only getting this because you're jd and you have big truck big rv and i get that to some degree it's a marketing thing but at the same time this highlights an issue it brings it to the surface and it does help improve production on the manufacturing line because it brings to light something that they may not even have been that aware of your response to my my issue was kind of a sign of that it was like oh my gosh this should not have happened um we're going to evaluate everything we're going to make sure this doesn't happen but more importantly let's investigate why your unit left our facility like this right and we we take full responsibility obviously um this was a special unit you know obviously it was a prototype unit the second prototype unit the first one actually didn't have the brake problem but and i can share a little bit more detail as far as what happened jd um obviously we we got hit with coven at the factory and it we were going through a period of time where a lot of guys weren't working some employees find work you know they found work elsewhere essentially um so the people that built the first unit may not have been the people that built the second unit and the second unit was built for the majority offline um sure that you know the sidewalls and the frame and all that were put on brakes were put on after the fact after the unit came offline so we're talking about a change of group leaders within that time period of about a year so we take full responsibility for that now our partner who is actually out here today as well that flew down dexter is doing some of the corrections and i'm by no means an engineer but they wanted to send me down we met immediately with uh the general manager of coachmen sales manager corporate compliance just to make sure that we were going to be doing this fix correctly you don't want to make the same mistake twice okay so what we found um and again i'm not an engineer so i got to be careful here what i say but there i'm finding there's a multitude of different ways to put together a disc brake system there's different manufacturers different calipers some people can use you know zip ties some people would prefer to use the metal straps that you're going to be using but essentially jd what happened is we made a mistake the unit was built offline um typically dexter will come into the factory and train audit they work with our group leaders and our group leaders work with the rest of the team for instance we just have a slide-out crew that's all they do all day long it's just slide-outs um we have a group that does framing that's all they do all day long is just framing we're talking about an option that wasn't available because of supply issues we actually took it took the disc brakes off of our price sheets over a year ago so this is an item that we hadn't been offering and still don't offer to this day just because supply issues aren't there yet or they're not resolved yet so um what we're going to do today is obviously we're going to go um we're going to meet the gentleman from dexter that flew down here and let him walk you through um the detail i'm just here to kind of explain what happened and um i'm here to oversee and to document so that we don't make the same mistake twice okay so our apologies to you i mean this obviously it's a it's an important safety item that we're not going to sidetrack on at all that's why i'm here that's why we flew out so and i appreciate that you know i've spoken to the gentleman from dexter and that's going to be another video kind of following this up we're going to talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages of certain types of breaks how things are ran but i've had an opportunity to speak with him his name is bill and he's actually their head trainer from dexter their national training manager uh he's also a former engineer i think he's still an engineer and he understands the systems better than anybody and when he looked at this he he absolutely said yeah this is not how it should have been done but more importantly he said you know what there are some things here that you might have this misconception on you know were they done right could they have been done differently for instance like using zip ties one of the areas as long as you use a zip tie with sufficient strength it's not exposed to the sun so you don't really have to worry about uv wear and tear on it they say zip ties are perfectly fine but how you actually put everything how it's oriented how it's placed that's one of those areas that you have to make sure you use the right number they're put in the right area but a lot of other manufacturers may use zip ties to secure the actual brake line to the axle simply because a zip tie is not a bad means of securement and he said that that's actually something they approve so at the end of the day when we're done with this it's going to look entirely different things are going to look different some of it's based on my preference if there's one thing bill's been asking me a lot throughout the day is do you want it done this way or do you want it done that way it really doesn't matter it's just your choice your preference so we've made a couple choices and i'll show you in that video some of the things that we do when we do a full overview of how it was fixed but i absolutely appreciate coachman for sending you know david down to be able to kind of explain their stance because you're right there is no excuse for this type of sloppy work and i appreciate that you owned up to it and then you know you kind of explain because there is always an excuse and a chain of events that leads to something like this occurring so you have to explain that you can't just say you know it just happened well we need to understand what led up to this happening i i knew that my unit was built offline i knew that my unit was not basically what i mean by that if you guys don't understand there's an assembly line with what like 20 bays that it has to stop at roundabout yeah yep and then it gets pulled in as a frame and you guys can actually go back and watch a video i did on this but it goes through each station and each station has a crew of people that has to do a certain task as it goes down the assembly line one of the first things that's done online is they install the axles the tires and all of that and typically it's a drum brake system so it's basically just putting the axles on and then connecting some wires but this has to be plumbed this has to be plumbed in place some of it like the front actuator can't even be put into place until you get far enough down the assembly line to where you have like a floor in there to put it on so i understand that because my unit was a concept unit because it's the only one of its type with 8 000 pound axles i don't think there's a single brook stone unless they were done aftermarket that has 8k axles because of that it's an entirely different disc brake setup as well so it's a larger disc brake setup on the 8k axles that he actually told me from the gentleman from dexter that these are closer to 10k axle specs so you have 8k axles 8k disc brakes an entirely different setup and an inexperienced crew installing it possibly at that moment offline it only takes one person yep and that's one thing i like to explain in videos you can have what you have about 200 people that touch one of these when they get built you only need one or two of them to mess up in their station to make an entire product look bad one person that missed you know the dexter audit or the dexter training um obviously that's what took place here doesn't matter we're going to own up to it and it should not have gone out the door like that again jd my apologies to you and your family but we're going to make sure it's correct luckily i believe this is the only unit that was affected so um but you know if people if and you guys are really good at working with customers i will admit that so here's a question i have if somebody has a coachman brookstone a chaparral whatever and they have a similar issue it's unlikely they're going to have disc brakes on their unit but let's say that they do or let's say they have a similar issue what should they do in terms of trying to get something like that resolved well obviously if they have any type of a safety issue contact your dealer immediately that's the first protocol if the dealer can't resolve the issue they'll work with coachmen in our warranty department but if they can't correct the issue then contact coachman customer service a lot of times sales uh the general manager sales managers all get involved in that aspect too so um any day when a customer calls in we may take a phone call for a retail customer that's having an issue as well so we're a big team we're all under the same same building we're attached to the production facility so literally takes me five seconds to walk out my door to the end of the production line so i can answer a lot of questions for customers really quickly if they have a problem we've got a great warranty department a great service crew coachman has their own service team and their own service crew that's separate from our facility as well so it doesn't matter which product line and we have our own pdi facility that's technically a third-party facility that's run independently a pdi is pre-delivery inspection by the way yep so you guys you know you do a good job for the most part in terms of identifying this something made it through i appreciate that you guys are owning up to it you have an rv you're about to have some problem at some point you might have multiple problems but as long as you kind of follow the right path to get them resolved i think you for the most part you're going to have a good outcome and the folks at coachmen seem to do a really good job of backing up their warranties backing up especially if it's safety related so i can appreciate that i wanted you guys to see what was done so you know no one's hiding anything and you're able to see that this is something that was serious and i'm glad you guys took it seriously nope we have to awesome thanks well again yep absolutely guys stay tuned for the next video where we actually showcase how this was fixed some of the steps that were taken um by the gentleman at dexter who actually manages the training aspect for installing this kind of stuff and you might be surprised at what you hear in terms of you know what's okay that in your mind you perceive as not being okay because you may not fully understand how the system needs to work on an rv that might be different from a vehicle or a car or bus anyways guys i sure hope you enjoyed this video very enlightening again big shout out to david from coachmen we're going to get this all taken care of we're going to knock it out and we'll be back to talk to you again very soon you

Channel: Big Truck Big RV

Views: 38,444

Rating: 4.6040955 out of 5

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Id: B2svW3Y9lXg

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021