This thread and some of the other complaint threads are slowly turning into the dumpster fire that overtook the Tacoma world thread. Look we get it, there are problems, whether it is hinges, rust, leaks, customer service, etc. Everyone that bought into the GFC with their deposit was probably smart enough to do some research. Hopefully everyone realized it was a brand new product with ongoing improvements. It appeared to be a race for market share when the wedge campers were first releasing so there probably wasn’t much time for any more additional testing.
With that being said, from what I can gather it seems like the majority of issues with campers in the wild are being solved, with a few outliers of course. I’m all for customer feedback and airing out issues, but this thread is literally turning into mob mentality. People that don’t even have their camper yet, or any of the issues in question are trying to stoke the fire. That doesn’t help the situation.
Instead of bitching into the void about known issues currently being worked on, how about you give them time to fix it. You know what doesn’t help speed things along? When customer service has to respond to the same question or complaint over and over again.
I’m not saying don’t voice your complaints, I’m saying what is the point in beating a dead horse, if anything it is slowly them down.
I’ve had my fair share of issues: pull bar completely rusted shut, delayed replacement, leaks, wrong tent replacement, delayed orders, etc. This caused me to miss trips, but guess what, I accepted that I bought into new product, adapted, and turned some wrenches to make intermediate solutions. Didn’t we all get trucks to use, abuse, and work on?
I agree with 90% of your post, but not all of us got a truck to consistently work on (and fix all the time). If I wanted to be working on my truck all the damn time I wouldn’t have bought a Tacoma in all seriousness I agree with your post as a whole, but those who have had trips get “ruined” have every right to complain after dishing out thousands of dollars. Not all of us like being the “handy man” when we have to be, but rather when we want to be.
Personally, I feel what has been aired is completely reasonable. It is necessary for the consumer to voice their concerns and frustrations. It is important for GFC to feel some pain because of it. This is how we all move while hoping for improvement. I have zero issue with proving someone wrong if they aren’t fessing up to the significance. I am thankful as a future owner of this product there has been some owners who care enough to speak up because this help institute change which will ultimately benefit us all.
I’ll try again, more briefly. Also, the “dead horse” comment is wide of the mark in some respects. GFC hasn’t even notified some customers that there’s a horse to beat.
Of the reported problems, door hinge failure is the only one that rises to the level of a safety issue. Safety issues in any industry typically include notification sent to the affected customers as soon as possible, even if the notification only includes a warning to stop using the product until a solution is created. This has not been done. At this point, no customer in the affected 100 or so group should be unaware of the potential for hinge failure. Telling those customers to inspect their hinges is literally the least GFC could do.
“Communication” is too broadly used here. One-on-one emails are getting quick responses, and good on GFC for keeping up on those. On the other hand, the lack of any blog posts on the GFC website or issuance of a newsletter helps no one. It also makes more work for those that are working hard to keep up with all of those email requests because people can’t easily find information any other way. I want Mike and the rest of the staff to have time to do their best work, not be swamped doing the tedious job of answering the same type of emails over and over.
We all want GFC to continue succeeding in a crowded market. If we didn’t believe in the longevity of the company and their products, I doubt we would’ve become customers. All of this can be fixed, and the company appears to have the problem in hand. Let’s get the word out and move on.
This thread has stayed reasonable. The TW thread is a mess partially because of conduct by people that are friends, customers or representatives of a rival company. It reflects poorly on that company.
Those of us that were early adapters had every right to expect a functional if less refined product. Hinge failure makes the product not functional and a safety hazard.
The hinge failure rate is >10% of the first ~60 units based on first hand reports online. It is >5% if we count the first ~100 units.
They don’t have time to fix this. There are people that needed help yesterday. These products are bolted on to vehicles. If a failure occurs and you don’t have tape or tools, the vehicle becomes inoperable.
