Hondo Garage's New Thing

I get the communication concerns, i think the conspiracy theory on that delivery was funny. I got mine, I had my concerns for sure.

 

you say tomato, I say tomato

 

What I was trying to get at was there's more to the story if they're working that hard and only 2 ( or 2.3 as someone pointed out earlier) campers are coming out a week. I don't disagree that that's an extremely low number and certainly not paying the bills.

Maybe @wileydavis can provide an update or some additional context.

 

Is it weird that I read that as tomato and tomato?

 

Nailed it. Good way to end a text war.

 

I'd say there's two part to people that have paid. You're out 5-6k depending when you ordered. The Pelfreybilt, etc scenario doesn't help the timing either as tensions are high now and for those that pre-ordered (myself included) you took the chance on them pulling through a lot sooner than actual timelines.

Early May they discussed and vowed to weekly updates which became once a month and then zilch. Then there is the original timeline of when the camper is being manufactured and when you will get it. I personally had to go back through 50 or so email (yes that many) and see what was actually said. It calmed me a bit because I was acting emotionally and irrationally. But lack of communication is 100% the main contributor.

I definitely wish it were better, but at the same time they are working on things and trying to put 100 fires out and are obviously choosing to prioritize the manufacturing process. While you can argue they can easily send an update once a week that takes an hour or so to produce that is obviously a fire they have chosen not to put out....yet.

 

You guys have to keep in mind we can only fit five campers on the delivery truck. The last load to go out was full, so just because we made it to L.A. doesn't necessarily mean we can just head to San Diego too. There's another delivery run to socal coming up soon. And shipping a bunch of uncompressed foam is actually not cheap. It's definitely not cheaper than throwing it on an empty trailer that we're buying gas for anyway.

There's no conspiracy on the slowdown in completed campers. We're just waiting on extrusion which is scheduled to be here around the 22nd.

 

I don’t think extrusion is holding back completion of campers, except the 7 or whatever it was that are actually waiting.

The completion flow complaint seems to be a bigger issue than a temporary delay in a single material.

Correct me if I’m wrong (I don’t follow this thread..).

Communication definitely blows though, that’s easily noticed even by a bystander like me.

 

Like a pack of mad wolves in here at times..

 

That's exactly what's holding us up. We have 40 something campers "in production". Most are waiting on extrusion.

 

I think the biggest concern is 2 a week average over the past 7 months.

I think everyone is looking for an explanation to why you guys have been only producing 2 a week on average for the past 7 months.

 

Don’t get us started on Mr Buddy heaters.

 

It's just the result of having started from zero. Literally an empty shop which we moved into in March. That month I think we built a total of one camper. But it took a long time. We averaged about one per week in April and May. In September our average was 7.25/week. Then we ran out of extrusion (lead times drastically increased from our supplier and we didn't get our PO schedule in place soon enough). We also had two shipments in a row of the honeycomb panels arrive damaged. As in unusably damaged. It was covered by insurance but still causes a delay because the lead time on that material is usually eight weeks. Luckily the manufacturer rushed a replacement run (it's made to order, not just sitting on a shelf).

We hired a full-time Operations Manager in August. His primary job is to manage the supply chain. Which he's done but a lot of what he's put into place (scheduled material POs especially) doesn't start taking effect until this month. We do see light at the end of the tunnel. But it's no simple challenge. It took three weeks of back and forth just to get large quantities of gas struts ordered, for example.

So yes, it's true that 2/week average is not sustainable. But averaging 5-10/week is very sustainable and everything is in place to do that except material, and that problem has also been solved. We're just waiting for the solution to take effect.

 

Y'all are doing great Wiley, you have all accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. This thread gets it hills and valleys as we get anxious to get our campers but keep it up. We all love what you have built, obviously, and I can not wait to meet you all in November during pick up and install.

 

I have a frontrunner roof rack. I’m pretty certain the rack and the camper are not compatible...But What is the overhang of the GFC on a long bed Tacoma over the roof? And how big is the gap between roof and the GFC? Thanks!

 

If you search posts by me from back towards the beginning you should find some dimensions posted. I don’t think the GFC was high enough to fit the frontrunner under it, it’s a pretty tall rack. Frontrunner does make shorter trays that you can mount using the forward and middle mounts on the roof rails and then chop the last third of the rail off where the GFC overhangs.

 

https://gofastcampers.com/pages/mainfaq

 

Did @doordings FAQ page get erased with the great disappearance?

 

Ah, cheers. I actually browsed the FAQ without seeing the 1.5” clearance above the cab. Must be time for bed.