We are seasoned Pop-up campers—this Flagstaff was our 3rd—and the worst decision we’ve ever made. Brand new from the factory, we had trouble from the very first overnight camping trip to try it out. The hoses leaked, both on the shower and on the kitchen faucets—first a slow leak, th...
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We are seasoned Pop-up campers—this Flagstaff was our 3rd—and the worst decision we’ve ever made. Brand new from the factory, we had trouble from the very first overnight camping trip to try it out. The hoses leaked, both on the shower and on the kitchen faucets—first a slow leak, then a steady stream that forced us to turn off the water outside and haul water inside in a bucket. The air conditioner, which we had installed at the dealership, didn’t have enough length in the cord, so the prongs on the plug-in bent, and was in a place where my husband needed arms at least 36” long to reach. The ceiling fan had a short from the minute we tried to turn it on—it would go on and off at will through the 26 hours we camped. The door wouldn’t align—it kept blowing open because it couldn’t latch, and definitely couldn’t be locked. The mattress warmer’s control fell apart in my hand when I took it out of the bag the first time. The next morning, in the process of taking the camper down, we saw that the king bunk had separated from the formica adjacent to it, over the drawer. We went back to the dealership, wanting to return the pop-up after our 24 hour fiasco. They refused. They threatened us if we pursued legal action. We went without our camper from April until late July while the dealership waited for parts from Forest River to replace what was broken, so we missed most of our 2019 camping season. We took it on a month-long camping trip to Colorado and Utah in the fall, thinking everything that was wrong was fixed. Those things were fixed, but now we had new issues. On the 9th day of our trip, the hot water tank quit working, with 21 days to go. Then, when we were taking down to move onto Utah, the futon couch would not go back into place as we tried to take down. Unbeknownst to us, the metal bracket had been factory installed at the wrong angle, and was cutting into the wood brace that supported it. We couldn’t take the pop-up down without my husband totally removing the bracket so the futon could go down. For the rest of the trip, we had to sit very carefully on the futon so it wouldn’t fall through into the storage area under it, and heated water on the cooktop to wash dishes.
We wrote twice to the the CEO of Forest River, Peter Leigl, who promised to make it right and never did a thing. The salesman at Happy Trails RV in Lebanon MO who sold this unit to us, had no clue what he was doing, once we brought the camper back to them. The only saving grace was a repairman there, Chris, who did everything he could to fix all the problems this camper had. I would not buy another product from Forest River for any reason. They sell, then they’re done.
The pop-up was on warranty, since it was brand new, so we didn’t have to pay for repairs, but we were never comfortable taking it on a trip again. PLEASE buy a camper from any other company but Forest River—it was a nightmare experience for us.
Livability
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