gripe to Airstream..will it help?

[reo]

Attention Airstream Management,
I hope you will take this letter in the spirit in which it is meant. I am very disappointed and a little disillusioned at Airstream. I have been looking for the right model airstream for me, for over a year. Last week, I drove 500 miles from my home in Florida to a dealer in South Carolina to check out and purchase a few months old 2008 19 foot Safari SE. It is a great machine and my experience with the dealer, Carolina RV, was excellent. My disappointment is with you...Airstream.
Design, Innovation, Quality, Leadership, sound familiar? While my problem is not monumental by any means, it boggles my mind HOW and Why a product of this caliber was allowed off the production line with such a profound flaw. Someone really dropped the ball. I think a lot of people dropped the ball.
My problem has to do with the bathroom light. Its operation has been POORLY thought out. It will not work unless all the rear halogen lights are also turned on. The first problem occurs if someone needs to use the john in the middle of the night. He or she must illuminate the entire bedroom with the halogen lights..waking up the unlucky partner in order to be able to have light in the john. The second problem occurs if you are off the grid on battery power. (You do tout this as one of the great benefits of this trailer.) Problem number two is why must we drain the battery down using all the halogen lights when all I need is the small light in the john? When you're off the grid, battery power is like gold. Why purposely design in waste?
What happened to the design and innovation and leadership on this one?
A creative solution to this problem would go a long way towards redemption.
Sincerely
Ron

[ROBERT CROSS]

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f142...ity-31210.html

Ron,

We can feel your pain.

Google quality on the search bar above.

Good Luck...Stream Safe

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f318...eam-53083.html

[JStanley]

Have the same situation with my 2006 Safari, so I called the factory to ask if it was wired wrong.
Answer: No that is how it was designed.
So I replaced all the 10 watt bulbs with 5 watt ones- -maybe 3 watt bulbs would work well too.
Also installed stick-on battery powered LED light fixtures in the bathroom and above the vanity sink.
Makes you wonder if the folks that design the trailers ever travel and live in them. You will soon find other "features" to improve or modify.

[bob34787]

is this just for 25" and under? my 28" safari has its own light and switch for the bathroom and works independent from the rest of the lights.

[woppa 4]

On grid we use a standard plug-in night light;off grid, a small stick-on( BP AA) .Our U is wired light independent. This concept work's well. Mel

[reo]

Originally Posted by JStanley

Have the same situation with my 2006 Safari, so I called the factory to ask if it was wired wrong.
Answer: No that is how it was designed.
So I replaced all the 10 watt bulbs with 5 watt ones- -maybe 3 watt bulbs would work well too.
Also installed stick-on battery powered LED light fixtures in the bathroom and above the vanity sink.
Makes you wonder if the folks that design the trailers ever travel and live in them. You will soon find other "features" to improve or modify.

They designed it that way on purpose, would you believe?

[Andrew T]

The bath light is an easy fix we generally do it as part of the PDI.

You just change the bath light to a normal RV light with a switch and then wire it to the power for the exhaust fan that is right beside it.

Andrew T

[Der Sand]

We had a few issues with our trailer and we contacted this person he went way out of his way to help.

Randy McNeeley
Airstream Customer Relations
(937) 596-6111

[fmr.capt.evi]

Is THAT all you can find wrong with yours? If so, will you share your stock picks with me?.....better yet, can I go in big with you on some lottery tickets?

[Rosie39j]

Yeah, just wait till it's two years old and has spidering white stuff all over the exterior aluminum, which they say is now unavoidable ...

[AZ-JH]

Halogen lights don't belong in a unit intended for camping off grid, but manufacturers are going to use what's cheaper without regard to intended use. We replaced all of our lights with LCD lights, like many others have.

[CanoeStream]

Randy, thank you for the personal touch! And stepping into this thread to let everyone know the mothership is paying attention.

[Al - K4GLU]

Obviously you failed to read the earlier posts on Air Forums from Airstream President Bob Wheeler.

According to him people who used to buy Airstream's were happy to find things not done right because it gave them something to do.

