Brett Vinsant

Review of Newmar

The reality of owning a Premier Newmar Coach durin...

The reality of owning a Premier Newmar Coach during Covid-19

Since owning our coach we have experienced an array of problems that have required service from Camping World, Newmar, and Freightliner. One thing we quickly realized is that the service relationship between Freightliner and Newmar is not cordial.

Since day one of owning our coach among all the things that have gone wrong from coolant leaks Serviced on Road $200 , No AC, and the Dometic toilet filling the floors with water. To some of the most current issues being, we have no working refrigerator and no holding tank panel operation!! Since day one of ownership, we have not been able to get the refrigerator to cool to a level that we would be comfortable putting a gallon of milk in it.

We left the motorhome in August "3 months of no refrigerator" and having many repair conversations most of the small things were repaired but the refrigerator was still not working. After writing an incredibly detailed service request to the dealer and explaining the issues to the service advisor the Service tech was unable to find the issue. See, the real problem with the Norcold propane/electric refrigerator freezer is the newer units as demonstrated in RV forums is they do not get cold. The main problem with ours is it would take 4 days to get reasonably cold but never cold to spec. Upon dropping our coach off for service we had just been out for 5 days and returned for service with an already operating refrigerator.

I wrote:

To test the refrigerator properly the unit needs to be shut off today and allowed to cool over the weekend, we had been on the road for 5 days and brought it to you cold. Norcold says at #8 the refrigerator should be at 40 and the freezer at 0. When we left the other day the freezer was at 0 but the fridge was at 48 measured by a fluke digital. The unit needs to be turned on Monday morning and we will come Tuesday morning to pick up so you guys can see how not cold it is after 24 hours of running. According to the manual, it should be fully cold in 12 hours, not partially cold "48" degrees in 5 days. I will bet dinner the fridge has a bad temperature sensor???? (we agree hopefully it is something simple)

The next day we got this from the dealer showing exactly what we were complaining about after following my instructions. "We have been testing the fridge all day. It immediately went 20 degrees and now has been holding steady at 58. We will be on the phone with Norcold in the morning and get whatever parts they authorize ordered. Seems that everything from Norcold has been on national backorder".

Needless to say, we left with an unrepaired refrigerator no idea of what to do and everything is on National backorder. So at this point, I decided to do a little research on my own about the Norcold combo and the results are it is the poorest operating unit they have ever built and the national statement is it never gets cold.

My solution, upgrade to an all-electric refrigerator, the Newmar factory unit a Whirlpool 19.7cf French door. Dealer response, National backorder, so I located one to ship to the dealer since they were on National Backorder $1999.99 and ready to pull the trigger as I need a working refrigerator. We currently use the Motorhome to travel between stores every 10 days and it is tenuous to not have cold food. The reality, Newmar will not approve the LABOR to R&R the refrigerator with-out analyzing the problem again and the dealer has no say so in the matter.

Brett Vinsant