GFC thinks they have a fix, which is great. The crux is getting that fix to customers in a timely manner. The fix is not much good if it cannot be rolled out to those that need it when they need it. Even better would be to warn and fix before failure. This isn’t a normal product that can just be shipped off easily for warranty. There are ~100 built that need a fix, minus however many were already resealed under warranty.
As a manufacturer I think they need a better plan than the customer driving X hours to drop off, or meeting a delivery run at a time convenient to GFC. This could be weeks, and weeks is a long time with a potential safety hazard bolted on a vehicle. What about that inconvenience to the customer having a safety hazard on their vehicle?
Unbolting a gfc and storing it is not easy, this isn’t a product that can just be put on a shelf in the closet while waiting for repair. Not everyone has space to store one.
@han makes very good points in general, and specifically about a newsletter for mass communication. This could save time answering emails. They sure have time to make social media posts about how strong the campers are.
I personally had two hinges fail on a trip. I replaced them with parts shipped by GFC as a temporary fix. I canceled a different trip to do the repair. I will need a permanent fix in the future and will ship the camper back for that. Currently I am too scared to open my remaining original hinge.
Maybe GFC should have a full time office person dedicated solely to answering the phone, responding to emails, coordinating deliveries and pickups, handling and resolving complaints,etc… It seems that at times there are different people handling correspondence and things get mixed up and confusing. Having just one person to deal with would enable you to establish accountability and form a relationship.
I may be wrong but it appears that the owners and the most critical employees are wearing too many hats. Perhaps the office person should be just that and stay out of the shop. With 800+ orders GFC should be able to afford an office manager.
I definitely get the beat the dead horse for those that pre-ordered and were on the 2 TW threads that slowly went to crap. This has definitely been more reasonable and civil to say the least. That said this is, in all respect, a safety issue. If you have a hinge failure on the highway and the panel flies off and hits someone, GFC could be liable in the eyes of a court of law. We did not sign an agreement about the product, didn’t sign a warranty, hell I don’t even remember there being talk about a warranty time frame or what is and isn’t covered; I personally did not even get an invoice until my camper was in my hands and it was basically a BOM, not an invoice.
I haven’t had a failure, but I would be lying if I didn’t check the hinges out every so often when I am using the panels for signs of initial failure. The only reason I got the new style is because it shipped with the wrong color and I drove 6 hours round trip to find out it wasn’t what I ordered and when they fixed it they offered to upgrade the seals and hinges if I waited another month; at that point I was supposed to have it delivered by August and ended up getting it Feb the next year. Things like that seem to have since been fixed. This is just one of the few original issues that have yet to be 100% fixed. I’m sure they’re working on it as they worked on getting production capacity up to line, but they don’t have 6 months of time and patience if they intend to stay in industry long term.
On top of that they compare to OEM auto companies which have warranty costs, TSB’s and recalls; I think what everyone here is saying is to put out an official TSB and recall those whom may be affected and that has yet to happen. This is all critique for GFC, not trashing them. They make a great product; I love mine; I get questions about it on my truck all the time; functionally it is everything I hoped it would be and more. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be reiterated to be better in the future, and that doesn’t mean my experience couldn’t have been better from the get go.
The letter today from ‘engineering’ is definitely on the right track! Sounds like they’re listening to us. Now I just hope that they can get the ‘repair truck’ up and running in a reasonable amount of time.
I’m not sure I should post what Mike sent me as a personal email. Basically it was a cut and paste from some of the discussions here about why the hinges are failing. And then saying they’re working on a mobile repair unit - and will take care of us. Basically, admitting to the problem, owning it, and saying they’re committed to making it right. Best correspondence I’ve seen in a while. I just hope their time frame is before my other 2 hinges fail. The one that’s cracking is taped closed and I’m not opening that panel.
People always ask what is on my truck. The next question is invariably if I like the camper. Until the issues my answer was unequivocally yes. Now my honest answer is that I liked it until the doors fell off. I want to get to the point I can answer yes again to the question of “Do you like your camper?”
