2022 Astoria 2503 REF

[packardfrank]

Took our first trip after a thorough pdi to the Sierras for a short term gig. Auto leveling went haywire, it basically wanted to lift one side completely off the ground, the recliner chair broke the first time we sat in it. The gray and the black tank valves are stuck in the open position. The biggest issue is I called the selling dealer or some advice and was put on hold. Given the runaround I had the owner‘s personal cell number. he returned my call and said someone will get with me they never have ,best RV Center in Turlock California we got put on hold of the service department literally until the line goes dead. This is not a 15 or 20 minute wait this is close to an hour. The last thing I want to do is take the underbelly covering off from underneath to address the valve situation on a brand new coach , the recliner is absolutely the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen and one will recline and one will not. I realize all of these coaches need something out of the gate but the fact that the people that sold me the coccia forgot about us 24 hours after the sale is really disappointing , does anyone have a suggestion? We are working a gig in a very remote location so it would take us at least 4 to 5 hours to get it back to the dealer and then there’s no guarantee they would fix it or I could even get an appointment because I cannot talk to anybody on the phone , we have two days off a week and that would give us barely enough time to pack up drive it to Turlock and then if they were waiting there to fix it, we’d be OK but if there was any delay at all, we would be in a lot of trouble. And appreciate any advice the group may have.

[dsol]

Sorry to hear about all the drama. It seems really strange that the leveling system and valves worked fine during the PDI but broke on your first trip.

Anyway, I would suggest you try a reset on the leveling system which you can google but likely requires some button presses in succession. Also, don’t use the auto level and just use it in manual mode which should allow you to extend the landing gear to level front to back then you can do the rears and finally level side to side.

As far as the repairs go I would suggest you find a mobile RV tech. I have been using one for years in the greater L.A. area and he is good. He is factory authorized and can bill for warranty work on most components. He is not cheap but I think fair and when you factor in the time saved he is a bargain. Plus his ability far exceeds the idiots that build these things and work on them at the dealers. Call Dutchmen and get them to authorize someone other than the dealer. And even if they don’t the money you spend with him still might save you money in the long run just based on the time savings.

Unfortunately, once you take delivery of that trailer and pull it off the lot you are no longer a priority for the dealer and even worse your one year warranty has a clock that started ticking.

Also, your situation is not unique and is actually fairly typical. These rigs are built with lightweight components that get rattled and jolted around on the road and constantly break. The manufacturers keep buying each other up and then find features to add that are more cheaply made than the previous stuff.

I had something go wrong with my rig nearly every time I took it out the first couple of years. Then it was pretty dialed in until components just started wearing out and breaking.

It’s a constant battle with these things but does (usually) get tolerable.

Good luck!

[packardfrank]

Thanks for the advice. The deal with the leveling system is that I ran it at the dealership but did not check it with a bubble level. I did check it at the campsite, saw that it was off level and hit the run button again and then it went wacky