Wiring Mess

[ShaneGreen17]

Is this rat’s nest the norm for GD wiring?

[Ed Pauly]

hope mine is neater than that mess ??

[Country Campers]

Is this rat’s nest the norm for GD wiring?

Yep that's what you find when you go looking behind the walls. This gives us something to do when we start a project that should take an hour then we find that mess and the project takes a week.

Brian

[Cate&Rob]

Is this rat’s nest the norm for GD wiring?

This is (unfortunately) "normal" for the towable RV industry. We pay a "fee" at time of purchase to RVIA (Recreational Vehicle Industry Association) to assure that our trailers are built to standards more-or-less equal to residential standards. This is obviously not the case. RVIA does not even attempt to include standards appropriate for things that move, as is done for automotive, marine or aviation. The fox is obviously guarding the hen house.

Rob

[tgodrich]

This is (unfortunately) "normal" for the towable RV industry. We pay a "fee" at time of purchase to RVIA (Recreational Vehicle Industry Association) to assure that our trailers are built to standards more-or-less equal to residential standards. This is obviously not the case. RVIA does not even attempt to include standards appropriate for things that move, as is done for automotive, marine or aviation. The fox is obviously guarding the hen house.

Rob

I would have to agree. When I deal with the wiring in my trailer either to fix it, add to it, or fix something else, I take the time to replace or re-route when I can. As an electrical engineer, I cannot live with shoddy wiring knowing I have the ability to fix it. In my current rig, I have added a second battery on a Boat switch so I can use A, B, both, or completely disconnect (also beefed up the wire gauge in the process). From the factory, the disconnect is not complete, so you get battery drain even when not using the trailer and thinking you disconnected the batteries. Misleading to say the least. My trailer also came with a fridge that would switch to AC automatically when on shore or generator power. I installed a switch in the cabinet by the microwave to allow me to switch off the AC to the fridge when I want to force it to run on gas. This is not a good feature. No way to defeat the automatic feature without unplugging the AC from the fridge. All the other fridges I have had in trailers since 1978 allowed me to switch between AC and gas. Not sure why this model did not. I also put a switch on the power to the rear camera. I see no reason to have it on all the time when plugged in to shore power or when using the batteries. These are all simple things that could be added at the factory, or at least thought about (when selecting the fridge). Not everyone RV-ing knows circuit wiring.

[TheNescios]

The "Rats Nest" picture and other like it make me cringe!
And also a little bit afraid to remove the walls in our pass through and look at what will no doubt make me wind up redoing whatever I find.
How can anyone with even a little bit of pride in their work think this is acceptable?
Not to mention how much money would Grand Design, and all manufacturers, save in reduced material costs, reduced labor, and lower warranty costs?

And apparently the plumbing situation isn't much better....

[ncitro]

The "Rats Nest" picture and other like it make me cringe!
And also a little bit afraid to remove the walls in our pass through and look at what will no doubt make me wind up redoing whatever I find.
How can anyone with even a little bit of pride in their work think this is acceptable?
Not to mention how much money would Grand Design, and all manufacturers, save in reduced material costs, reduced labor, and lower warranty costs?

And apparently the plumbing situation isn't much better....

That’s right. There’sa lifetime to be spent cleaning up plumbing, wiring, and ducting.

[mpking]

Not to mention how much money would Grand Design, and all manufacturers, save in reduced material costs, reduced labor, and lower warranty costs?

I know you mention in another thread you're in the construction trade. I know that you are right on the reduced material cost and lower warranty costs, but I'll have to dispute the labor. You know that that you can do it very fast if you don't care what it looks like.

I've been told that most of the RV industry is paid by the piece, not by the hour.

[Country Campers]

We have a poster here where I work that says the following.

We do 3 types of work here , good , fast , and cheap , you can only pick 2.

A good job done fast will not be cheap.

A fast job done cheap will not be good.

A cheap job done good will not be fast.

I wonder if the RV manufactures rely on the second way of production.

Brian

[Dadeo6472]

This kind of mess is in every RV made in Indiana in the last 10 years. The Indiana based RV industry has no pride in quality or workmanship. In addition to the rats nest of wiring, I found spare parts bags for the TV antenna, enough sawdust and scrap to make another pressboard panel (just add glue), half a dozen spare screws, furnace duct blowing hot air towards the fridge (instead of under the floor). They are junk. Its no wonder there are so many recalls, fires and dissatisfied first time owners. It's a joke on all of us and the dealers who have to deal with it. My friend quit the RV business in disgust 5 years ago. He repaired boats and RVs. He says the quality is so bad he had to get out. He still repairs boats and motors.

[TucsonJim]

We have a poster here where I work that says the following.

We do 3 types of work here , good , fast , and cheap , you can only pick 2.

A good job done fast will not be cheap.

A fast job done cheap will not be good.

A cheap job done good will not be fast.

I wonder if the RV manufactures rely on the second way of production.

Brian

Aha! But there is another way. If they were to have their wiring done in harnesses, I'll bet the price would go down, it would be good, and it would be even faster to assemble the coach. Not only that, but it would be much easier (faster and cheaper) for GDRV, dealerships and owners to trouble-shoot and repair an issue if they had a decent schematic of the harness wiring. The industry says they can't develop a schematic because each assembler builds it however they desire.

When I was working in manufacturing, we built a facility on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico and provided great paying jobs for their members to build our harnesses. We did a complete cost assessment and it was by far much less expensive. And we had very low failure rates.

Jim

[Cate&Rob]

This kind of mess is in every RV made in Indiana in the last 10 years.

Unfortunately . . . this is the "price of admission" to the RV lifestyle that we all enjoy. There is no place to buy a current production towable RV that will be any different. The choices are "deal with it" or "give up RVing".

There is no motivation for the RV industry to change their production methods. No governing body regulations are enforced and there is no competition from any company doing a better job at a similar price point. When the North American auto industry was like this (50 years ago), along came the Japanese with better made products and everyone had to match their quality to stay in business. I don't see any off-shore manufacturers planning to give Indiana any competition.

Rob

[Guest]

Well good thing I am retiring in a few months to make all the necessary future repairs. I was hoping not to have too much free time on my hands.

[Country Campers]

Well good thing I am retiring in a few months to make all the necessary future repairs. I was hoping not to have too much free time on my hands.

"Retirement and free time" , I have heard that those 2 items do not go together .

Brian

[Scott'n'Wendy]

Well good thing I am retiring in a few months to make all the necessary future repairs. I was hoping not to have too much free time on my hands.

Free time is kind of like money. You probably will have no problem using up all you have.

To the OP, I have never seen an RV where the assemblers took the time (or were allowed to) to do a quality, neat job. This is also why you will not get a 'schematic' for any RV. There are many ways to run wires and still have the system function properly, so wiring varies from trailer to trailer.