Now you have something to do in your spare time - work out a fix for the light. BTW - you'll likely find many more things to do in your spare time in the future.

[jmtandem]

Reo,

I guess perception of problems truly are in the eyes of the beholder. To me you have a non issue, non problem and a non gripe. If I were you, I would simply do the exhaust fan rewire, that way you have 'personalized' your trailer. If that is the only issue with the trailer, count your blessings.

[CanoeStream]

jmtandem - I tend to agree. Though this was an undesirable 'feature' and would probably have been made right if you went back to the original dealer.

I struck up a relationship & purchased my Safari 260 miles away in another state. I made that choice for more than price and stuck to my guns -- going back to the selling dealer with 2 followup trips for warranty service within the allotted 24 months. Any Airstream dealer must provide warranty service but it's human nature to bend over backwards for folks who actually bought from your dealership -- that's what I was looking for and succeeded in finding.

[reo]

Thanks for the helpful and humourous replys. I will do what seems to be a simple mod, to reconnect to bath fan power lead. Before I wrote my gripe to A/S I had contacted the dealer I purchased from and a second dealer in Florida. Both agreed that it didn't make sense but neither offered a solution. This forum is great!!!

[ROBERT CROSS]

My DW just LOVES Cloudsplitter....


If I'm not here I must be there..."do something, anything even if it's rong"

[kevin242]

In my personal experience, if you DON'T gripe, you will get better results. Go at it with a positive approach and you will find people much more willing to help you out. Here's one example:

I have a "Jiffy" gas-powered ice auger that failed 3 months after the warranty expired. I had it repaired at an authorized service depot at my expense then contacted the company directly. I told them I bought their product because I have friends who own the same thing and they have had trouble free service for many years. I told them I felt mine had failed prematurely, for no valid reason, and sent them the parts that failed along with my repair receipt so they could find out what part of the quality control process had unusually failed at their end leading to this mechanical breakdown - since I'm sure they would want to figure out if the part was defective in order to prevent multiple recalls.

I didn't ask for anything specific - I was doing THEM a favor by trying to help them improve their product.... They paid my repairs in full and thanked me for contacting them about this.

I don't think I would have had this result with a negative approach.

That's just one example of many I have about success using this approach. Griping makes people not want to help you since nobody likes being on the defensive and I think people generally want to be helpful - just make it a good experience for them.

Kevin

[SilverRanger]

Originally Posted by Al - K4GLU

Obviously you failed to read the earlier posts on Air Forums from Airstream President Bob Wheeler.

According to him people who used to buy Airstream's were happy to find things not done right because it gave them something to do.

Now you have something to do in your spare time - work out a fix for the light. BTW - you'll likely find many more things to do in your spare time in the future.

And, don't forget your toolbox.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
"... , the quality expectations of our customers have risen dramatically in recent years, in some cases faster than our ability to keep up. Old school Airstreamers accepted that a few flaws were normal and packed a toolbox."

Bob Wheeler
President
Airstream, Inc.
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Sorry for getting off topic. Realizing we have different lighting systems in our 19 ft. Safari SE's... The lights in ours are the conventional, generic boxes (found in many low end SOB's) with the two way light switch, and the light over the bed is the nearest one when I have to get up in the middle of the night for that inevitable whiz. What I did was replace the bulb in the first switch position with one of those red LED tail light bulbs (bayonet base). It has minimal impact on others, doesn't use much power, and (for what it's worth) preserves your night vision at a most critical time.

I also attached one of these with Velcro to the mouse fur in the bathroom. If you need it, wave your hand in front of the motion detector. It has three light levels, and comes in a stainless finish. Wave again to shut it off, or it automatically shuts off in 1 hour:



Sylvania Dot-it Golden Dragon LED Light, Silver (72407)

[Ganaraska]

For an expensive product whose customer base is wealthy, experienced RV fans they don't seem to care about repeat business.

There are so many complaints that could be fixed at trivial cost, or no cost at all, by the factory when they are making them. Yet they don't seem to care.