Help track the quality of the '04s!

[MaShep]

It's good for all of us to hear and see what's happening with these units. I appreciate it VERY much! Does anyone remember the thread that ran some time ago asking for the finish dates of new units? I wonder if the month and day a new trailer leaves the factory establishes any kind of a pattern in relation to these QC issues? It bothers me that workers are paid more for the number of units they produce (as has been mentioned). Do the problems occur to meet production deadlines?
Our finish date was July 30, 2003.

[jcanavera]

Linda, I think this thread was initially watching the trailers produced from Sept 2003 and on. That I thought, was the date where we thought that the additional efforts in quality control at A/S would become evident. Compared to the sorry state of many 2003 units, the post September 2004's had been on a fairly decent run until we saw flyfisher's unit show up. My trailer was built in October 2003.

Jack

[Big Dee]

Originally Posted by MaShep

I wonder if the month and day a new trailer leaves the factory establishes any kind of a pattern in relation to these QC issues? It bothers me that workers are paid more for the number of units they produce (as has been mentioned). Do the problems occur to meet production deadlines?

I wonder if that explains it? Maybe the line can take it's time in some weeks, other weeks they are rushed and get slammed. Obviously, the line would dive in quality if rushed. Mine was on the line in the slow month of February. I wonder?

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by Big Dee

I wonder if that explains it? Maybe the line can take it's time in some weeks, other weeks they are rushed and get slammed. Obviously, the line would dive in quality if rushed. Mine was on the line in the slow month of February. I wonder?

I don't know if February was slow though. These guys have been hammered with orders since last year and from what I know winter is the time they build inventory for the dealers. I'm sure there are things we don't know about end of month, quarter, etc pressures. My dealer has told me that they really can't step up production any higher due to the physical limitations of the plant.

Jack

[Big Dee]

Originally Posted by jcanavera

I don't know if February was slow though.

Mitch, my A/S contact and the one who followed my unit, said he was able to take pics everyday because it was a slow time. But maybe that was for the Customer Service dept. and not the line. Who knows?

[MaShep]

Flyfisher isn't the only one. Sorry, I didn't know July 30, 2003 was considered an early 2004. There are many 2004 folks working through the same QC problems. I don't know if there has been a marked change since September except for a few new owners like Porky, Big Dee and Twinkie. I believe the new QC teams were in motion when mine was produced?
So far, we have only a few days that we have been able to use ours, and looking forward to getting out on the road this season. I hope no more problems materialize with the newer 2004's, though I admit I'm a little paranoid. Units purchased after September haven't really been tested very much? There's only so much fun you can have in the driveway?
Our issues have been many and we still have more to resolve. Communication has been good with Airstream and I expect all will be favorably worked out.
I hope you are right about the 2004's, and we're looking at a better overall product. Support and information from members on this forum has really made it easier. It's such a big learning curve.
Here are some (bad) pictures of some of the damage to our floor. Looks to me like the round one was from a screwdriver? Maybe the vinyl is just too soft.

[Silvertwinkie]

Well, I got a late start on the thread, but in reality, the 2004 model year started in about May of 2003, so any unit that has been titled as a 2004 from (ususally starting about May or June of 2003) should post here.

I also started a new thread to get in early on the 2005s which should be appearing on dealer's doorsteps any week now. If anyone grabs a new unit that is titled as a 2005, here is the place to post your production month/year and your comments:

http://www.airforums.com/forum...highlight=2005

Of course anyone that has a 2004, please continue to post as much as you'd like...this still seems like a very good collection of data. I'm hoping that there will be as much participation in the 2005 thread so that we can get a better sense of the progress being made.

[hohne]

...I was in flakybird packing up for our second trip -- recall the first trip out we came back with an inop heatpump/furnace -- turned out to be a shorted wire that took out the control module.

I was standing in the living room, wondering where I was going to hid my wife's Mother's day presents from the kids. The overhead lights (controlled by the switch by the entry) went dark. I took a step towards the dinnette light and they came on. Took another step and they went back off.

I sort of did a jiggling dance, and they stayed off. I walked back to where they went off the first time and jiggled, and they stayed off...wife came in wondering if I was having a seizure or something -- she saw this through the window. She thought is was funny, at least.

Turned the porch light and the step light on, and they worked. On same circuit, I was supposing. Verified that by pulling the fuse. Pried cover off switch plate and shorted the two wires together, no light. hooked the porch light up to the overhead light switch, and it worked (switch was OK). Bridged power from the porch light circuit to overhead light, no light -- problem is downstream from the switch...

