December 30, 2020. I dropped off my RV at what, at the time was was Tom Johnson Camping Center in Marion, NC — a shop recommended directly by the manufacturer, with a service manager who had been a field rep for my exact model. I had a broken slide rail. I had part numbers already shared. I had one ask: fix it, and if you can’t keep it inside, wrap it.
Simple enough.
What followed was 700 days, six return trips, an attorney, a state DOJ notice, a tweet that got a reply fourteen months later, and a floor so rotten their own technician stood inside my home and said “I don’t know what to do.”
This is that story. In three parts.
This isn’t a rage post. I’m a patient person — probably too patient, which is honestly part of the story.
I’m also a full-time RVer, a technical professional, and someone who documented everything. Every email. Every promise. Every date they said they’d call and didn’t. Every photo of every thing that was wrong when I showed up to pick up a unit they told me was ready.
I wrote this because what happened to me wasn’t a fluke. Read any RV forum. Read the Google reviews. The pattern is everywhere: shop takes the unit, communication disappears, months pass, customer returns to find nothing done or something broken that wasn’t before. Customer feels crazy. Customer keeps going back. Customer eventually gives up.
I didn’t want to give up without documenting it first.
The human story. The trust. The slow unraveling.
This is where it started — full-time RV life, a slide that wouldn’t close, and a shop that came highly recommended. This chapter is about what it actually feels like when the place that’s supposed to fix your home becomes the thing that breaks it. And about the psychological trap of thinking you’re the problem when water is literally pouring through your dashboard.
The receipts. The timeline. The 3 P’s.
This is the evidence vault. Screenshots, dates, work orders, contradictions, pickup failures, camera footage, and a corporate escalation that took fourteen months to produce a two-word reply. Framed through Marcus Lemonis’s own 3 P’s framework — People, Process, Product — because the irony of Camping World’s CEO championing business fundamentals while his own service operation ignored every single one of them is too good to leave on the table.
The lessons. The checklist. What they should have done.
The most practical chapter. What I know now that I wish I’d known then — not just emotionally, but operationally. How a competent service operation should actually work. What documentation matters and why. When to escalate. And most importantly: when to walk. This is the chapter I’d want someone to find before they drop off their RV anywhere.
| Unit dropped off | December 30, 2020 |
| Final resolution | Late 2022 |
| Total time | ~700 days |
| Return trips | 6 (at my expense) |
| Warranty call delay | 3 months after diagnosis |
| The actual fix needed | One set screw |
| Floor repair quote | $11,000+ — they declined to do it |
| CEO tweet reply time | 14 months |
If you’ve ever dropped your RV off somewhere and felt that slow creep of am I being unreasonable? Is this just how it works? Maybe I’m too picky? — this series is for you.
You’re not too picky.
Water shouldn’t pour through your dashboard after eight months in a repair shop.
Copyright 2017-2026 RVWorking