2008 P***port 280BHS Love Hate Relationship

[SlayeR]

Wife and I just bought our first travel trailer, fell in love with it, picked it up 3 days after looking at it. We headed home and loaded our stuff and off we went about 20 miles from home for our first voyage. 4 days of play with the kids and what I thought were minor issues. I called the dealer (Deans RV in Tulsa, Ok.) who are awesome by the way and let them know that the shower head would not turn off all the way, the lock on one of the windows was broken, the light on the front of the trailer worked when it wanted to and a screw was stripped in the ceiling holding one of the privacy curtains.

This sounds very simple and should have been, until it came to the lock.... 3 weeks later, first payment made, window arrives.......yes I said window, not lock.....Someone please explain to me why a .50 part requires a new window that was on back order. :eek:

Pretty sad that the dealership has owned our travel trailer longer than we have. Heres the real kick in the pants...........

We just went on another short voyage about 15 miles away and guess what........ trim piece is falling off the ceiling above our bed, trim piece in the front storage is warped and pulled from the wall and the kitchen faucet is dripping from its internal components.

The other bad thing is we live 45 miles from the dealer.............and well with gas prices..........I dont have to say anything else.........

I am very unhappy with the quality of the keystone trailer as we had looked at the keystone outback in the past and loved it. I am not sure who allows some of these items to leave the manufacturer or better yet, who came up with the idea to use little staples on subpar panel boards and trim instead of staples and glue.

QUALITY CONTROL instead of THROWING THEM OUT THE DOOR would make them a lot more money as their customers would be VERY happy and as we all know word of mouth is better than any type of marketing campaign that they could put together.

I really hope that Keystone does not start playing the warranty games that I have been reading about, as this will create a monster within me. I work from home and HAVE ALOT OF TIME to burn up their phone lines!

[jgfernald]

I just have to wade in here. I've owned my Passport now for several months, and in the midst of a marathon journey. We live in Virginia, and I'm sitting in the trailer in Yreka, California writing this! There are two guys, and the layout of this trailer, with the queen-sized bed forward and a sofa bed aft, each with a privacy curtain is excellent. We have had no serious problem with the trailer since we left. (We pull it with a Ford F-150 pickup.)

There are a few really good things: the number of ac outlets is excellent. The electric hot water heater means we use only minimal propane; we're still on the first bottle after a full month on the road. The bathroom is good, although if you're not careful and let water leak around the shower curtain, it'll get into the cabinet on the other side of the wall soaking whatever's in there. I caulked all around the tub, and I'm careful now, even putting a sponge down to catch any water, and have had no problem since the first soaking.

Haven't used the propane oven yet because we use a toaster oven most of the time. Speaking about propane: The cover over the two bottles on the front of the trailer is very difficult to remove. The only problem we've got right now is that the distribution valve 'chirps' when using propane from the right side tank. I switched to the left side tank and it doesn't chirp. I'll check with my dealer (Raines RV, Manassas, VA) when I get back at the end of June. There is a slick outdoor two-burner 'range' outside the trailer for those times when we're cooking something 'stinky'. It's great, except that the sadist who designed the place where you hook up the propane hose must be laughing now. You have to get on the ground under the trailer to hook it up. So, if it's raining, or been raining, forget it.

The sinks in the kitchen area are well designed. The left one is big enough for a dinner plate, and the right one is just fine for drip drying.

The forward bulkhead of the trailer is slanted back. Nice for wind resistance, but not so nice if you're sleeping in the forward bed. It's not quite full length, and the slanted bulkhead takes away another few inches. So, I'm 5-8 and I hang over the end. The sofa bed is too short also. Moral to this story: If you're tall, check out the sleeping accomodations before u buy!! It's ok for us, but maybe not for everybody.

There have been no problems since we left Virginia. Several thousand miles of travel, comfortable, pleasant surroundings at the rv campgrounds.

It's a good trailer, generally well designed. We're happy with it. I'll update this entry if/when something bad happens; we've a long ways to go before this journey is finished.

First complaint: Here I am in a Keystone message board and it won't let me write the name of the trailer. It's PASSPORT. What's wrong with that? It's not a dirty word, is it????

[Flyguy]

We have a Passport 280BH and we love it too, when we first bought it the screen door was cut about an inch short in height but the dealer changed it with no problem, he said that the door unit with screen door is manufactured by a common vendor and is installed on the assembly line as a unit so that one wasn't Keystone's fault (although you would think that the final inspection would catch that), the only other issue that we've had was the side panel on the dinette (the one where the outside grill is) must have gotten wet at one time and the panel started to swell and look ugly, rather than take it back to the dealer (who offered to order a new panel even though the unit was now out of the 1 year warranty period) I decided to take the panel off myself and make a new one which I did from 1/2" oak plywood. It was easy to do and I stained it to match (MinWax Classic Oak), after looking at the material that the original panel was made from I decided to replace the one on the other side also. I also changed out the gas regulator assembly from the Marshall 290 type that was OEM to the marshall 250 type that has the auto changeover valve (my old trailer had this so I just had to change it out). You can do as I've done with the Propane cover, change it out to the Camco cover that has access holes with covers on the top so you do not have to remove the whole cover just to open or close a gas valve, works great. On the bed issue, most all of the manufactures call that a "Queen Short" bed at 60 X 75 (full is 60 X 80), we just use a full foam mattress and let it hang off the end the extra 5",s.

[matt]

I have a 08 that I purchased in 07. This is a nicely laid lout trailer, but god help you when something breaks. Keystone is horrible and will send the wrong items, deny claims, or lie to you. Keystone cuts corners and uses substandard materials. I will never buy another Keystone product again.