It is not usually part of this blog to rant and rave about problems along the road. However, today we had to again restring a day/night shade. As I am sure most of you have experienced, this is not due to wear and tear but lousy design enhanced by incredibly bad workmanship. They throw these things together without any thought to making smooth holes free of burrs. In fact it almost looks like they go out of their way to ensure they will fail with any level of use.
Winnebago sent out a notice that basically said, knowing that the blinds we have used for years are junk, we are now using a better product and would be glad to install them in your motorhome. When we called for a quote for our coach, they first said they really did not want to install them (too difficult??), but on pressing the point they allowed that they could install all new shades in our coach for a mere $3000 plus.
So that is why we just completed a frustrating three hours plus to restring and improve a blind by doing the quality work that the manufacturer did not do. Hopefully, they will last longer this time. Halley looked a bit concerned as we whined and moaned our way through the work.
This was our fourth blind repair in four years. I just happened to talk with a new neighbor who has been full timing for eight years. He said that he has maybe redone 20 blinds in that period. Yikes- that means that I am doing a lot better than his experience. Notwithstanding that, I still am not happy with this product.
Since so many RV manufactures used these blinds, I cannot but wonder if that is because that was all that was available or maybe because the RV manufacturer chose the cheapest product and decided to let the buyer beware?
8 comments:
looks like a bad day at your house??..I can only imagine!!..as for the $3000?..ouch!!!
I read that re-stringing them with stout fishing line will make them last longer.
Happy Trails, Penny.
Rant on! I agree. I hate those day/night blinds. Nice idea, but poor construction. Yuck! :)
I feel your pain. The day/night shades Winnebago uses are junk indeed. We had to have one restrung on a previous coach before it was 1 yr. old. Two fell apart in our current coach before 18 months old. Too frustrating for me to restring them, so we are replacing them as they break with the new MCD (the ones Winnie now uses) blinds. They are great, but we cannot afford to do them all at once. We are happy for now to just replace as needed. We found a nice place in WA state that did a great job for us. Good luck with all of that re-stringing stuff.
I just happen to have a restringing package I bought last spring because one of our blinds needs to be fixed. I've been putting it off for the exact same reasons you've outlined in your blog - and, I've never even done one before!
Looks like I'll have to bite the bullet soon and give it a try!
$3000 to replace a product that is faulty to begin with and they even admit it?
I have never had any trouble with mine except I dislike them intensely, especially with the way the windows have the cranks in the entirely wrong places. I also removed the curtains in the bedroom because it was impossible to get the shades past the dumb curtain fixtures!
I think if I ever have to replace them I will go and get something commercially available, and just forget the day and night junk.
We are currently dealing with one of those types of blinds as well. Luckily it's a small window & if it was up to me I'd just hang an old potato sack over the window before fighting a repair. Our experience with RV's is that most of them are thrown together with all the cheapest products available. Manufacture's seem to focus on quantity & not quality. Or in other words, minimum amount of product for maximum amount of money!!
don't know if we told you but our rig had day/night before we bought it & original owner replaced w/all metal blinds. they rattle, so we asked factory (Tiffin) to reinstall day/night. they strongly recommended staying not to do it! Tiffin changed to MCD couple of years ago. we have replaced one blind w/MCD. we love it, but is pricey. even if you drive to factory in TX, they will not give you a discount. best deal we got wa at Rally, free shipping & no sales tax. - corrie & dan
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