Admired the wiring at the switch -- looked pretty good. Did some wiggling of the connectors and could not get things to operate. Did not feel much like getting a meter out to see if one of the crimp connections at the switch is bad -- will work on it while we are camping...

Started wondering if AS decision of getting rid of the gas lights was a good one...and thought of the movie "The Moneypit" with Tom Hanks.

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Final problem which I didn't discover till I got home. Looks like the check valve on the water pump is not working well. I left home with any empty fresh water tank. I used city water for 5 days and returned home with a fresh water tank slightly less than half full. I'll get this checked out when the replacement curtain comes in.

Jack

Talked to the dealer the other day about this and he said it would require him to replace the pump. He said it was interesting since mine is the second '04 he has run into with the same problems. Maybe a bad run of pumps from the manufacturer. He has 3 pumps on order so my name is now on one of them.

For those with shower leaks, we initially had water coming from under the wood trim where it meets the floor below the shower door. If you run into this you may need to caulk the plastic trim cap that the door frame assembly sits on. The cap lays over the wood trim and the frame sits on top of this. If you look inside the shower on the door side you will see this cap. The problem lies that the water splashing on the floor of the shower splashes up inside the cap and then down the wood between to find its way to the floor. The dealer caulked the length of this cap and the water leak stopped. Now if we get that door frame caulked correctly in the lower left corner, we will be leak free.

Jack

[Silvertwinkie]

I may connect my city water connection for a while and see what happens. Since ours wer built near the same time (I think a few months), who knows.

Hey and the lighting issue, I thought you said you got the disco upgrade package on the Safari Hohhe?

[crazylev]

This is long, so get yourself something to eat or drink and read on...

First off, thanks to everyone on this list that helped me make an educated decision regarding Airstream, both new and used.

Monday AM I drove five and a half hours from Chicago to Piqua, Ohio to be met at the front of Paul Sherry RV by Jerry Penley, my salesman. We immediately went out and did a walk-around. On the walk around, Jerry found two very small dings on the aluminum just above the curbside stone guard and and almost identical twin to that one on the street-side. There was also a small rock-like ding on the actual rock-guard street-side, so I guess it did it’s job. There was also a small dent on the black metal part of the trailer that is between the bottom trim piece and curves under the trailer to attach to the belly pans. You only see this by getting on your hands and knees.

Meanwhile, I am still in awe over the fact that I now have an Airstream after all this time of driving my wife nuts with all thing Airstream and did not really say anything about the ding matter, but Jerry was not happy about it! Through out the almost three days “camping” at the dealership, about a half dozen people looked, probed, and prodded into this ding-thing: service, managers, the guy who actually pick the trailer up from the factory, calls made to Airstream.

What is suppose to happen is the guy that picks the trailer up at AS goes over to make sure there is no damage. The gentleman who picked up my trailer admitted to me the worst time for them to pick up trailers is when it has snowed, or when it is raining. The rain makes it hard for them to see any little blemishes. It was raining when my coach was picked up.

I walked around the lot to look at about 20 other new units that were there to see if any of them had any “delivery” damage. Most did not, though one had a minor scratch.

What I am thinking at this point: Am I going to be able to live with this? The marks are very small, they are not going to rust. but it was very obvious that the only way to take care of this matter is to replace the two end panel sheets of aluminum, drilling rivets, pulling the door frame, and in my opinion, possibly opening up a whole can of worms. There is always the possibility that the first time I go out and a bolt, rock, evil politician, or something else will fly out of nowhere and do the same thing. On the way to the dealership, something hit the hood of my Eurovan and put two rather larger nicks in the paint, even with a bra!!!

I am thinking of leaving this as it is. Not because the dealership does not want to make it right, but I see this as something that I will notice even less, the more “character” my trailer gets from road use.

I also suppose that had the people at Paul Sherry NOT made such a big deal out of this, then my intentions might have been swayed by their idefference and lack of care for the customer. They really were more concerned about this than me, and I think of myself as pretty much a nit-picker. Had these blemishes been much larger may have made a decision on what to do much easier to make.

They are a superb lot of people. More on Paul Sherry later.

Moving on, the trailer in a word is beautiful, and as I would expect from an overworked and underpaid crew at Airstream, there are little flaws here and there.

The way I see it, if Airsteams were built in Hanover, Germany or Bavaria with strict tolerances, they would be absolutely flawless....and my $35,000 trailer would cost $120,000 dollars!!!!

It is what it is.

Since Paul Sherry had two other 19’ CCD’s and a few Safari Bambi’s, I was able to crawl around those units to compare certain idiosyncrasies with my unit. Very convenient indeed.

When I arrived at Sherry, they had my unit hooked up, fridge on, furnace, lights, all systems were working as they should. Great!

