Warranty work and maintenance

[John and Debbie]

We live near Portland, Oregon far from Tennessee.   When work has to be done far from the Oliver factory,  has anyone had problems getting that done and does Oliver pay the shop for that warranty work?   In general,  how hard is it to find shops that will work on Olivers?   I assume that some components are universal like refrigerators, heating, cooling,  water heaters,  etc. so they should be familiar with those things.     My wife has said yes to buying an Oliver so it looks like we will order one in the next two months to coincide with her retirement date of December, 2022.  Ten months out would mean that we could order by end of February for early 2023 delivery.   

[Mcb]

The only warranty work we had done was the replacement of the furnace’s motor, which we had done by a certified Moble RV repair guy while in FL. We paid the bill, and Oliver reimbursed us. It was a very simple process. I would recommend being in touch with Oliver throughout the process so they know what’s going on… in our case, it was impossible to remove the furnace from the outside as the hole through the Hull was too small to do so ( they must install them from inside) which resulted in us needing to enlarge it….. resulting in unexpected labor charges. I discussed this with Oliver and they paid for those as well . 

The real question surrounding warranty work is the availability of qualified ( certified ) technicians in your area. Where we live there aren’t a lot of options, which led me to repair things that would have been covered by the warranty myself… that being said, none of those projects were on the scale of replacing the guts of the furnace. 
 

If anyone ever needs something worked on in their Ollie in the Venice Fl. area I can’t recommend Mike Leger highly enough. Our furnace project was a complicated one and involved a fair amount of troubleshooting and head scratching to work out what the actual issue was. I was really impressed with Mike’s methodology and ability to figure out what the problem was… while having never worked on an Oliver before he has been doing RV repair for many years and it showed..

Mike’s company is Second Home Repairs Inc which offers only moble on-site RV service. 941-234-6196.

We ran into a number of folks ( including friends from home) who had worked with Mike before and they all were as positive about their experiences as we were…

 

 

[Mike and Carol]

We’ve had several warranty things done locally and reimbursement by Oliver was not an issue.  We have a local repair shop here that does work on several Oliver’s, one a 2008 Elite that he’s been servicing for a long time.  Mike

[topgun2]

A local shop that is not familiar with Oliver may insist that you pay for the repair as opposed to dealing directly with Oliver Service.  Make sure that you get receipts and make sure that Oliver Service is kept in the loop from start to finish and you will have zero issues.  It also helps to try to get your local service shop to be in touch with Oliver Service for technical help.  Many times Oliver will be able to give the local tech "hints" as to how to either approach a particular problem or fix it entirely.  This saves time and money for all parties.

Finally, don't be surprised that a service call takes a bit longer than you expect - once these guys get into the guts of the Oliver they usually ask their buddies to come over and take a look at how things are done in the Oliver world.

Bill

[topgun2]

13 minutes ago, Mike and Carol said:

We have a local repair shop here that does work on several Oliver’s, one a 2008 Elite that he’s been servicing for a long time.  

Gee - I wonder which Ollie that might be?  Has Bosker been breaking things? 😁

[Mike and Carol]

8 minutes ago, topgun2 said:

Gee - I wonder which Ollie that might be?  Has Bosker been breaking things? 😁

Pete, @bugeyedriver, told me about this shop.  Boerne is a small town but with several mega RV dealers with repair shops.  Our shop is very small, husband/wife operation and they do great work.

[Mattnan]

We had some warranty work done while we were traveling in the Florida keys.  Our fridge wouldn't start.  For us this is a big deal as we have a prescription that requires refrigeration.  If it gets warm it is ruined. After some help from someone staying at the park we were able to get it to work on gas.  We coordinated with Oliver.  They didn't have a recommendation in the keys. So we tried to book someone our selves.  The owner of the campground wouldn't let this vendor in to the park.  Turns out he just takes people's money a d never finishes the job.  We found a boat service tech who was great. He fixed the problem. Real nice guy.  No issues since.  Turned out that Norcold refrigerators are also used on a lot of boats.  He was willing to submit his bill to Oliver and was paid directly.  Keeping Oliver in the loop is key.

[Trainman]

I did have one problem with out trailer and we returned to the Oliver plant to have it corrected, it was an internal wiring problem that I didn't really trust a local dealer to correct. Since we live in the DFW area we made a nice camping trip out of it, so we enjoyed the trip. I will say that I had a few other things go out on the trailer and Oliver sent me the new items to correct the fault item, being pretty mechanical minded I diagnosed the problem and replaced the faulty item myself and Oliver furnished the repair item needed. I don't really care for RV service centers to work on my Oliver as most know nothing about the Oliver, but I guess a A/C, heater, etc. are pretty much universal throughout the industry. 

trainman

[TexasGuy]

I had some work that needed to be done just after pickup.  I was already home in Texas and wasn’t going to drive to TN.   Found a local place that is great and Oliver paid them directly without any issue.  I’d use them again for maintenance if needed.   I’m planning to attend rally so I will just go tovTN after for annual maintenance.  
 

 

[topgun2]

35 minutes ago, TexasGuy said:

I’m planning to attend rally so I will just go tovTN after for annual maintenance.

Make sure that you have an appointment well in advance (like right now) for the dates you have in mind.  Service is always VERY busy right before and after the annual Owner's Rally.

Bill