First, let me say that this is a long story, and not uncommon from what I am hearing from others who have dealt with Dan Gamel RV...
I am open to anyone who wishes to contact me with questions... And I am more than willing to share the tactics the sales personal used to perpetrate this rip-off... And how you can avoid the same pitfalls.
Dan Gamel RV
Rocklin store
4429 Granite Drive
Rocklin, CA. 95677
Phone: (916) 632-7200
Toll-Free: (800) RV-With-Me
Fax: (916) 625-9382
My motivation in posting this is as much to alert perspective buyers as it is to help in getting our money back...
Summary:
This was my first RV / Motor home purchase... I'm shocked that these type of practices can still take place in this country today, but it does. If any of you have ever seen the movie "The Tin Man" with Danny Divito... The same guys that used to sell aluminum siding are now selling RV's. If it were not costing us so much money, it would really be comical... They lie right to your face... They use tactics of promising anything as long as you sign, and take delivery. BUT they NEVER tell the truth... The service department is incompetent... Sales department promised us refunds that they never gave us. We wasted our vacation in repair shops. We are convinced that we were sold a motor home that had known problems, so many issues and miles, that it should have been considered used.
The Sales department told us they would take care of our concerns, and even compensate us for our losses, but when it came down to actually compensating us for all the problems they just stopped responding to our calls. We have now made two payments on this $150,000 dollar motor home after only taking delivery of it on 11-1... We have contacted Fleetwood for help. They say work with the dealer. We have contacted Dan Gamel RV corporate offices and talked with Alex (the VP of service department) he just ignores us. We even sent Email to Dan Gamel himself... But he never responded.
'[email protected]' General manager - Rocklin store where I purchased the MH '[email protected]'
This is the owner. I sent an email to him, but no reply. Followed up with a phone call, got the VP of service, Alex, he said he would return my call, but never has, as of this writing. I wanted to know just what this motor home was really worth, so I called another store of Dan Gamel RV, and asked what this thing was worth, and they said $127,000 23,000 less than I paid for it because of the mileage..
What I have asked them for:
1) I would like them to give me the refund money promised when I took delivery.
2) I would like some compensation for the 5 days of hell and expenses that I went through.
3) I would like an extended warranty to protect me from all the things that "MIGHT" go wrong because of all the issues caused by the electrical problems and the poor troubleshoot techniques...
4) PLUS I WANT THE ISSUES STILL OUTSTANDING FIXED... Is that too much to ask? Am I being unreasonable?
The Story:
We went to our local RV store last month (10-12) just to browse... We were thinking of retirement 5 years down the road, and how we should start working on paying for it now. The salesman took our name, and number as they usually do... Then on the next Sunday, they called us late in the day at home, and told us that they were running a special, they had run my credit report, and if I would come down right now, they would give me the interest rate that was too good to be true. The interest rate was great! The motor home they sold us was crap... We were shown several motor homes... Explained all the options. We were told that they all come with the basic set of options including the front bra to protect the paint (that was the first lie)...
We were really stupid to fall for all the sales tactics... We purchased the M/H late in the evening. We were distracted while attempting to create the "punch" list (done in the dusk of the evening) by having to sign papers etc... We assumed that this 2004 Fleetwood Discovery was a new coach... We saw a few things that needed repair inside. We know all new cars and such have a few flaws, so we started making a list of what we saw that needed repair, and signed the papers to purchase it Because it was late, and dark, we agreed to return the next day to finish the punch list of things we saw wrong, and that would be fixed before delivery...
The next day, the more we looked, the more things we found wrong... We were getting a little worried about what we were seeing. The sales guy, Bill Eids, assured us that all would be fixed by delivery time. This was three weeks away, plenty of time for them to do any repairs... We were planning on an out of state delivery, and leaving on vacation that very moment of delivery... We would not be back to our state for at least the next 91 days. We were planning on a month of vacation, and then leaving the motor home at my 97 year old grandmothers to use as a residence on our frequent visits to see her. We felt like this might be her last year on earth, and we wanted to spend as much time with here as possible...
The BIG picture of what happened to us and what we saw the next day is as follows... I'm sorry if it sounds like rambling. I'm angry, and to many things in my head come out at once.