We will be working on rolling out the mobile repair tour for those affected by the hinges and those with the potential to be affected by it! I plan on doing some customer meet ups, and even smaller repairs or fixes for those with less serious issues. I do not have an ETA on the program but can say I plan to work vigorously to get the tooling and procedures worked out int he weeks following the Thanksgiving holiday. Once we have an ETA I will set up a route along which customers can come out and have their campers repaired, hang out with other customers, and voice in person complaints/recommendations/etc. This will also allow other non-customers to come out and see the product and talk with all of you. Once I have the tooling/procedures and routes planned I will be reaching out to everyone individually and en mass as well. I will of course not have unlimited resources on these routes so we may do multiple tours that overlap in certain areas as I am also aware that just because we will be there does not mean you will.
As for the communication issues we have been having, we plan on (I have been in discussions with Graeme) doing a quarterly news letter and doing more mass communications with those who may have potential warranty issues.
For the communication with GFC itself, we have had a lot of turn over in CS and sales. We now have 2 new people in CS/Sales who are helping tremendously. Of course we still are very small and very young and I think some of you may severely underestimate how much phone and email traffic we receive. We could not have just one person dealing with all of this. As we start to fill the positions more people will be directly dealing with only one line of communication. I will be the sole contact for warranty and technical sales and Mike B and Taylor will be settling into their positions and setting their own lanes once we have the bandwidth to do so. This means a different phone solution, better/less confusing email traffic and quick response times. I have also trained a new driver who will be taking over WG so I will be better able to communicate with you all here, over emails and on the phone about your warrant issues, or just general issues. I will be doing a lot more forum posting, including a newly revamped warranty policy so there can no longer be any questions as it is somewhat vague now. Stay tuned and know that I speak for everyone when we say we appreciate your patience. We did not expect to blow up so fast and these issues take time to solve but now that we have a more clear heading we should be able to better serve you all here soon!
For any typos I apologize. Typing in the passenger seat is quite difficult.
I can say that we are slowly testing the adhesive solution, which I did cover in this thread already. We will not switch from rivets to adhesive without testing it but do expect the adhesive solution to yield a better platform for the hinge and cause less stress than the rivets. We have the adhesive on Wiley’s Tacoma simply for testing as we drive it hard.
Thanks for the communication on this matter and working so hard to continuously improve. I am excited to see what kind of repairs will be made in the field as I am one of the potentially affected. I am sure you all will come up with an efficient and effective method.
Will other “warranty repairs/upgrades” be available as well? Like Gen 2 tent fabric fr us Gen 1 users? Cross tubes? etc?
I’m glad to see something is happening now to resolve these problems. It seems like this should’ve happened months ago, rather than responding reactively to us lighting a fire about it. It always feels like we have to raise hell in order for something to be done. But, better late than never and this restores some confidence.
All of that will be something I will work on the next few weeks to see what all I can support at a time. The gen 2 fabric is an upgrade technically so that has to be purchased, unless you need it to be repaired in which case we can do that at our facility. Tubes may not be an issue, we will just have to see what kind of mobile set up we can create.
This is something I will have to look into. I was not aware we had any other campers, aside from Wiley’s in the wild without rivets (kind of exciting, and I may have jumped the gun since I ave been away from the shop for some 4 weeks now). We do anticipate the adhesive working out very well, as it seats the hinge more flatly against the panel. Of course I would be more than happy to swing by your area and check up on it during the tour!
We did not have the bandwidth to do anything with our paltry number of employees and the fact that everyone is working a million hours of over time as it is. This is actually something we have been working on for a while, and I have said as much more than once, but it was just not something we could support until now.
in all seriousness I agree with your post as a whole, but those who have had trips get “ruined” have every right to complain after dishing out thousands of dollars. Not all of us like being the “handy man” when we have to be, but rather when we want to be.