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Bad Keystone RV (makers of
Raptors)
After about 18 months of ownership the water
tank began falling out of our 2005 Keystone Raptor. I took the
RV to the closest authorized dealer (75 miles away) to see if I they
would repair this obvious manufactures defect The dealer
informed us that the repair would be a little over a thousand dollars,
of which Keystone would pay $300. I spoke with the factory
representative and he informed me that he was "doing me a favor"
and if he wanted to he could "take it away". I spoke with his
supervisor several time and he eventually stepped up to a whopping
$400 of the repair. The dealer (Big Country RV in Redmond,
Oregon) also said they would need to have the trailer for three weeks
for a 10 hour repair! I have included some pictures that show
the obvious defect with the trailer. The bulkhead to hold a 100
gallon water tank was made of flimsy sheet metal connected to the
frame with a few screws! A few screws to hold over 800 lbs!
The angle iron used between the bulkhead was cut back so far that it
effectively became a strap that was in no way strong enough to hold
that kind of weight.
There is no way a water tank should be falling
out of a 18 month old RV.
The next issue was with the tires. While
there was a recall for lots of these tires mine apparently were
"fine". After about 12-15 thousand miles I noticed that all 6 of
the tires had splits in the side and were wearing very unevenly.
Shortly after that I had a blowout. When I went to replace this
tire I decided I couldn't risk the damage that additional blowouts
might cause so I replaced all of the tires. This cost me about
another $600. While I did find numerous warning about these
tires on the DOT web site and others with similar experiences I never
did find an actual recall. These tires were made in China and
are another great example of manufacturers like Keystone using the
cheapest possible product at the expense, and in this case, the safety
of their customers.
My latest issue is with the rear cargo door.
It seals so well you can see light through the top seal. I
haven't even bothered to take this to the dealer. It will take
them a week to tell me that it isn't under warranty and they will
charge me too much to stick some weather stripping on it and take two
weeks to do it.
Save yourself some time and money and don't buy
an RV made by Keystone. These include the following models:
- Raptor
- Big Sky
- Challenger
- Cougar
- Everest
- Fuzion
- Hideout
- Hobbi
- Hornet
- Laredo
- Montana
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- Mountaineer
- NRG
- Outback
- Passport
- Springdale
- Sprinter
- Summerland
- Sydney
- VR1
- X-Lite
- Zeppelin
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