Disappointed with the Z1

Floowid · 08-29-2013, 07:56 AM

If this is too long to read, my new Crossroads is a poorly made, mass produced, low quality piece of junk. Stay away if you can.
I bought a new 2014 Crossroads Z1 251TD from a local dealer here in Salt Lake City, Utah in February of this year. I took delivery in March, and took it on its first trip at the end of June into the 4th of July weekend. It was then with the dealer in their shop from July 8th to August 28th. Here is how our first trip with the Crossroads RV went.

Before we even pulled out of the drive, the paneling inside driver side bedroom had pulled away from floor to ceiling. I could see where most of the staples completely missed or blew through, and the tape was all that was holding it.

The microwave overheated and shut itself down the first time we used it. It became dangerously hot to the touch on the number pad and did not cook what was inside, so we unplugged it for the rest of the trip.

Our model has the triple bunk in the back. The middle bunk collapsed and fell onto the bottom bunk - under the weight of our 11 year old 80 pound son. Thank God the other son was on the top bunk, and not the bottom when it happened.

The awning had a splice in the mounting channel/bracket directly centered over the door. The splice was very poorly done and the resulting hole acted as a funnel for water to pour onto anyone entering or exiting while it was raining. The funny thing here is that the awning mount has 8 - 10 feet of unused length toward the back of the trailer. Why do that and then splice together the part that is actually holding the awning? And if you ARE going to do that, take the time to make the splice look seamless, and barring that, functional.

Not one screw in the interior was screwed in straight. Most are already stripped. It was missing screws for the bracket that locks a drawer in place on two drawers. No evidence that they even tried to put a screw in.

The wood work on the benches was atrocious. There were gaps of up to 1/4 inch in places where the wood pieces should butt up against each other tightly. Panels were cut short around the kick panels.

I am disappointed with the overall care and quality used in assembling this RV. I hope I got a bad one, and that this is not indicative of Crossroads in general. It does not help my mood any that my dealer had my new RV for two months and only fixed about half of what is broken. I maintain that I bought a BRAND NEW RV, in my mind my brand new RV should not require a whole bunch of repair.

Please do not delete this post, I think more customers like me could have been helped seeing a post like this.

**mark5w** · 08-29-2013, 08:09 AM

Did you contact Crossroads to complain and ask for their assistance?? Probably a good place to start. BBB would be next, attorney general of your state, finally a lawyer. Good luck. Hope you can get this mess straighten out.

socoguy · 08-29-2013, 08:21 AM

Unfortunatly you will find simular reports here. That does not solve your problems. Contact CR see if they can advise another service center other than your uncooperative dealer. You would be wise to fix what you can youself. Stay on thier case you only have a one year warranty. If you do not get some immediate help you may want to start to follow Mark5w's advice good luck sorry for your troubles.

Schabtod · 08-29-2013, 08:21 AM

Wow, so sorry to hear of all the troubles. We own a Z-1 301bh and it has been the best rv we have ever owned.

Thru the years, we have owned a Fleetwood, 2 Forest River trailers and a couple of pop-ups.
Our Z-1 has been the best quality and most comfortable trailer to date.

I think your unit may be a fluke. Get with Crossroads immediately and demand a solution to your problems.

You clearly deserve better and I wish you the best.

anaro · 08-29-2013, 11:48 AM

wow. I have to ask, didn't you see any of the wood issues in the pdi? I don't think I would have accepted delivery at that point.But you have the rig now so lets address the issues at hand. Contact crossroads immediately (look for some recent posts for who to contact). start keeping track of dates, times and content of conversations. Paper trails are very important. See if they can take your rig back to the factory and make it new again for you. Crossroads can and has arranged for pickup and delivery to you at no cost to you in cases of really bad screw ups. one thing to note, crossroads is in a little bit of turmoil right now as soe of the higher ups are no longer working for crossroads. Don't sit on anything and bypass your dealer now. this is your trailer and you deserve to have this made right. good luck and please Keep us updated on how this works out. oh and don't worry about them deleting this post, they don't even delete or ban spammers around here.

Z1 owner · 08-29-2013, 02:31 PM

Wow, I had similar issues. I never got my PDI so I had to learn everything myself from as video. Issues I had when I took delivery: Stripped doorknob on bathroom door that I fixed myself, Heater never lit, Dealer fixed., Heater vents/registers where on crooked and screws not fully tightened, also the duct tape was never put on right I reapplied it and reset the vents myself. I also still cannot use 30 amp service as it blows the fuse in every park with just the AC on. other issues but I have a list for my 6 month visit in September.

Floowid · 08-30-2013, 09:04 AM

I didn't even know what a PDI was. Neither did they. The kid they had doing it knew less about the unit than I did. Very little if any prep work was done by the dealer before we got it. Part of the problem is we bought it at one of these huge RV shows, and the unit we saw at the show looked pretty good. The things we have had go wrong are not the sorts of things you can look at and spot in a 30 minute walk through.

