Seems like a hatchet job from someone who has shorted the Winnebago stock. Are there issues, no doubt? However, Winnebago is far from the only manufacturer that has these issues. That article just amplified the nay-sayers on social media, I'd be a lot more respectful if there was some objective-sounding reporting there. The reporter didn't even bother to address some of the glaring disparities from the different sources cited.
Hatchet job or not (aren't all investigative reports hatchet jobs?), this is keeping GD in a very negative spotlight and depressing re-sale values of existing rigs and possibly sales of new rigs though I doubt if GD or anyone would ever confirm that. This isn't much different than Big Truck Big RV's anti-GD rant on flex early this year and the subsequent YT posts by some of the same buyers that he interviewed and are in this article which caused GD to issue their TSB and extend warranties on all their products. But for this to hit national news isn't good for the brand and I'm not sure it's recovered from earlier this year.
But it's hard to ignore statements like:
“The OEMs made a bad mistake. They overbuilt, and they screwed themselves,” Bill Fenech, who cofounded Grand Design in 2012 with his brother, Ron Fenech, and Don Clark...
and worse:
"In a recent
earnings call, Lippert CEO Jason Lippert dismissed the frame failure controversy as “insignificant” and “hardly worth mentioning.” He also pinpointed the issue as “chatter around Grand Design,”...
This last is the worst. If you read the actual earnings call, it blames the consumer for overloading and the poor condition of the roads.
I've used investigative reporting to my benefit in the past. After years of fighting GM/Olds with my 350 diesel I joined a group called "Lemon On Wheels" in the early '80s. They were the pre-internet version of what is going on now. In less than a month, I was invited to appear on Hugh Downs 20/20 in NYC to share my story. A week later, I received an unsolicited check covering ALL expenses I incurred on my Olds but I still couldn't sell or trade it. Soured me on GM since.
To be sure, I was happy that GD had me come out to the factory but the excessive flex signs that I pointed out to the tech that met me and CS should have been repaired but were not. In fact, it warranted dropping the filon and replacing broken trim screws, un-rippling decals and resetting filon trim pulled away from the siding which they did not do so who knows what they didn't see that they should have. The two primary reasons for the visit were upper deck flex TSB and complete inspection of the suspension. Their suspension inspection consisted of 'all the wet bolts took grease'. Why it's been in a Lippert shop for three months because the frame delivered to GD was the problem but their techs should have caught it.
