Rv Recalls Blog

New 2025 CAL CARB Rule Predicted to Hit RV Industry Hard

noreply@blogger.com (ohiolemonlaw) — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 13:27:00 +0000

RV Lemon Law Lawyer Ron Burdge Predicts RV Industry Changes and What It Means to You

For the last few days we have been analyzing the new pollution emission CARB rule in California to understand what it can, may, likely, and won’t do to the RV industry and RV owners (and, no, California isn’t outlawing new C and A class RV sales but they might as well of), and how things in the industry are definitely going to go through some big changes real soon. It is all outlined below, including some insights and predictions based on our lawyers' watchful eyes on the industry for the last 40+ years.

The Short Version: It boils down to new class C and A sales dropping, used RV sales increasing, only two remaining mass production national chassis makers left, market share gobbling about to happen, increasing prices, how a consumer can still buy a class C or A in a CARB rule state, how RV buyers can’t get around it by going out of state to buy their new RV, and generally just how bad it may, probably will, affect RVers nationwide (31% of the country). Folks, this won't be pretty but you need to know what may be coming so you can protect yourself.

The Details: California’s New Tailpipe Pollution Rule, knocks out the 2 biggest (and best) RV chassis makers, directly impacts 31% of the country, and will make new and used RVs more expensive everywhere – do you want a new RV? You may want to buy it now before the new CARB rule makes it more costly.

The new California CARB rule that become effective in 2025 ais going to cause major changes to the RV industry and that means RV buyers too. Originally aimed at the tailpipe pollution levels of fossil fuel emission engines, gas and diesel, of big rig trucks, because those truck chasses are also the chassis foundation of class C and A RV's, the new emissions level mandate will hit the Rv industry too. It will hit hard and it will have an industry-wide and nationwide impact.

Here's the reason we see big changes coming.....

When you have an industry that depends on one type of diesel chassis supplier for everything it builds and the two best and biggest players (Spartan and Freightliner) in the C and A chassis market decide they are only going to build a product that you can't sell in all 50 states, things are going to change. There are a few other motorized chassis makers out there, notably Monaco, Prevost, etc, but none of them appear to have any ability to meet the new CARB emission requirements. For all practical purposes, the new CARB rules will affect the entire RV industry and all motorized RV buyers.

There are ten states that follow the Cal CARB rules and 5 of them along with California make the new change effective next year (Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington, a total of 86.8M people), the other five will be after that(Vermont’s date begins in 2026. Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico and Rhode Island have until 2027, that's another 15.8M). So if nothing changes, in 2025 new fossil fuel chassis of RV's can only be sold in 44 states, Then it will be prohibited in another 4 and then one more after that. The new Class C and A RV marketplace will shrink by 102,747,000 people, 31% of the entire U.S. population. So if no other state adopts the CAL CARB rule, by 2026 new fossil fuel RVs will only be sold in 39 states and the RV industry's two big chassis builders will have a product that can only be sold in 39 states where only 59% of the market exists. A change of that size means that things are going to change in the RV industry and the Rv retail sales marketplace nationwide.

Here's the Domino Effect I see coming ..... and the problems that come with it.

