Well our slide motor busted again.

[work2much]

So that makes 4 times in our 2006 AF 1150.

I contacted Northwoods this time in Alaska and after waiting for a return call and they seems unconcerned to say the least. I had to call back a couple times to talk to anyone and was told to contact a retail dealer for service
Only one dealer in Alaska all the way across the state but we called them to drop ship for us a new motor.

A stark contrast from when we bought our camper when Ron Nash got on the phone personally to talk to me on a sunday in our campground and help me through the exact same problem of the slide motor failing. The same motor failure then with a broken plastic gear...Over the years I have held Ron and his concern for his company as a reason to buy a Arctic Fox. What company has a owner talk to you in a campground to make sure you get home? A great one.

Fast forward to now.

I can replace these bad slide motors. I just needed one. In Alaska. From Arctic Fox. Northwoods basically told me to pound salt.

So eventually I got a price from a dealer in Alaska that didn't return my calls all day. 850 bucks ups ground.

So we will not pay that for an 12v electric motor.

I manually crank our slide now. And looking for a new TC.

I understand that Ron Nash is no longer at the helm as he has had a stroke. . That high level of service he delivered to me will be his legacy.

My best wishes to Ron.

[Badog]

I am dealing with a failed magnetic lock on a Power Gear slide motor. The company will not sell a replacement part even though based on the design it is a failure point. the original owner of the MH had to pull the motor because the "manual override" for the lock did not work either. Based on the design it is no wonder. I was able to modify the manual override so it actually works and rather than spend $700.00 for a new motor assembly I will lock it manually. It is sad how poor customer service is and how poorly products are designed in the RV industry. That is why I tell non-mechanical people to stay away from RVing unless they have a good cheap mechanic or a good mechanical friend.
On the bright side the previous owner knocked several thousand off the price do to the defective motor. It probably would have cost them over $2K to have the motor replaced at the dealership.

[work2much]

SidecarFlip wrote:

MORSNOW wrote:

mkirsch wrote:
I think the $859 has a lot to do with it being Alaska, being the only dealer in the entire state with the part, and the next closest part being thousands of miles away.

They wouldn't do that....would they? Welcome to Alaska where everything has a freight markup, I was surprised they even had one in stock. Shops don't stock much here, but will gladly order whatever you want, with massive freight charges added of course.

Our friends are up there Alaska all summer with their TC and we converse back and forth (when they have Internet service and I asked them if they saw a Walmart Truck yet. Their answer was no.

Everything costs more in Alaska because the transportation cost is very high

Booze certainly is, especially spirits. Almost twice the cost compared to California. High tax on liquor in AK

[SidecarFlip]

MORSNOW wrote:

mkirsch wrote:
I think the $859 has a lot to do with it being Alaska, being the only dealer in the entire state with the part, and the next closest part being thousands of miles away.

They wouldn't do that....would they? Welcome to Alaska where everything has a freight markup, I was surprised they even had one in stock. Shops don't stock much here, but will gladly order whatever you want, with massive freight charges added of course.

Our friends are up there Alaska all summer with their TC and we converse back and forth (when they have Internet service and I asked them if they saw a Walmart Truck yet. Their answer was no.

Everything costs more in Alaska because the transportation cost is very high

[MORSNOW]

mkirsch wrote:
I think the $859 has a lot to do with it being Alaska, being the only dealer in the entire state with the part, and the next closest part being thousands of miles away.

They wouldn't do that....would they? Welcome to Alaska where everything has a freight markup, I was surprised they even had one in stock. Shops don't stock much here, but will gladly order whatever you want, with massive freight charges added of course.

[work2much]

towpro wrote:
google Powergear Slide Motor Parts..
first page shows gears for $100. motors for $500. one for $468 looks like the older arctic fox model with the big leaver on the back of motor.

Here is a paper that shows power gear motor identification information. including a cross reference

part numbers for replacement gears.

I don't know exactly what you need, but it might be available. I can't see power gear using a different motor in different RV manufacturers.
also check Ebay

Thanks!

[towpro]

google Powergear Slide Motor Parts..
first page shows gears for $100. motors for $500. one for $468 looks like the older arctic fox model with the big leaver on the back of motor.

Here is a paper that shows power gear motor identification information. including a cross reference

part numbers for replacement gears.

I don't know exactly what you need, but it might be available. I can't see power gear using a different motor in different RV manufacturers.
also check Ebay

[SidecarFlip]

LCI is buying up everything ancillary to RV's. Been my personal experience that LCI is also of questionable quality ie: Furrion and LCI Frames. Inc. Lippert also acquired HappyJac. Lets hope they don't buy Torklift.

[Bedlam]

Lippert owns Schwintek and Powergear

[mkirsch]

I think the $859 has a lot to do with it being Alaska, being the only dealer in the entire state with the part, and the next closest part being thousands of miles away.