We are going to try to make the best of it. We have our trailer, and it appears that any and all repairs and maintenance will be up to me from here on out. I don't trust the dealer to help me out at this point, and I don't have a lot of faith in Crossroads either.

We have learned a very expensive lesson. But we are going to make the proverbial lemonade, and try to get a few years of happy family camping in. Probably sell it after 3 or so years for whatever we can get, and upgrade to a fifth wheel. Not made by Crossroads (or it's parent companies) and not purchased from MSL in SLC.

Kagex · 08-30-2013, 12:56 PM

Anaro can you add some furthur detail to what you said regarding CR in turmoil with some higher ups no longer with the company? What is going on and how did you get this information?

anaro · 08-30-2013, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kagex

Anaro can you add some furthur detail to what you said regarding CR in turmoil with some higher ups no longer with the company? What is going on and how did you get this information?Â*

Both Don emahiser and tom Montague are no longer working for crossroads. here is the thread talking about it.Edited by: anaro

anaro · 08-30-2013, 03:20 PM

Floowid, have you talked to crossroads directly or just thru your dealer?It sounds like you have one of the very bad dealers. You still have a warranty and it needs to be honored either thru another dealership or thru the factory.I encourage you to try to contact crossroads before giving up entirely on them. Yes you have learned an expensive lesson, one you will never forget. I'm glad you are trying to turn your lemon trailer into a lemonade unit. You might need to add a lit of sugar to it though.

best of luck.

BourbonRam · 09-02-2013, 01:28 AM

X2 what anaro says.
I have a 2013 Z1 that had some initial issues. Most where taken care of by my dealer and some I took care of. Overall I am pleased with my Z1. It has been virtually trouble free. I also bought mine from a big show but I got the same one from the show. I hope you get taken care of and can enjoy your Z1 as I have.

Antares · 09-03-2013, 05:12 AM

My 251BH has some issues as well, the main one being a bent axle that was sold to me that way. The stealer has currently had it for 8 weeks for warranty repair, and can't even give me an estimate as to when it might be finished. I can't imagine it took the factory this long to build the damn thing in the first place, so I don't understand what the deal is with these half-rate service departments.

dminer04 · 09-09-2013, 05:51 AM

Call Bill Hodge in customer service. I also had a bad dealer
and Bill helped me find one that truly cared. My 2013 Sunset Trailer is now
doing fantastic and I no longer have that feeling of impending doom when we go
on trips. Good luck

Z1 owner · 10-21-2013, 08:27 PM

I have had positive dealings with Crossroads directly, its the dealership I had issues with the most. I currently have it in the "shop" for a number of warranty issues so this IS their LAST shot at keeping me as a customer. I have two dealerships literally around the corner from me but they are ALWAYS booked solid butI will wait if need be to keep the business away from CW if I have too.

Z1 owner · 02-04-2014, 09:47 PM

Hmm, I was skimming through these old posts and realized that Crossroads has failed me big time since the last time I posted this. These guys are so fast to take your money and then ignore you, ( yeah I said that CROSSROADS ) I was completely ignored by them on a serious design flaw and because of that I have decided to look at other manufacturers for my next RV. The wife and I are so happy being in the fresh air and different places during the summer that we decided to get a bigger one to fit our large family and were wondering what other RV builders out there are top picks? Forget you CR!

mwebber78 · 02-05-2014, 04:47 PM

Love the two year warranty on my Jayco, large dealer network, and being able to reach a warranty representative on any given business day. I appreciate the construction and robust structure.

Z1 owner · 02-05-2014, 10:29 PM

Jayco, I'll have to look into it.

mdk1982 · 02-06-2014, 11:08 AM

When shopping for a new camper, it is also very important, if not more important, to shop for a good dealership. We have had nothing but positive dealings with CR for warranty work. That being said it was our dealer that did all the work in contacting CR, emailing images of the problems and got approval with no hesitations. Our PDI was thorough and as far as PDI's go that is with the dealership, CR has no control over that. We left the PDI with no questions. Now that we have a grt dealership will we buy our next camper there. Brand of camper depends on what they are selling when we are ready to trade up. BTW our dealer is in Davenport IA and only about 1 hour from where we live. Thompson Family RV and they treat all of their customers like family.

longhauler · 02-06-2014, 11:31 AM

We have owned a Jayco I think it was 31BHDS, we liked it. We had a couple small issues with it, but nothing major. We were actually planning to buy another Jayco after this one got crashed, but we ran across the Cruiser that the same dealer had.

Z1 owner · 02-06-2014, 01:51 PM

well, CR was very attentive in the beginning until I discovered a design flaw and brought it to their attention. I was assured it would be fixed when it was in for warranty work and much to my dismay was then told it would not be covered. it was a simple issue that would have taken a few hours to fix and would have gone a longggg way towards customer service and locked my family in as a customer for life. apparently CR has a greed problem and is only looking at the current bottom line which is very annoying when I paid so much for a brand new TT. I would have even settled for meeting me half way.....but I got crickets whith every email and phone call I made or sent. Great customer service CR!

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