The reason I feel that they sold us a used M/H is because it was delivered to us with 6000 miles on the unit, far beyond reason for delivery miles... Many items in the coach had been used including the microwave, oven, fridge, toilet, worn out seat cushions in the dinette, carpets frayed, the DVD and satellite boxes had been well used scratched etc, stained correon sinks... Etc (too many more things to mention).. Paint problems with chips all over the front end, scratches the length of the passenger side (top and lower)... Chips / tiny star cracks in both windshields... The list goes on and on, and is all documented in delivery bill etc... The sales person told me that all of this was normal, because of the distance required to deliver the units from factory to dealerships etc.in addition, he told me that these issues and all others would be fixed before delivery to me... The dealership explained the excessive mileage on the coach to me by telling me that they move them from different dealerships, from time to time... So they claimed... What can I say, it was my first... How could I know...
They assured me that it had never been sold to anyone, just maybe used in a show or something like that... My thoughts are: This all adds up to a used motor home. Just because it has never been registered, where do you draw the line? New / used. So many things are used, broken, and worn, that I would say ITS USED...
How would you like to buy a new car, and have to have it repainted, all the wiring torn apart and put back together, driven for 6000 miles. And every appliance used... Someone else has put all the nicks and scratches in it... Before you get it... Sounds used to me...
Moving right along,
These items, and more noted during the pre delivery visits, were all supposed to be fixed before delivery. I went in on several occasions to make sure that the work was being done as we were leaving on vacation at delivery time... They told me the work was being done on one occasion... Even finished in another instance... Turns out very little if any of it was done... It was not really worked on until the day of delivery... It just sat there for three weeks. They ignored the three pages of due bill items as if they had no plans of getting them done.
We had planed an out of state delivery. We were also starting our vacation upon delivery... So, when we realized that none of the stuff had been repaired we were angry. They knew we were leaving that next day... The dealer said he was sorry... And promised that if I took delivery of this coach, they would refund $1000.00 to me, and put new tires on the side where they had been running it with low air pressure. He then agreed that when we returned, all would be fixed properly... The check was to be mailed that next Monday, HOWEVER it never arrived... They did give agree as we were leaving to give me one new tire as a spare just in case I had trouble with the tires that had been run low for who knows how long... They had only added air to them...
I took the delivery in Boom Town Nevada. We left that very moment for vacation, after signing the papers. We were not planning to return to the state (with the coach) until we had met the terms of the out of state delivery rules... Stopped in Reno at Wal-Mart... Purchase whatever we needed to outfit the coach, and hit the road making it to the first major rest stop down hy80 and spent the night.
We really did expect that there would be a fix list... Additional unexpected problems... But nothing like we actually experienced...
I began talking with Fleetwood 1-800 the very next morning when things started going wrong with many of the electrical components and systems... These include the engine, transmission, leveling jacks, to name a few. My dealer had delivered a motor home to me that at times would not even run. Over the next 5 days stuck twice, unable to even start the coach... Chassie would loose power to the dash, would not start... No dash lights, no ignition key power etc... Transmission would go into neutral while driving, engine would die. When it was running, the fuel mileage was down to 5 and 6 miles per gallon... Bedroom slide would go out, but not come in... Leveling jacks failed to retract... Not even the roadside service people that Fleetwood sent out, could fix anything...
It would just start working at times for no reason at all. Fleetwood 1-800 sent us limping from one end of the state of Idaho to the other for service beginning in the state of Nevada)... The bedroom slide was un-repairable because of lack of parts or were not available, the major issue with the electrical system, could not be fixed because no one understood it well enough to even troubleshoot it... At some point I purchased a testers, cables and fuses, and began my own troubleshooting... I found that I could get the dash to light up, and engine to run by jumping across some big power terminals on the firewall under the dash... This is what actually got us around during this ordeal NOT THE SERVICE GUYS THEY WERE SENDING OUT...
This work around didn't stop the issues, just kept us moving and not stalled. They did offer to tow us, but it would have taken days just to get a tow truck out to us... And since I was able to get it moving, they kept recommending we move on to the next service center.
