Run away! We bought a Eclipse brand toy hauler several months ago. We have used it 1.5 times (once we had to leave because nothing worked) in 5 months! It has been at the dealer three times for repair. 6 days after our purchase we tried to go out camping. The water heater did not work, the refrigerator did not work, the sink drain leaked on the floor, the toilet overflowed and the connection on the back was not tight either (it leaked all over the floor too), the heater kept blowing a fuse and on and on, oh and the water pump would never shut off. I am not exaggerating or making this up. This was our first toy hauler travel trailer and will be our last. One hour, yes one hour, after getting home from the dealer this last time (it was raining), we found the roof leaked and it completely soaked everything. Not a little leak either. I swear to heaven, do not buy one of these, EVER, EVER, EVER.


My brand new, broken, leaky trailer.


---BEST PART--- This is just the best. So we spend hours and hours yelling at our kids to stop spilling water on the floor, which they adamantly deny, which makes us madder. Long story short, after searching for where this water has been coming from for several days, I finally found it. The kitchen sink drain, right over the heater, had a huge hole in it. It looks like the electrical installer drilled a hole right through the sink drain when he was drilling holes for the wires to pass through for the fridge. Oh its gets better. The hole was vertical, and must and it must have been a spade bit because it was huge. This ensured no water was getting to the holding tank, my floor and insulation was soaking it up. You had to have seen this during the installation, and just left it. You lazy jerks.

Eclipse Stellar = Poor Quality

Eclipse Stellar = Poor Quality

Eclipse Stellar = Poor Quality


Oh and the warranty repair answer for this was to rip the insulation out of the bottom of my trailer and not put any back in. Thanks for that Eclipse Recreational Vehicles Inc, you guys rock.

We asked for a different trailer or monetary compensation and were told no. This was a brand new trailer, not even used once, this was just INSANE, TOTALLY INSANE!

Anyways I am here to see if anyone has a Eclipse Stellar, Iconic or Attitude toy hauler, and if they have had problems please go to my site Not So Stellar Eclipse and leave your review. I am so mad, I made a whole website about my experience.

Anyways, thanks guys, I appreciate it.

 

Welcome to the forums.

I can see where that would make a person pretty mad.

 

This is actually pretty much the norm for most of the RV industry. I have not seen any other industry with products made in America that has such low quality standards.

Just last week I saw a Jayco "Octane" toy hauler parked on State Street in our town, with a big sign on the back of it that said "I bought this turd at Camping World". I stopped to look at it and read his list of problems he had posted on the back of the Toy Hauler, and it was every bit as shocking as your problems. He had owned it for 21 months, and it had been in the service department longer than it had been in his possession. The Camping World service center had finally given up and told him they could not fix it. Jayco had refused to do anything about it either. So he was left with basically a large expensive enclosed trailer that he couldn't use for camping.

I personally just sold a Forest River "Forrester" 31' class C motorhome that I had owned for three years. It had also needed never ending constant repairs, to the tune of about $3000 to $4000 a year. Year one we had roof leaks, air conditioning failure, and the auto leveling system that needed repaired, to the tune of $3000. Year two the fridge needed replaced, which cost $4000 because of high labor cost. Apparently the fridge doesn't fit through the door, so they need to remove a window and replace the fridge through the window. Year three the full body paint started bubbling and lifting off the fiberglass on the rear of the coach, and cost $3000 to repair. Each of these were lengthy repairs due to labor, waiting on parts, and just plain poor service from the dealership. And I haven't even bothered to mention the countless other smaller repairs it needed. In three years the motorhome had been in the service department for six months. I sold it, and good riddance. I will never buy another Forest River product.

There are a few other manufacturers that have better quality though, and are worth mentioning. 1. Northwood Manufacturing makes excellent quality pickup truck campers. I have owned an Arctic Fox and now own a Wolf Creek truck camper, with no problems from either. 2. McKenzie, makes good quality toy haulers. We owned a "Dune Chaser", by McKenzie, that was much higher quality than most other RVs, and we had very few problems with it during the 7 years we owned it.

 

I think it would be cheaper to sue them than to pay for all the repairs.

My dad had a Ford truck he wasn't happy with and he made the dealer an ultimatum; either take it back (or fix it, whichever he said) or he was going to paint lemons all over it and park it across the street from the dealer with a big sign saying they sold him a lemon. The old man would have done it too but they took care of it.

 

Yup, your Jayco story sounds about like mine. I left a bunch of stuff off so it would not be a ridiculously long ranting post. I am so mad, this was our first trailer and just after the six month mark next weekend, we might actually get to use it.

I have realized that having it sit at the dealer for months every time it needs some tiny repair is not worth it. I think I will repair my Eclipse myself and just be done with it. I did not realize that RV repair is not like auto repair, where you can just show up and drop it off for a day or two. I had no clue.

Ha, when I was dropping it the weekend after we drove it off the lot, the repair tech said "Yeah, i always buy one or two year old ones, that way all the broken stuff is fixed....." um what?!? Where were you last week when we were buying this thing...

You are right, this industry is upside down.

Thanks for replying.

 

I actually did contact an attorney, a reputable one that was recommended to me. He specializes in RV / Travel Trailer issues.

He said that he could absolutely 100% make them buy it back with all the issue and water damage. He said he charges a standard fee $8500 and it would take 1-2 years, AND he does not want us to use it during that time (no crashing it, breaking something else, anything....). He had been doing this 20 years and said that rarely do they settle, they will take it all the way to court almost every time.

He said they do this because they don't want to set a standard. If they fight every case, then people like ME, who bought an relatively inexpensive RV/Trailer, will just sell it and be done with it. The problem is that it was not inexpensive for me, it was a lot. But he did just get done doing a million dollar motor home buy back last week, so I guess yea, that would for sure be worth it.

Before we hung up he said "Think about that, a million dollar coach, and it fell apart, a million bucks and it's the same as yours, most of them are all the same...junk." - He said there were a few good companies out there, but he hardly has to deal with them, he was familiar with Eclipse though, said they would fight everything......great.

Great the good news just keeps coming!!

Thanks for the reply and that was a funny story about your dad and the lemons ha, maybe I will try that!

 

The sheer amount of suckage just keeps getting worse. I'm sorry to hear that. My dad was many things but he was a character.

 

What makes this worse, to me anyway, is that it's your first one. As crappy as the industry may seem, there are a few decent trailers out there. Hope it doesn't make you totally give up on getting a trailer and riding.

 

I'd have to agree with AdrenalineRush. Several of my friends have purchased new RVs in the past few years and everyone of them had issues - some where huge issues.