It has been a shocking time for the North American Class B community, specifically the Erwin Hymer Group North American Family [EHGNA] as rumor and speculation surrounding an internal audit led to the news that Thor Industries purchased the Erwin Hymer EU group [sans NA] which has given way to the sudden dismantling of an entire company as it entered receivership.
My heart goes out to all of those employees who find themselves [suddenly and without adequate explanation] unemployed.
I, along with many others, experienced all of the emotions so artfully depicted by the most expressive emojis that have become a familiar part of our lives.
Still stunned, I set out to find out more about what-that-means-to-owners. We purchased our RV’s under the umbrella of a six-year-no-worries warranty which evaporated overnight. While this is not what we signed up for, it is where we find ourselves and while I am not going to delve into my thoughts on how we got here, I am going to offer a few thoughts on going forward.
Many of the Hymer & Corado owners are first time RVers and feel stranded in the wake of this situation, but we must remember that most of the Roadtrek community are seasoned RVers with many years of experience under their belts. We can take solace in the knowledge that the North American Hymer/Roadtrek family is collectively a super helpful, smart group who will support and help each other and that there are many many geeky-speaky-techo-geeky brains out there can can help problem solve any of our RV issues.
All of the bits-and-pieces that appeared to be Roadtrek/Hymer proprietary systems are actually made up of stock components that are still available. It will take a while for the dealers and service centers to get up to speed on all of this, and it does mean that those of us who thought we had warranties for the RV house parts will have to self pay for service [there’s also other RV service insurance that can be considered, but please read the fine print if you go that route]. If your RV is very new, then many of the components will still have individual warranties by their respective manufacturers. The chassis [engine] has its own warranty which is unaffected by this change.
I have complied a list of service centers that where registered as Roadtrek or Hymer specific prior to this news and thought it might be helpful - especially as the various EHGNA websites have disappeared. I spent the day calling random companies on this list, many of these facilities are still servicing vehicles, they do however require it to be on a pre-pay basis at this point in time. The average hourly diagnostic or labor fee appears to be approximately $150/hr. I would suggest that we try to resolve small issues ourselves or with the help of the various RV model specific social media groups.
If a debilitating issue exists with the lithium Ecotrek batteries, then the manufacturer KS2 will help our dealers order the necessary parts for replacement. Please note they will not sell to the public, only to a dealer. I spoke with Tony today and he is systematically contacting their list of dealers to make arrangements for shipping battery units out - they are based in Canada. It appears at this point that only a handful of dealers have been proactive in ordering batteries to have on hand. [I also have some thoughts percolating on switching out faulty Ecotrek lithiums with entirely new systems, but that will be a conversation for another time.]
I’m sure the community will start creating resource lists and contacts for all of the various components that are used to assemble these RVs. And then there are bound to be some entrepreneurial spirits who will gather together and come up with other solutions going forward.
It helps to remember why we purchased our RVs and to actually keep enjoying them for those very reasons.
Mine is intended to be a stress-relieving-fun-fulfilling-adventure-seeking chariot and so I plan on focusing on that.
Wishing everyone good fortune and hope to see you along the way [smile].
The link for the KS2Corp [lithium battery] website:
ks2corp.com
The link to download the Service Center list is here:
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And you can check out our website here:
CrazyLadyCrankyDog.com
Read my “RV SERVICE GAMBLE“ article [2017]:
CrazyLadyCrankyDog.com/rv-ser...
Browse our Gear Shop here:
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And follow our Insta Glam here:
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Thanks, and enjoy . . . till next time.
#EHGNA #HymerAktiv #Campervan
22 фев 2019
