Three times in the last month, we’ve seen it happen. RV Owners with bad RV’s who tried to work out a settlement with the factory, only to be strung along for weeks and sometimes months, with the factory hoping the owner will just get wore out, give up, or not get to a lawyer in time to do anything about their bad RV.
In one case the owner had been through 10 months of repair attempts and more defects kept popping up. With the usual one year warranty, the owner was worried and started calling the factory warranty department. After a week of phone tag, he got someone on the phone but they wanted details and he didn’t have all his repair papers so the factory rep asked him to call back when he did. More lost time, but when he called the factory again, he got more phone tag. Then the rep was off and they promised he’d call back. More lost time. Then the owner had to explain it all over again. He just wanted everything fixed and maybe a little of his money back. And that’s when the “would ya, could ya” started with polite back and forth talks dragging on, just to get the factory to agree to fix some of his problems. Then negotiations over the money started. That took more back and forth would ya, could ya time. And just when the owner thought he was almost done, the factory said they couldn’t get the RV in the shop until four months out. More would ya, could ya whittled it down to 3 ½ months. And when the Rv finally came back, some stuff was fixed, some not, and new problems existed. Disgusted, he called a lawyer. That’s when he found out he was stuck. He had waited too long to actually file a claim and the time had already run out because there was a small sentence in his warranty saying he had to file a claim within 90 days of his warranty expiring.
The same thing happened with a Florida owner and a California owner who each thought they still had time to file a claim because lawyers in their states told them there was a local law that wouldn’t allow the normal time to file a claim to be reduced. That was when we had to tell them to look for another small sentence in their warranty that says Indiana law is what applies to their warranty and not the law of the state where they live and bought their new Rv. Why do Rv companies put that in there? Because Indiana law allows them to severely limit the time you have to file a claim against them. We’ve seen it happen. Sometimes there is a way around it but sometimes not.
And if the factory drags you out for weeks with their would ya, could ya stall and delay, they can eat up what little time you may have left to file a claim. And the next thing you know, you are stuck. And they have ripped you off of your warranty rights and they know it.
Moral of the story? Don’t wait. As soon as you think there’s a problem, call an Rv Lemon Law lawyer so you get the truth on what your rights are — and when your rights expire. Why? Because life is too short to put up with a bad Rv.
And what Rv companies cut short your legal rights so you can avoid them? Airstream, Keystone, Thor, Winnebago, DRV, Dutchmen, Forest River, Dynamax, Heartland, Jayco and Tiffin, just to name a few. Some of them only give you 30 days after your warranty expires, so watch out.
