First Repair on A New Outback

[Bob Landry]

Picked up my new 277RL Friday, spent the night in a CG close to the dealer and pulled it home Saturday. (150 miles) When I got home, and went inside, one of the kitchen counter drawers was hangign out at sort of an angle and wouldn't close. I went out today to see what the problem was and found that the glide rail support for one of the drawers had broken loose. Keystone had used 1/8" luan for backing materials and put wood screws into it far enough to strip. The luan split on one side and that side's drawer glide dropped down. I pulled the broken parts out of the cabinet and took them home. A couple of hours later, everything is repaired and ready to put back in and it's much stronger than when it left the factory. I pulled the other drawer glides out and beefed them up as well, since I had to do one anyway. And while I was at it, I went ahead and added dividers to DW's silverware drawer.

I can't say that I'm upset with Keystone or disgruntled with the unit because I understand how production works. They are like any other production facility in that a 3% failure rate is acceptable and they make up for that by not shutting down an assembly line because some unskilled worker over drove a screw and split a piece of wood. It's possible that you don't run into things like that in the high end trailers, but somehow I doubt it. I ran into the same thing with my Jayco, and didn't mind fixing stuff like that. In fact, it was stronge rwhen I sold it than when it was new.I still think the Outback is a nice trailer and the repairs were minor compared to the mods still on my list of things to do and I really do enjoy fixing stuff.

[W.E.BGood]

I'm there with ya, Bob. You got the pull-out drawers under the dinette seats right?...splinter city, and the 4 screws for the little locking latch, do the tips just barely stick-through on the other side so you prick yourself ifn you grab it there? Does your bathroom door close smoothly and the door latch fit at the jamb?
Wood chips and metal shavings?...yea the're everywhere...in the carpet, floor vents, stuck all over in the glue of the rubber seals around the slides, in the back corners of the cabinets?

I guess if they paid somebody to clean all this stuff up and really pay attention to detail, they'd have to charge another thousand or two for 'em. As it is, like you I just cleaned up (detailed) and did the little fix-ups myself as I'm one of those who'd rather do it "right" myself than take it back to the dealer, complain and still have a half-*** job done. JMHO, regards, BGood

p.s. Overall the workmanship and materials are just fine, the price was fair, and the design of our 250RS suited our needs. I have no regrets.

[Bob Landry]

I still have to do a "detail", but I'll do it when DW isn't there getting impatient. I need to get in and behind drawers, partitions, cabinets, vents, and anywhere else there can be an accumalation of construction dirt.
We spent our shakedown time just putting stuff away that we transfered from the old trailer, but now it's house cleaning time. It would have been easier empty, but that wasn't going to happen. I'm sure when I start removing panels and installing my goodies, I'm going to find a real mess. I didn't even get to look in the dinette drawers. Do I need to go out with some sandpaper? LOL

[W.E.BGood]

A that's a big 10-4 on the 120 to 180 grit on all of the edges and corners, but watch those little screw pointy-thingies I mentioned, they'll shred the sandpaper. My plan is to most likely pull out the dinette and haul in recliners for the DW and I.

[Bob Landry]

I run into the same thing with a lot of the boats that I work on. The builders buy hardware in one size in quantity because it's cheap and use it for everything regrdless if it's right for the application or not. I'll check my trailer and anything that presents a scratch hazard will get replaced with the correct items. That's the difference in a finished lookng product.