As the effect of the new CARB level hits the market, the dealer availability of new C's and A's in the CARB states will go down as the industry reroutes the unsalable C and A units coming off the production lines to non-CARB states where they can be sold retail. There’s no point in shipping a freshly built RV built on a Spartan or Freightliner chassis to California or any of the other 5 CAR states because it can’t be sold there.
That’s when the industry will shift its entire future C and A sales focus to the 54 non-CARB states, leaving a C and A class new RV supply vacuum in the CARB states. After all, they can’t sell them there anyway.
That will cause CARB state buyers to turn to more to used C and A RV sales, which, in turn, will increase those sale and that will cause used retail prices in the CARB states to go up. It’s simple supply and demand.
Meanwhile, back in the 54 non-CARB states we will see the C's and A's dealer lots filling up with the C and A units they ordered and being crowded with the ones that were built before the CARB update was announced and now can no longer be shipped to the CARB states because they can’t be sold there.
So for a time there will be a higher than usual supply of new C's and A's in the non-CARB states, and normal market economics says that when supply exceeds demand, prices should go down but that doesn’t always happen, and even if it does, supplies will eventually drop to the demand level anyway. And if the Buyer is from a CARB state, the dealer will know they couldn’t buy in their home state so they are a “captive” buyer who will pay the higher price for what they can’t get in their home state.
Somewhere early in the process the CARB-compliant chassis manufacturers, and there are only two now (Ford and Mercedes) will ramp up production to meet the new C and A sales demand in the CARB states that was caused by kicking the non-CARB compliant chassis (Spartan and Freightliner) out of their state marketplace.
Because ramping up of production by both the chassis builder and the RV builder will take time, some CARB state buyers will opt for the immediate purchase of a Class B RV, which will likely cause demand to go up higher than prior sales projections, which will likely cause Class B prices to go up too. But if the Ford and Mercedes and their RV manufacturers are smart, and they've never been dumb, they will ramp up the availability and marketing of their B's in the CARB states to take the sting out of the hit they will be facing in the C and A markets. And the pandemic taught all of us what that ramped up, high speed manufacturing does for to quality. But some CARB state RV buyers won’t step down to Class B units so what do they turn to?
The new C and A RV buyers in the CARB states who don’t want to “size down” have to do one of two things. Either they go out of state to buy their new C or A RV (which has its own problems we will talk about in a minute) or they will more likely start buying used C's and A's. Buy it here and buy it now have long been the RV dealer’s sales mantra. That will likely cause an increase in demand for used C and A units in the CARB states, which can create a demand that exceeds supply, causing those retail prices to go up too.
Meanwhile, there is going to be quick and increasing vacuum of C and A chassis suppliers, with only Ford and Mercedes left in the nationwide chassis product market because it would take any new player years to get into that product market and by then Ford and Mercedes will have gobbled most of it up, further discouraging any start up from even starting up. So who gets what?
Ford has the wherewithal and is in the position to quickly grab the lion's share of the C chassis market and Mercedes is in the position to go after the B market and the wherewithal to quickly expand its share of the B market amidst the overall market turmoil, but RV buyers can expect those manufacturers already in the B market will quickly try to increase their own market share. The real problem is in class A. Presently no single chassis manufacturer has the ability to quickly get into, let alone take over, the A chassis market. Expect to see Ford and Mercedes aggressively go after their C and B markets. and as both of them move on it, they will go after all of those markets nationwide they and not just the CARB states.
While the new C market dogfight is going on, what happens to new A class units? The logical thing for Ford to do is to head into the A chassis market as fast as it can because it already has the C class experience and the money resources and the extra emission credits to expand upon and no one else will likely get there faster than Ford.
The near future effect for RV buyers is that no matter what RV they buy (new or used) or where they buy it (in a CARB state or not), their next RV is likely to cost more as the RV market moves into the post-CARB emission changed era. But what’s all this mean for RV buyers?
As for quality of future motorized A and B and C chasses, well, odds are that is going to change too, and not for the better. When the RV marketplace becomes a seller's market, history tells us that quality takes a nose dive as production is jacked up to the high profit "quality be damned, get it out the door" manufacturing model. So new RV buyers can expect that with limited chassis makers left in the market you will likely see a decrease of quality as the industry pushes up the quantity. To top that off, when you look at the chassis makers that were in the market before this CARB change, in our experience, Ford was not the best but they are poised to run away with the C market and expand into the A market. The best chasses? In our experience those were made by the same two big chassis makers who are now bailing out of a big chunk of the national marketplace.
Ok, so manufacturing and market share is changing, will retail dealers change the way they treat RV buyers too? Probably. Ahhhh, there’s the retail rub. Dealers are in it for the profit and they know that supply and demand rule about pricing too. So RV buyers can expect higher prices. But when we’ve seen prices rise, we often see other sales tactics kick in for higher profits too. Things like extended warranties and all the other sales “soft add on’s” that dealer’s sell. We also see more instances of outright sales fraud taking place, where misrepresentations about costs and products turn increase in both quantity and dollars that come out of the buyer’s pocket and into the dealer’s profits. So RV buyers will have to be more careful than ever about what they buy, who they buy it from, and where they buy it.
Some Rv buyers who live in a CARB rule state may be thinking they can just go to another state and buy their new C or A RV and bring it home and get around the whole problem. Not so fast. The new CARB rule is set up so that an RV buyer can't get around it. That non-compliant new RV that is bought in a non-CARB state go out of state, buy a new RV, and bring it back home to get around their home state's CARB rules. That won't work because you won’t be able to legally register and license it in your home state at all.
Upon learning that some CARB state new RV buyers may start using states like Montana that let them set up a "LLC" corporation there to be the buyer of the RV and then just register it in that state. That used to be a trick to avoid the selling state’s sales tax too, but doing that can also void all or the bulk of your factory warranty. So you might get your registration there, but you can expect the CARB states are going to be watching out for that too when you come home with a brand new shiny RV with emissions that violate your home state's law! Worse yet, you still run the risk that your factory warranty gets voided by using the LLC trick. So what's a new RV with no warranty at all worth? Do you feel lucky?

noreply@blogger.com (ohiolemonlaw) — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 15:10:00 +0000

RV Awnings Falling Off and Being Recalled, Man Injured

An RV Awning Can Fall Off and Hurt Someone. In the last year I have seen thousands of RV awnings being recalled, with warning s about awnings falling off RV’s. Well, the worst that could happen is talked about in the story link below and people need to be careful to avoid the risk.

