RV Service Nightmare? The Truth About the Big RV Chains

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the RV Lifestyle News Edition podcast. I'm Mike Wendland, and it is Monday, July 20th, 2026. This is your weekly look at the stories shaping the RV world right now. I have six of them for you today, starting with a hard look at service problems at the big RV chains.

Somebody's got to call these people out. Also, a brutal stretch of extreme weather that hit RVers coast to coast. still going on even as you open this up on Monday morning. There's some real progress on the ghost booking problem

that's plagued campground reservations for years. Happy to tell you about that. A major recall that you need to check your VIN against if you're the owner of one of those luxury Class As.

And a stark safety reminder out of Yellowstone National Park and a warning about a crime trend that's targeting RVs, especially this summer. Now, a quick note on how we do things here.

For those of you newer to the show, I spent more than 40 years as a working journalist. Big city newspapers, TV stations, a major network. My wife Jennifer and I thought we were retiring when we bought an RV about 15 years ago and started traveling the country. Well, it started off as a blog, and then this podcast, and then our YouTube channel, and then books and apps.

But the journalism habit never left me. Every story on this show is sourced. No rumor, no speculation. no press release. You might get a little bit of my attitude from time to time, but full links

are waiting for you at the end of the transcript that you'll find at rvpodcast.com. So you can check the work yourself or find out more information about the topics we're talking about today. Now, before we get into it, if you're not already getting our free newsletter, a daily newsletter, fix that today. Every morning we send the stories, the tips,

the deals that matter to your RV life, straight to your inbox, no fluff, sign up free at rvlifestyle.com slash newsletter. All right, let's get into it. Story number one, the service nightmare at the big RV chains. We have to talk about something that I hear constantly about, have been for years. I keep thinking it's going to get better. It never does. And I hear about it from readers, from

listeners, from people who corner me at rallies, at service department nightmares, at the big RV dealer chains. That's what we're talking about. Camping World is the largest RV retailer on the planet. Over 200 locations in 43 states, nearly $7 billion a year in revenue. General RV builds itself as the nation's largest family-owned RV dealer. 23 super centers strong. Now, these are

not mom and pop operations anymore. They're giants, regional powerhouses that dominate the market. And yet, search any RV Facebook group and you're going to find the same complaint over and over and over again. Months long waits for basic warranty work. The numbers back it up. On Trustpilot, Camping World sits at 1.6 out of five stars. Flat out bad across more than 1,500

reviews. Separately, the Better Business Bureau gives Camping World an F, its lowest possible grade, with over 1,000 complaints on file and many of them still unresolved. Two different rating systems, same conclusion. Read through enough of those reviews and the pattern repeats itself. RVs that go in for a quick fix and come out with new problems, extended warranties, some costing

thousands of dollars that owners say the company finds every reason not to honor. Techs who quote a timeline and then double or triple it once the RV is already in the shop and the owner has no leverage left. Here's one example that's making the rounds right now.

It's not the worst we've seen by any means, but it is an example. A full-time RVer named Kayla posted in a full-time RVers group about her experience at the General RV location in Ocala, Florida. That post has drawn over 200 replies.

She and her husband own a Brinkley, and she's quick to say Brinkley's own customer service has been phenomenal. General RV Ocala, for her, is a different story.

They scheduled a welding appointment, she says, a month out. They drove over an hour to get there, and 10 minutes from arrival. She said the dealership called to say

they didn't actually have a welder on site that day. Sorry. So they rescheduled. Well, they live full time in their RV, so they set up a wait appointment for the second try and dropped the rig off at 9 a.m. Five hours later, they were told the job would take much longer because the shop needed authorization from Brinkley, the manufacturer.

Except Kayla had already been working directly with Brinkley and the repair had already been approve, she said, even before they showed up. Nothing got fixed. The timeline blew up, so they decided to just take the RV back home, and were told they'd be charged anyway for the time the shop spent diagnosing it. Two trips, hours of driving, an entire day gone, and still no weld. Now, Kyla

was careful to note this was not Brinkley's fault at all. It was squarely on the dealership, and she said she won't be going back to that general RV location. All right, that's not the worst we've heard by any means, but it's a problem and it's not isolated. It's a pattern that shows up again and again in these different groups that we've been reading. Poor communication between service

riders and manufacturers. Appointments that don't hold. Customers left holding the bill regardless of whether anything got fixed. Now, here's my honest take and why I am really bringing this up. When you get this big, you've got two choices. You invest in the service infrastructure to match your sales volume,

or you watch your reputation rot, while the sales floor keeps the lights on. And the ratings suggest too many of these chains have chosen door number two. And I want to put some of this on the manufacturers too.

Brinkley, Forest River, Thor, Winnebago, all of them. They love the volume that Camping World and General RV push through their doors. so they don't want to rock the boat too much. And that relationship isn't going to go away.