BTW, setting the fridge to 7 will freeze a bag of salad quickly, and that was going to be my dinner, and the pizza place across from Paul Sherry burned down not to long ago. Thank heavens for my Tombstone Pizza.

This seems obvious, but I was delightfully suprised that all the appliances except the oven are electronic ignition. For some reason, I packed enough of those long lighter things to start a new Chicago fire!!! I guess I thought I’d be crawling all over the place lighting this and that. It is a little odd that the ignition for the hot water heater is right next to the vanity sink. It would have been nice if that were in a cabinet, or somewhere out of sight, and out out the reach of curious hands. Oh well.

The water tank was filled, pump goes on anytime you turn a faucet on. I used the toilet, but I will let the wife poop in it first, as she is the Queen and has this unmentionable task. It was highly recommended that we use the Tethford brand TP. I also through a packet of the blue tank stuff in the toilet.

The Sony CD/AM-FM is incomprehensible!!! I work on a Mac, I can work on a PC, but the stereo will take some time to master. It does seem to work though. If you push and hold the off button, it will turn off the whole unit and the accompanying light show. Or just put the round pizza cardboard from the Tombstone in front of it to block the light. Do this only if you have had 5 or six Negra Modelos.

After spending the first night in the unit, I wrote out my punch list for service:

1. Bathroom door not shutting properly- the strike plate needs to be morticed into the door frame just a bit. Fixed.

2. The main door did not seem to close very tightly. That was fixed because I did not close it hard enough! Works fine. Fixed.

3. The univolt/converter/inverter thing looked as if it were installed unevenly. This would have made me nuts!!! They straightened that out.

4. Oven did not light on “Pilot” setting, only on “Warm”. I was lighting it in the wrong place!!!

5. The outside blemish things as mentioned above, which they are still working on as I write this.

6. Battery for smoke detector missing. Fixed, but I wish it wasn’t because it goes off anytime I light the stove. That is real annoying before my first cup of coffee in the morning. Why did Airstream mount the detector above the dinette, and not in the bedroom??? If I move, I end up with two screw holes to deal with.

Tuesday night was my firstime behind the wheel of the Eurovan with the trailer hitched using the Equilizer system, and Prodigy controller.

I pulled out of the dealership driveway, and about 400 feet later, there is a woman at a gas station looking at me, and decides to try to make here turn- ABOUT TWO FEET IN FRONT OF ME!

The brake controller works! I skidded to an even stop, and the lady in the explorer went off the road!!! I did not get out of the VW to mince words.
My first drive was excellent after that. You definitely know the trailer is there, but the V-Dub handles her well.

And that, ladies and gentlemen was my list.

On my second night, I had a faulty LP detector, which rang continuously from 2:30AM until service opened at 8:00AM. I now had a headache on both sides of my brain: one from the beer, and one from the LP alarm. I tried to silence the alarm by putting my underwear and clothes in front of it, but I think my stinky laundry made it worse!!!

The furnace was malfunctioning due to an arc from the start capacitor, to a blue wire. The symptom would be the furnace trying to start the main burner, but it would fail after three ignition attempts, and then a little red LED would flash inside the furnace.

After the furnace was taken care of yesterday morning, it was time for me to go. I did my first dump at the dealers little dump station and found it oddly arousing!!!

My Prodigy is set at 6.0 and B1, whatever that means. Service thought this is a good start, and that I should read the instructions too. They also told me about just using the controller to slow the trailer as well, in a wagging situation.

After realizing that I put the water supply hose on the city water intake on the trailer and correctly hooked into the tank flush, that went fine too.

The ride home was uneventful, though I definitely hear a creaking sound that I under stand is the sway control doing it’s thing. You hear at very low speeds especially. Maybe it’s a lube thing.

When any trucks, cars or any speeding vehicle passed, I did not notice any sway. In fact, the van seems to sway worse when I am not towing anything. Interesting.

The drive from Ohio to Chicago is very flat. I did keep the transmission in third when going up any kind of incline, but when it became flat again I put the V-Dub back in Drive.

At home, the wife was very pleased. Both with the fact that I got home alive, and that we got a real cool trailer. I am not sure in which order though...

Finally, I can only highly recommend the folks at Paul Sherry. They did not even bill my credit card for the deposit on the trailer!!! Thanks to Jerry, Jake and Dale in Service, Tina in finance (no more caffeine for her, though), even the other sales people who did not make the sale with me where very friendly and outgoing.

