Lousy quality on new appliances

[blkmagikca]

The past few months I've experienced failures in the water heater, furnace and range. Keeping in mind my AS is a 1987 32-ft Excella. So here's what took place:

The water heater tank started to leak (lesson learned: flush it out every 3 or 4 months). New Atwood 6-gal heater was installed by Oasis RV in Tucson. Within 1 week it stopped working - required new control board. Oasis charged me for 1/2-hour for diagnostics and Atwood supplied and paid for the installation of the new board (however, I had to wait an extra day for the board to arrive).

The range was a 4-burner Magic Chef (original from 1987). The oven door handle loosened a bit, and then the vibrations of driving on a rough secondary road caused the tempered glass panel on the oven door to shatter into "a million little pieces". Since Magic Chef went out of business about 20 years ago, there are absolutely no spare parts to be found. So I purchased a new 3-burner Suburban range. The stovetop works just fine, but the oven would not stay lit. I found out that the cause was a design flaw admitted by Suburban in that they used a too small orfice on the oven pilot in an attempt to make the product more energy efficient - a defect that Airxcel (Suburban) knew about and corrected. This required a trip to Oasis RV in Tucson for the diagnosis (another $45 spent) and a return trip a week later when the replacement part came in for installation.

The original Suburban furnace finally bit the dust. It required enough replacement of internal parts that the decision was to replace the entire furnace with a new one - again at Oasis RV. From day one, the operation was flakey. I've replaced 3 wall thermostats, and now it looks like the control board is shot. Back in Ottawa, this will have to be through Ottawa Camping next week.

I think it's time that we start looking for quality replacement components, as neither Atwood nor Suburban understands the concept of quality control.

[PaulnGina]

Makes me want to baby the appliances in our ‘87 Avion even more!

Not impressed with what I have been hearing about the new stuff.

[slowmover]

Americans buy RVs based on second house finance mortgage. Low monthly note.

Those who’ve been buying appliances same as sailors use appear better pleased. But a range, for instance, is 2X or 3X an RV price.

As a whole, the appliances (don’t forget sink, sink fixtures, toilet) are expensive. Could be that a quote on doing all at once might be the way to go.

In another 20-years years, I don’t imagine I’ll be around to go thru it again.