An Rv awning is much like an awning out over a window on a house or business building. Except it is attached at the roofline to the side of the RV and can be anywhere from a few feet long to nearly the entire length of the side of an RV, maybe 15 feet or more. Sometimes attached at the factory and sometimes added by an RV dealer, if they detach while going down the road, a fly-away awning can maim, injure or even kill pedestrians or other drivers on the road.

As a frequent highway traveler, whenever I come up on an RV, I try to steer clear and pass quickly or else stay far behind. It doesn’t happen often, but it can be a real killer when you least expect it, and most non-RV folks would never think about it even happening.

I don’t know the details of what went wrong in the story below, and I don’t handle personal injury cases, but whether the factory or the dealer installs it, they know that an RV goes down the highway at 60+ mph speeds, so they sure ought to build them right and see to it that they are installed carefully and securely. If they don’t, an avoidable injury can be the result.

Be careful out there. If you get an awning installed on your RV, keep your receipt, just in case you need it.

https://www.rvtravel.com/man-loses-leg-to-rv-awning-sues-dometic-and-camping-world-for-27m-8n-r1/

Federal Judges Call Thor’s Warranty a Scheme to Deprive Rv Buyers of Legal Rights

noreply@blogger.com (ohiolemonlaw) — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 21:29:00 +0000

On January 6 a Federal Judge in California issued a stinging rebuke to Thor Motor Coach while denying Thor‘s motion to have a RV breach of warranty lawsuit transferred to Indiana.

The Judge noted that Thor had for years been using warranty terms that were unenforceable in California, saying “that scheme is contrary to California public policy and the court should not condone or encourage it.” The Federal Court pointed out how Thor was using a warranty that said people would not have a right to a jury trial, which Thor had known for years was contrary to California law. In California a jury trial is guaranteed for RV warranty cases.

The Court went on to point out Thor’s warranty also said warranty claim lawsuits had to be filed in Indiana, when doing that would actually take away rights guaranteed to California RV buyers by California law. "Yet TMC continued to include those provisions in its warranty agreements” the Federal Judge said in condemning the practice and refused to transfer the case out of the California court.

As an enticement to get the California Federal Judge to transfer the case to Indiana Thor had said it was willing to not enforce those provisions in the Indiana court, but the Judge didn’t fall for it. That clever ploy has worked before in some California courts, but not in the courtroom of Federal Judge Rita Linn in the California Northern District federal courtroom in the case of Julio Gorga versus Thor Motor Coach, Case No. 23-cf-03603-RFL, N.D. Calif.

Judge Linn noted that Thor had lost that battle the year before in a different California Federal Court where Federal Court Judge James Lorenz denied the same motion by Thor.

In January 2023, a Federal Judge noted that “Thor Motor states that it knowingly presents agreements to California consumers containing clauses that are prohibited under California law.” Judge Lorenz went on to say that Thor’s use of the prohibited terms could cause some California consumers to follow Thor’s instructions and file their case in Indiana and later find out that by doing so they lost the rights that California law guaranteed them when they bought their new Thor RV.

The Judge called Thor’s practice a “scheme” that was contrary to California public policy as he refused to allow Thor to have the case transferred out of his court, noting that the enforcement of a clause “drafted in bad faith would be condoning, or at least not discouraging, an illegal scheme.....” That January 13, 2023 case was Waryck versus Thor Motor Coach, 2023 WL 3794002, S.D. Calif.

Lawyers call these kind of clauses “in terrorem” clauses. It’s when a company puts in a term that they know is not enforceable just so people will see it and think it is enforceable, and then not even fight it. It’s a way of scaring people into doing something they don’t really have to do. Moral of the story? Just because it’s in writing does not mean you are always stuck with it.

So, is Thor trying to deprive California RV buyers of their legal rights by tricking them into thinking something is enforceable when it is not? You betcha!