One Fleetwood RV service center unwrapped the entire wiring harness from under the dash, out the firewall, and all the way to the engine compartment, probing with an electrical light stick probe every foot or so, right through the insulation, checking for power. Do you know what the implications of that are down the road? Not good from my perspective. Elements and moisture will eventually lead to cable failure on those for sure. They did this because they did not have wiring diagrams... I had to personally get on the phone, get web links for the service manager, to the online wiring diagrams at Fleetwood... It was really comical. But by this time the damage was done to the wiring on the coach... I left that dealer, and was send to the next stop... Freightliner in Bosie ID.By the way, all this mess done by the other service center turned out to be a waste of time, they were not even close to the actually problem.
It cost me 5 days of our vacation and many hundreds of miles... And many hundreds of dollars in fuel, expenses, tools, 619 minutes of cell time (plus roaming charges) etc... We were at times were stuck in the cold and snow. We finally got it to a place that could fix the issue (freightliner in Bosie ID)...
I think that I have evidence (provide by freightliner) that the problem existed before we took delivery of the motor home and that the problem was "most likely" known to my dealer.
My thoughts are that because it was an intermittent electrical failure, they lowered the air pressure in the tires on the coach to cushion the ride, preventing the electrical failure from happening at every bump...
I came to this conclusion because I personally had pointed out to the dealer that sold me the coach, AND the service department on three occasions prior to my delivery (during the three weeks they had to get it ready) that the motor home had low tires on the passenger side of the coach... After three visits of "reminding them" they still had not fixed the low tires until ONE HOUR before my delivery... They reluctantly fix the low tires. Delivered the coach to me in boomtown Nevada. And I started having electrical problems the next morning (a few hours down hiway 80)... I mean, NOBODY could have put 6000 miles on this thing without having the same issues that I had...
The bottom line is that they had to have known about the problems, and they delivered it to me anyway... The part that was found to be faulty was right above the dual tires that were left under inflated... It turned out to be the 135 amp circuit breaker that supplied power to the entire chassie... It was physically broken... And I have pictures of it... It had been that way, from the looks of it, for some time... It malfunctioned every time I hit a bump in the road... It had to have been doing the same thing before...
I'm angry... The dealer says he didn't know about any issues. He said he's not responsible... And my losses are my own... I can't even bring the coach back and lay it on their door step because of the out of state delivery rules...
What I have asked them for:
1) I would like them to give me the money promised when I took delivery.
2) I would like some compensation for the 5 days of hell and expenses that I went through.
3) I would like an extended warranty to protect me from all the things that "MIGHT" go wrong because of all the issues caused by the electrical problems and the poor troubleshoot techniques...
4) PLUS I WANT THE ISSUES STILL OUTSTANDING FIXED... Is that too much to ask? Am I being unreasonable?
Now, back to my original request for help. I would like to share with the world what this dealer is really like... And I am still looking for web sites to post my experiences on... Any ideas or suggestions out there?
The message is:
Dan Gamel RV is not an honest company to do business with... I would like to share this with the world!
Thanks for listening... It helps to vent
Then at delivery time, they split us up on walk-through. I noted things like the slide having trouble moving in, and they just said "oh, that's the way it works" and then distracted me by "making an observation of something really wrong" like the scratch on the counter that we had not seen before...
Or asking if this was my first motor home?... It was... Or when the jacks would not retract, right there at the service center, blaming on the fact that the slides were out for the workers to clean, and they would not operate properly with the slides out... I think the reply was that "we had lots of homework to do", read the manuals. Every time I attempted to ask questions about something, the man would say, " Mr. Rarden, I have a specific pattern that I follow on walkthroughs, please save your questions and notations for when we get to that point"... We never got back to some of them...
They even had to get permission from the service manager to even put down the chipped windshields and counter top problems on the check list... They made me feel like a nit picker for even pointing all this stuff out... And then there was the promise of a whopping $1000.00 refund... And a free spare tire... A mans greed can go along way in helping the pitch man to peddle his wares...
The last thing they did to screw me is that there were so many paint issues (drips, runs, scratches, chips, etc) that they would not itemize on the list, they just put a single sentence.." all paint issues will be resolved"...
I actually called one of Dan Gamel RV's other stores and asked them what they would give me for the coach, just to buy it back... They said that there is no actual blue book on the 04's as of yet... But he did say in his opinion, and his offer, was $127,000... So, my assumption is that must be the true value of the coach... I paid $150,000... So, its a $23,000 mistake... Providing that I can still get all the stuff repaired that is messed up... And providing that I have no future major issues down the road...
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