[work2much]

GeoBoy wrote:
Doesn't Power Gear sell parts for their slide mechanism? Can you get a parts breakdown of the gearbox and buy the parts or just the gearbox? You don't need the motor if a gear is broken.

I was told by the dealer trying to sell the replacement motor that the motor was from Lippert. Probably made by someone else for them, I am guessing. Maybe that's power gear. Doing some searches on the road, not sure. In a couple months we will be back home for a couple weeks to visit family. I will pull the motor and do a better search for the gear. The camper will be much easier to sell if the slide works.

On the way home through Oregon we are going to stop at HOST and take a look at and possibly ordering a new camper. The timing may work out where we can order, take our time getting home and pick up the new camper heading south for the winter. (with a minor detour of 8 hours north)

[GeoBoy]

Doesn't Power Gear sell parts for their slide mechanism? Can you get a parts breakdown of the gearbox and buy the parts or just the gearbox? You don't need the motor if a gear is broken.

[work2much]

SidecarFlip wrote:
If consumer-end users only knew what components actually cost to make, they'd probably have a coronary.

I always use the tie rod end example. It costs to manufacture tie rod ends for Ford 350 pickup trucks about 25 cents each or 50 cents a pair and most of them are made in Portland Michigan at Dana corp. been there many times.

Anyway, when you buy them retail, they don't cost 50 cents a pair, more like 50 bucks a pair, even at a 'discount' auto parts store. The difference is called 'Markup'. Each time thos parts change hands, the next party mars up the cost. So, from Dana to their distributor they get marked up. From the distributor to a dealer warehouse...they get marked up again and then again when the dealer or auto parts store sells them to you.

I'm sure you get the idea and why it's to your advantage to back source parts.

On most everything there is no comparison between manufacturing cost and retail cost, at all.

859 bucks may sound outrageous but, if the market will bear that cost, it's to the dealer's advantage to sell them for that. All about making money. How business works.

I understand mark-up. I used to manage an purchase/price for a retail store. Normally a store likes to see a keystone mark-up so if they pay a dollar they sell for 2. My issue is that this camper was not sold with nor ever had the right motor. The first time it broke a plastic gear failed. When AF sent me a replacement motor under warranty I was told it would have all metal gears and should last the lifetime of the camper. They admitted that they were having problems with the plastic gears breaking. I didn't open the motor then to verify, just took them at their word.

When I called AF I was told that he had never seen plastic gears in the motors and maybe that's true now. For me though my replacement motor supposedly having all metal gears had a plastic one which broke the same as the first. Although our camper is 11 years old it only recently has been used much at all. We have maybe 250 nights in this camper 95% of which in the last 8 months.

Still, the warranty is over and in the end I never did get the right slide motor as part of my purchase price. I am willing to pay for the new motor but I don't think paying motor manufacturer mark-up/AF Mark-up/dealer mark-up seems necessary to fix something that has never been right. The least they could do is cut out AF markup and Dealer mark-up and have the motor manufacturer send me one direct. I never have issues paying for my own mistakes. Paying for others mistakes/defects doesn't float my boat so much..

In any case, no need to cry over spilled milk. Bottom line is that I can still open and close the slide and use our camper. Things could be a lot worse...

[SidecarFlip]

If consumer-end users only knew what components actually cost to make, they'd probably have a coronary.

I always use the tie rod end example. It costs to manufacture tie rod ends for Ford 350 pickup trucks about 25 cents each or 50 cents a pair and most of them are made in Portland Michigan at Dana corp. been there many times.

Anyway, when you buy them retail, they don't cost 50 cents a pair, more like 50 bucks a pair, even at a 'discount' auto parts store. The difference is called 'Markup'. Each time thos parts change hands, the next party mars up the cost. So, from Dana to their distributor they get marked up. From the distributor to a dealer warehouse...they get marked up again and then again when the dealer or auto parts store sells them to you.

I'm sure you get the idea and why it's to your advantage to back source parts.

On most everything there is no comparison between manufacturing cost and retail cost, at all.

859 bucks may sound outrageous but, if the market will bear that cost, it's to the dealer's advantage to sell them for that. All about making money. How business works.

[work2much]

mkirsch wrote:
You can harbor a grudge against a particular company and badmouth them to everyone you know, but in the end all the manufacturers are in the same boat trying to keep the doors open and continually trying to do more with less. Something has to give and the first thing to go is customer service.

One of the reasons we purchased our Arctic Fox was their reputation for customer service and indeed back when Ron Nash was running the company we found that their reputation was well deserved. Now it seems to be different. At least for us. The first time the slide motor broke leaving us stuck (slide wouldn't crank manually) Ron had a tech call us, apologized and sent the part out red label. Now the tech had to be called repeatedly and I was told there was nothing they could do. Quite a change. We weren't expecting anything for free after 10 years. The warranty was over but in light of the fact that we have had the same problems in the past I did expect them to care, even just a little bit and perhaps sell me the motor at cost rather than sending me to a dealer and charge many times over what this motor should cost....

Life is too short to carry a grudge. We will move on.