And a final note, while I was a the dealership, a woman came up to me and asked whether or not I wanted the dealer sticker on my unit. She said she asks people, because sometimes they don’t want another sticker on their unit. I took their sticker, and put it in my Airstream notebook. She also gave me a cool plastic raised letter one that looks neat enough where I might just go ahead and put that one on.

Good night.

Jonathan

[maxandgeorgia]

We are looking forward to seeing your new arrival at the rally, Crazylev! Your brand new glow sets a high standard for the "A neighborhood!" Sorry, we haven't even thought about polish yet for our '95! See you in a few weeks

[Silvertwinkie]

J.,

Glad to hear all went well.

I had a very small one on mine too. In reality, the only fix is going to be to replace the panel if the hot/cold combos don't work it out by themselves (Andy from Inland RV tip). That being the case, I've learned to live with it as I don't want the panels replaced (unless they corrode like some others have).

I had the very same issue with my furnace in our Bambi. I think they put the fire alarm up front as that is the place most fires will start. Ours goes off when we cook to, but we found that if the coach is open (windows, etc), no alarm. When it's closed up, we use the exhaust fan and no alarm.

If it every happens again where the LP detector alarm goes off (might have been due to lack of ignition of the furnace), you can shut it down by either pulling the fuse in the converter box or throwing off one of the breakers in there. Not sure which, but it will kill it (and maybe a few other things).

I had a similar issue with my bathroom door. Airstream sent me a part and it fixed it (I also modded the door jam a bit, but hey, it works great now!

Get a dedicated hose for the black tank flush and keep it in the bumper storage. Don't use the same hose for fresh and black. Sherry RV gave us a box of goodies...in it came a 3ft hose. I bought a second one and have one for each.

With both the Bambi and now the Safari, I don't use the boost (B1 or B2). I have it set per the directions and it works great. If I recall from a dead stop, move what I call the oh $hit brake bar on the controller and adjust the gain until the display reads I think 6.5 or 6.6. Should work well without the boost feature on.

Glad all is well. Can't wait to see the coach in a few weeks!

Eric

[WayWard Wind]

Spring finally came to North Central Minnesota and our 02 Bambi finally was able to leave her wintering quarters. Amazing with little feed, over the winter she grew a total of 6' and has now turned into a 25' "Titan 1". She's a real beaut, with the upgrade package. She has a rear twin sleeper, fold-down dinnete, larger fridge, front couch, lots of storage (inside & out), Black Water Flush, Water,Temp,Speed Fantastic Fan, just to name a few of her glitters and charms. She was christen on 12-4-03 & while she's still under investigation (driven only 175 miles), for the most part all seems to be working well. We worked her heat pump, furance, radio, everything but the A/C, cause it's still been below freezing at times. We did find a problem with the dead bolt lock --same issuse with the Bambi-- and some deformity with the bottom outside bumper rail. Again that was one of the same issuses with our 02 Bambi. The water pump is VERY noisy and will need to have look see, at a later date. While I may live to regret saying it, inside and out the workmanship appears to be excellent. We found little construction residue and if ONLY the dealer had put a LITTLE more effort into the predelivery aspect, things would have been great. The Jackson Center crew gets a +1 at this time. Time and mileage will tell if it holds up to our standards. Funny no one has mentioned that they have done away with the mid bumper rail. I though she looked trimmer around the waist, so e-mailed JC and they said it was discontinued in the Spring of 03. Thanks to this thread, I was prepared for things to watch when going over the unit. More later as miles fly by. Just posting a few pics of the crew.
Best,

[Big Dee]

Crazylev,

Very funny story- made me laugh. So great to hear of a dealer who takes care of the customer. The delivery process is critical in turns of customer satisfaction and sounds like they got it right.

Sorry about the marks but I think you are right about living with them. That LP alarm is so annoying- hoe did you stand it?

I wish I could join you midwesterners for the big rally- I am so jealous! You guys have fun.

[frozen chosen]

Crazylev, we drove our 2004 16CCD up the ALCAN from Vancouver in late October. There are now a LOT of dings above the guards, and some big ones above the windows from the many large trucks passing at the speed of light. All this adds to the patina of the thing. We have found several problems, most small, some not so. But now that spring is finally here and I'm getting to use the thing, I am softening and sstarting to appreciate the TT rather than obsess with what amounts to small stuff. AS is a throwback company, and may never "get it". But when one goes by, you know what it is. When they say they are serious about QC, they obviously are not. Any QA superviser could read these posts and correct at least half of the continuing problems we have read about for some time. But, Jim Parrett and the other customer service folks are the glue. In the end, the company stands by their product, and I would have to say I'd do it again.