RvLemonLaw.com - It's What We Do! Burdge Law Office Co LPA

noreply@blogger.com (ohiolemonlaw) — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 13:51:00 +0000

Monday Morning RV Recalls are here from www.RvLemonLaw.com! Details are below but here’s the short story:

Winnebago is recalling certain 2024 Solis motorhomes because fasteners that secure the sliding seat in the extended position are missing, increasing injury danger

Chinook is recalling certain 2022-2024 Bayside motorhomes because rear view camera or 360-degree view camera may not display a rearview image when the vehicle is placed in reverse, increasing accident danger

Your vehicle MAY be involved in a safety recall and MAY create a safety risk for you or your passengers. If left unrepaired, a potential safety defect could lead to injury or even death. Under federal law, safety defects must be repaired by a dealer at no cost to you. Don't let them say no to you!

To find any recall for your RV, just do a search for your model year, make, model, and add the word "recall" or the recall number below. Remember: Life is Too Short to Put Up with a Bad RV!

Here's the details on Recalls Today:

NHTSA Recall ID Number : 23V728
Manufacturer : Winnebago Industries, Inc.
Subject : Missing Seat Fasteners/FMVSS 207
Make Model Model Years
WINNEBAGO SOLIS 2024

NHTSA Recall ID Number : 23V729
Manufacturer : Chinook Motor Coach, LLC
Subject : Rearview Camera Image May Not Display
Make Model Model Years
CHINOOK BAYSIDE 2022-2024

RvLemonLaw.com for RV Owners. It's what we do. Everyday!

A National RV Law Firm - Just for RV Owners

Burdge Law OFfice Co LPA

Forest River recalling certain 2020-2022 Coachmen Catalina and 2021-2022 Forest River Aurora travel trailers due to trailer brakes may not activate

noreply@blogger.com (ohiolemonlaw) — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 12:57:00 +0000

Trailer Brakes May Not Activate

Trailer brakes that fail to activate can increase the risk of a crash.

Forest River, Inc. (Forest River) is recalling certain 2020-2022 Coachmen Catalina, and 2021-2022 Forest River Aurora travel trailers. The breakaway switch may be incorrectly wired to the battery disconnect, which can prevent the trailer brakes from activating as intended.

Dealers will inspect and re-wire the breakaway switch, as necessary, free of charge. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed August 15, 2022. Owners may contact Forest River customer service at 1-574-825-6241. Forest River's number for this recall is 51-1529.

Burdge Law Office

Rv Recalls Blog

New 2025 CAL CARB Rule Predicted to Hit RV Industry Hard

Federal Judges Call Thor’s Warranty a Scheme to Deprive Rv Buyers of Legal Rights

Forest River recalling certain 2020-2022 Coachmen Catalina and 2021-2022 Forest River Aurora travel trailers due to trailer brakes may not activate

Oliver recalling certain 2022 Legacy Elite II travel trailers due to hub may separate from axle wheel end

Airstream recalling certain 2022 travel trailers due to hub may separate from axle wheel end

Triple E recalling certain 2021-2022 recreational vehicles with certain 2-burner cooktops due to damaged cooktop control valves that may leak gas

Cruiser recalling certain 2022 travel trailers due to cracked lp gas quick disconnect fitting

Heartland recalling certain 2022 travel trailers due to cracked LP gas quick disconnect fitting

Grand Design recalling certain 2022 travel trailers due to cracked LP gas quick disconnecting fitting

Cruiser recalling certain 2022 Shadow Cruiser trailers due to protective cover missing from 12-volt mini breaker

Heartland recalling certain 2022 Sundance trailers due to protective cover missing from 12-volt mini breaker

Jayco recalling certain 2020-2022 Jayco Precept motorhomes due to storage compartment may melt from exhaust heat

Tiffin recalling certain 2021-2022 Tiffin Cahaba motorhomes due to loose wiring may cause fire

Jayco recalling certain 2021-2022 recreational vehicles due to power steering pressure line may detach and leak

Carson recalling certain 2018-2020 Fun Runner FC20 trailers due to stove saddle valves may leak gas

Jayco recalling certain 2022 Alante Class A and Entegra Coach Vision Class A motorhomes due to melted wiring harness may cause vehicle stall

Cruiser recalling certain 2021-2022 Shadow Cruiser and 2022 Twilight travel trailers due to incorrect tire information on labels

Heartland recalling certain 2022 Sundance travel trailers due to incorrect tire information on labels

Forest River recalling certain 2020-2022 Cardinal fifth wheel recreational vehicles due to that carbon monoxide may enter cabin

Winnebago recalling certain 2022 Ekko vehicles due to that shower and sink drainage system may leak

Forest River recalling certain 2021-2022 Impression Fifth Wheel recreational vehicles due to incorrectly positioned rear lights

Jayco recalling certain 2021 Jay Flight Octane travel trailers due to that water heater exhaust fumes may enter slide=-out

Jayco recalling certain 2021-2022 Jayco Swift and Entegra Ethos motorhomes due to seat belt locking retractor malfunction