Rockwood - A Little Disappointed

[Spirit Deer]

Hope the water is nothing major. 

[bradnailer]

It is the same problem with city or pump water, both the shower and sink and both hot and cold water.  I'm thinking there is either a restriction in the pump or the filter.  It looked to me like the city water flowed through the filter and the pump.  Taking it to the dealer this afternoon so hopefully, they should have it remedied in a few days.

[Red Barchetta]

bradnailer -
Hopefully they will take care of it for you.    Over the years I have replaced every water tube throughout the PU with proper plumbing lines.  Upgraded the water pump as well.
Btw, your brad nails won't come in very handy on your PU as your particleboard cabinets & chipboard bed decks are better suited for adhesive & screws (adhesive & tape in some cases). 
We just returned a few days ago from a 3-week trip.  A rivet broke on our Stepper Door and luckily I had my rivet set & rivet gun or we would have been stepping over our entrance step for 2 weeks.

Rivets, particleboard, tubing for plumbing lines, etc... are all used on/in PU's.  All cheap low-end materials.

Rae -
Don't buy an '09 Chalet XL as they all were set-up with improper axles.  Bent axles, busted-through wheel wells, etc...
'10's have a beefed-up axle, but flimsy tables.

All stuff that one must investigate before buying a low-end RV.

[Spirit Deer]

We won't be buying anything for a few years, I hope.

[bradnailer]

Took the trailer to the dealer yesterday.  They won't get to it until next week but the service guy said it was probably the water filter clogged.  If that is in fact the case, I'm reasonably certain they will claim that I put trash water into the tank.  I filled the tank once so I doubt that happened but it will be difficult to argue.  Before we took our first trip, I checked out everything but the water system.  At this point, I just want to get the thing fixed properly so I can get back to camping. 

Agree about the particle board and rivets.  With our previous pop up and travel trailer, I always carried an assortment of screws, bolts, nuts, washers, glue and other stuff to make repairs along the way.  I build furniture so I am sure you can understand my extreme lack of appreciation for particle board.

[Spirit Deer]

I don't build furniture (well, not much) and I also have an extreme lack of appreciation for particle board.

Yet another reason to buy vintage stuff of good quality. 

[bradnailer]

Picked up the trailer Saturday.  The filter was clogged.  I filled the tank once at a national park campground.  On the bright side of things, the repair was no charge.

On a side note, when I got the trailer home, I tested the water system using both city water and the pump.  Both work OK but still sputter like it is getting air in the system somewhere.  I let the water run for five minutes and it still sputtered.  Gotta figure that one out as it doesn't seem right.

[TBthwacker]

How is your city water pressure at the indoor shower?
Mine sucks unless we are using the 12vt system.  Took it to the dealer twice, and have yet to be happy with it. Hot water on high, decent pressure, then dribble................in less than 30 seconds.

[bradnailer]

The city water is OK, not as much as I would have expected.  The tank system is slightly less.  My shower was doing the same thing.  It had good pressure for just a few seconds then to a drip.  The filter may have solved that problem.  I hope so.

[Spirit Deer]

You'll feel a lot better about your trailer once the kinks are worked out. 

[jfxg]

I read through this thread with interest.  While brand new to the world of PUPs, I am not at all a novice in the world of boats, and what I'm hearing is basically the same.  The only thing that has started (and I emphasize the started) to clean up the entry level boat industry is that enough people have checked with their friends, checked online sources like this one, and simply elected to vote with their feet.  Companies that live by the cheap will find most of their market share at the entry level, and a good number of these units will be resold within a year or so as the owners learn a bit about the product, or get tired of the hassle.  This serves to depress the new prices, and the company finds that even though they're turning out units, they're not making any money.  Years of escalating complaints, followed by thousands of potential customers simply saying "I'm not going to buy this crap", create a reputation for junk that is damn near impossible to shake, and this will do more to start straightening out an industry than all the management QA seminars in the world!

Of course, the first step has to be to identify the failing products, so serial numbers are a must have, as one poster pointed out.  Another weakness I've noticed is the lack of dealer sites (perhaps the manufacturers want it this way?).  Warranty work on your Chevy is easy because there are dealers everywhere.  If you had to drive your Tahoe 400 miles each way for service, you'd fix it yourself or you'd buy a brand of vehicle that had a local dealer.

As in the world of small recreational boats, there is always a ready supply of newcomers who don't do their homework, search out the cheapest product they can find, and think they're just clever as hell when they can bargain another $500 off the dealer.  This inevitably slows the process of improvement, but the laws of commerce are immutable, if slow: companies that produce trash fail. 

This is why a forum such as this has such value!  The word goes out, knowledge is shared, reputations are solidified, and slowly, the quality starts to rise.

[JP campers]

This past week, friends of ours and us went through three different manufaturing plants, Heartland, Forest River and Jayco, By far, the Forest River ( Flagstaff/Rockwood TTs ) were built much better than the other two. The Flagstaffs form what we saw were the only ones who had inspectors at more than one station. The Flagstaffs were teated for leaks at the final station, Heartland only spot checks theirs. Flagstaff also weighs the trailer at that point and the weight on the sticker is the actual weight of that trailer. Flagstaff/ForestRiver only builds t units that are sold, they do not build, store and hope to sell.
To each their own, but based on what I saw this past week, it'll be another Forest River product for us.

[bradnailer]

Thanks for the post, JP. 

A few of the items I fixed were fit and finish things that probably got by an inspector.  Granted I am a little picky.  I build furniture and want drawers and doors to work perfectly. 

The water deal could have been totally my fault since it was a clogged filter. 

Not sure about the outside light switch as it worked when we first got the trailer.  After very little use, the housing on the switch itself cracked and rendered itself unusable.  The repair was a $5 switch and a little solder.

The rest of the trailer seems to be well constructed and my wife and I love it. 

Overall, we are pleased with the Rockwood and are anxiously awaiting our next trip.

[JP campers]

Thanks for the post, JP. 

A few of the items I fixed were fit and finish things that probably got by an inspector.  Granted I am a little picky.  I build furniture and want drawers and doors to work perfectly. 

The water deal could have been totally my fault since it was a clogged filter. 

Not sure about the outside light switch as it worked when we first got the trailer.  After very little use, the housing on the switch itself cracked and rendered itself unusable.  The repair was a $5 switch and a little solder.
The rest of the trailer seems to be well constructed and my wife and I love it. 

Overall, we are pleased with the Rockwood and are anxiously awaiting our next trip.

The switch on my outside light also failed but that wasn't FR's fault. We went to an RV Surplus store and got a replacement light for $4.50.  Elkhart area is a great place for RV surplus parts.