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by crazylev

On the walk around, Jerry found two very small dings on the aluminum just above the curbside stone guard and and almost identical twin to that one on the street-side. I am thinking of leaving this as it is. Not because the dealership does not want to make it right, but I see this as something that I will notice even less, the more “character” my trailer gets from road use.

It is a little odd that the ignition for the hot water heater is right next to the vanity sink. It would have been nice if that were in a cabinet, or somewhere out of sight, and out out the reach of curious hands. Oh well.


The Sony CD/AM-FM is incomprehensible!!! I work on a Mac, I can work on a PC, but the stereo will take some time to master. It does seem to work though. If you push and hold the off button, it will turn off the whole unit and the accompanying light show. After spending the first night in the unit, I wrote out my punch list for service:

6. Battery for smoke detector missing. Fixed, but I wish it wasn’t because it goes off anytime I light the stove.

On my second night, I had a faulty LP detector, which rang continuously from 2:30AM until service opened at 8:00AM. I now had a headache on both sides of my brain:Jonathan

Jonathan, congratulations!

Some comments on your post. It's odd how you pick up the occasional dings. Most of the ones I picked up on my Safari was when it sat in the storage lot. I almost think that the chat in the lot became flying projectiles as passing vehicles came by....I think you are smart in letting the dings pass by. You could open a can of worms. In most cases only you know the dings are there.

I think the hot water heater switch in the bath is fairly normal. My SOB had its switch there also. That particular trailer also had the dual mode tank, gas and electric. The electric switch on my Classic is next to the switch for the gas activation. On my SOB the electric switch was in a cabinet. My dealer warned me about this since lots of people forgot to turn off the electric and sometimes burned up the electrical heating element.

The Sony unit is somewhat overwhelming at first. Note that the light show is a menu selected option which I turned off. On the other hand I am not used to seeing the lights which are always on when the unit is turned off. When I hit the off button I would like to see every thing dark.

On the smoke detector do what I do. Take a woman's shower cap and put it over the detector when you cook. It obnoxious enough that you won't forget it. Works great.

I don't know about my Classic but the LP detector was not fused through the power panel. Even with the master disconnect turned in the off position, the LP detector continued monitoring. I'll have to look at the one in the Classic this weekend to see if it follows in the same mode.

Have fun keep us posted. Moraine View is just over 30 days away!!!

Jack

[crazylev]

Big Dee.

WHAT???? I CAN'T HEAR YOU...COULD YOU SPEAK A LITTLE LOADER!!!
(My ears are still ringing from the alarms....)

The LP detector had to be replaced, as it would go from the normal green light blinking to a green light/amber light(Alert) and sometimes to the red zone. The service tech used this gooseneck gas detector thing to make sure there were no gas or exhaust leaks.

BTW: the furnace is stinky the first night, but gets less so by the next night, or I just got used to it. I hope exposure to the fumes and that new Airstream "smell" disipate over time, and that it does not cause human defects. I'll let you know if I start sprouting a third arm or my sex drive goes way up or down or something...

I am seriously thinking of just taking the battery out of the smoke alarm if it becomes to anoying.

Thanks for the thoughts and comments.

Jonathan

[crazylev]

Frozen.

I am thinking of leaving well enough alone. One thing I realized quickly is that the problems with heaters, stoves/ovens, fridge, etc, though still problems, those things are not manufactured by Airstream. They are simply an installed component. Airstreams are really axels, wiring, plumbing, sheet metal, cabinets, etc.

Any problems down ther road with say a refridg not working or lighting I think would be the responsibility of Dometic or whoever to take care of. Short of replacing a defective unit, I would only want to deal with that particular manufacturer for future events. I would make my first call to the actual company that makes the appliance, as AS would probably be a middle person.

I can not imagine anyone on this list that has the ability to hook up and set up a camp site does not know how to use a screw driver. Many of the visually anoying things in AS are cabinet doors that do not line up, which in turn may make the doors not close properly.

Airstream was smart enough to install 36mm style Euro hinges on most of their cabinet doors. They are very easy to adjust. If time is any indication, and like the cabinets in our house, they will absolutely need periodic adjustment. To adjust, one just needs a phillips head SD and a little patients.

We are a handy lot of people. Schlepping out to Ohio or a repair center would be my last resort, if my stab at it did not work, and of coarse I would consult this list!

Jonathan

[crazylev]

Jack.

The shower cap idea is a great one!!! I'll have to pick one of those up.

Pam and I look forward to seeing you and the others at the rally. I hope there is someone there that can help park, because so far backing this thing up is next to impossible. It took us about 25 minutes just to get into our storage space, which is 40 feet by 10 feet.

Pull through sites are sounding better and better. Or better yet, a site that is about the size Cuba might be OK.

Jonathan