Forest River Wildcat reviews

It's now been 4 years since the purchase of our 2018 FOREST River Wildcat 34WB 5th Wheel so I feel I can provide an honest review. First I'll give the good because that's the quick part. The floor plan is great & the Coach had plenty of storage inside & out. The exterior has a nice appearance. That's where good ends. This is our 2nd New 5th purchase & this Wildcat is quite possibly the worst coach from a quality & assembly stand point. Interior fit & finish: Numerous pieces of the coach's interior trim came loose in less than a year, due to lack of fasteners & adhesive. The Tech who repaired the problems said it looked like they started to install the trim & walked away with out completely finishing the job. Flooring: The flooring throughout the coach looked great, but is horribly cheap & improperly installed, areas cut unevenly, poor quality carpet, installed loose. Slideouts: 2 of the 3 slideouts had to be adjusted not long after the coach was delivered & 1 again 6 months later. I'm glad we are on a permanent campsite and do not tow this Coach because I'm sure the slideouts would be an issue each time it was towed. Furnace: Someone did not put much thought into installation of the furnace. It's extremely difficult to access since someone decided it would be a good idea to eliminate the exterior access panel and make it necessary to remove a wall in the front pass- thru storage and crawl into a tiny space for access. After you reach the furnace, you must dismount the furnace to gain access to the electrical panel, where the circuit board & sail switch are located, these are both known to fail. You now have extremely difficult access, costing 4 times the amount of labor that would normally be involved for repairs. Then to top off the furnace issue, the design engineer thought it would be a good idea to put the black vacuum breaker check valve, for the black tank flush, directly above the furnace inside a wall cavity that has no access panel. The problem being that these vacuum breakers are known to fail quite often & leak. Where does it leak? Directly onto the furnace causing damage to the electronics. Due to the lack of access you have zero ability to check it occasionally and find a leak while its minor. Does Forest River Intentionally designing their Coaches with built-in, guaranteed problems? Kitchen: Another ridiculous idea by a design engineer was eliminating the exterior vent for the propane cooktop/oven. Instead they had a range top microwave in the design that vents to the inside of the coach, causing excess moisture build up inside the coach while cooking, rather than use a perfectly good, tried & true design of venting the cook top to the outside. RV's are already moisture sensitive, why intentionally trap more moisture inside? Windows: at least 2 windows were improperly installed, making them difficult to open and close. Due to this poor installation the windows will always be difficult because there are no adjustments once installed. Quality Vontrol Inspection obviously never occurred or the Inspector just completely ignored the many flaws in workmanship. Never again will I buy a Forest River product. Show less

I purchased in the summer of 2021. It has been nothing but problems since...Broken couch-bunkhouse couch-awning arm-fresh water tank valve-outside hose valve-faulty wiring on slide outs, trim around slide outs are peeling, floor entering master is bubbling up, door will not stay shut (camper is level). The lettering on the back of the camper says Wildcat by Fore T River!! My dealer has been great with what they can get in and fix. This camper is a lemon and if I could return it I would. I am VERY disappointed in the quality of this unit. I really love the layout and would be very happy with the purchase if it was made correctly! Show less

This camper is like a home it's large enough for the whole family, feels very comfortable to be in and easy to cook. I love the kitchen island the most! It has a great speaker system you can listen to inside and out one at a time or all together. You can also mount a tv to watch outside while enjoying the weather. And how convenient is the outdoor kitchen.. the camper offers lots of storage and we'll know that's always an issue in a camper. Easy towing with my Ford F150 and that sway bar hitch I'm including in the sail saves you alot of money. Show less

Overall trailer is great, floor plan is what we needed. We are a couple and only camp 12-20 days each year, no kid, no pets, garage kept. The fender covers were not supported other than screws that kept fenders on unit. When pulling trailer wind apparently vibratred fenders and virtually destroyed fenders until i realized the problems and secured to trailer better. Now I am stuck without fenders. The fenders from manufactory cost up to $400.00 each. There are no generic fenders available. What am i to do.? Show less

We have enjoyed our Wildcat 29RKP now going on 3 yrs and are steeping up to a class A Motorhome. We were very pleased with the quality of the 5th wheel and greatly enjoyed the patio feature. We are sad to have to give that feature up. The camper is absolutely perfect for a couple. I really can’t say anything negative about the camper and feel that Forest River did a great job designing this 5th wheel. Show less

We bought our camper brand new. Took it 1st and brought it home the wall bubbled, and then went down hill from there. Pretty much everything has been replaced from 2 wall, to awning to axles, to fixing heater and now the jacks not working correctly, oh and replaced batteries,, Every winter it's been back to the factory or place of purchase. Afraid to take it out cause don't know if we will get it back home. Bought extended warranty and it has helped us but where we take it to get fixed has been good as far as warranty work but other than that not so good with returning phone call Show less

We have had nothing but problems from day 1 of purchase. Bought it brand new. Needed 2 walls,heater fixed 2 times, slides fixed properly,awning, then found out needed axles,and now the jacks are not working correctly. Inverter might b junk. Don't know for sure. O and had to put new batteries in already. Show less

We've traveled in our Wildcat for 4 years and been across the country a few times. I chose it for it's rear-livingroom layout. The livingroom is spacious because of opposing slides. We had to replace all the tires because of blowouts, which is probably a good idea with all new rvs. The furnace needed a new motherboard. Other than that, it's been fine for fulltime living. Show less

Bought new in’12 because of the features and floor plan and how it fit my budget. Like most of the lower priced models, the quality of the components are average but adequate. My biggest gripe is with the poor workmanship/assembly. 2 great examples: first I had an intermittent electrical issue where items on the 12v system would simply stop working. It took over a week of painstakingly tracing every wire and connector to find the culprit. A poorly crimped ring connector had been stuck back on a 10g wire after they snipped a couple strands of the wire to make it fit (loosely). Second, nobody applied sealant upon installation of the 4 windows in the slide out living room. Rain water completely destroyed the walls and the floors causing a complete rebuild of the slide out. The warranty ultimately took care of that issue but that was a nightmare for another blog. There was at least one notable design flaw: the hydraulic pump for the slides has a slot that allows you to manually operate the pump with a drill attachment. However they install the pump in such a way that the slot is directly against a bulkhead. In order to access it you have to go in through the cargo hold and drill a large hole through the bulkhead! Then there’s the Forest River forum. It started out ok with a company rep trying to answer questions but there was so much disgruntlement that it felt like the reps gave up. I’m ok with “you get what you pay for” and feel that the component quality and amount of features is adequate for this price point. However, I did not pay for shoddy workmanship. Unfortunately that is what you should expect from this manufacturer. I won’t purchase anything from Forest River again. Show less