The Drifter - Specs and FAQ

[/ATTACH]3340998[/ATTACH] Thanks for the reply and input Phil! I would have liked to have had my drifter ready for install on the 30th as scheduled rather than siting around for a couple of day while it was being built. I even tried to make sure the delivery was still good the day prior to traveling to Cali but didn't hear from VO.

So, we did speak about the hatch size at your shop and here's the texts on the topic:

 

John,

I appreciate you showing the complete discussion for clarity. I do not see where Phil confirmed the plywood portion though.

 

That is a fair perspective. We spoke about the width for plywood, solar, awning mounting, bolt on install and windows over the phone. I can appreciate that with the volume of inquires VO must get over various mediums, it is a demanding task to keep orders straight. But for me, it is easy...I am solely focused on one camper, mine. The texts are just part of the conversation, I have the email correspondence as well, but I don't want to bog the TW server.

"We really take our time with each new offering. Per our discussion, this rear hatch was a prototype. I apologize if I didn't make this clear enough. We were reluctant in agreeing to provide a prototype to a customer, and this is a great example of why we will never repeat this. Especially since no additional cost was charged."

The hatch was offered to me by VO, as the texts illustrate, for my camper not being delivered on the original date as it was promised. The texts also show a full hatch was discussed and agreed to.

 

I totally get it, but we sincerely take your camper just as seriously as everyone else’s. A lot of work went into your camper to accommodate your deadline and requests. We learned a lot moving forward from this experience.

I only bring up the plywood requests because said it was promised and you had the texts to back it up. I didn’t see it, but now you’re saying it was in a phone conversation and email. I’m just making sure the situation is being displayed accurately.

I’m on my phone so when I hop on my computer I’ll have a better response to bring some clarity since we are discussing this publicly.

 

John,

I don't have my computer with me so i’ll reply again tomorrow. I do want to be clear that we will own up to any mistake we have made, I just wanted to make that clear. Your camper was probably the most complex one we have built to date, and we still want to make sure you are happy with your purchase. What kind of resolution would you like to see?

 

Jesus Christ @rockymtnbushwacker do you really need to put all of that in this thread? You were so good at communicating with Phil before you got your camper and now you want to address all of the unknown-to-them issues on a pubic forum? I'm sorry but that is a cry baby bitch move. From the screen shots of your conversations with Phil, it seems like you're a nice guy but then you bring everything up on here like a millennial Amazon prime baby.

Either way, I'm glad you're getting your camper fixed. I too would be concerned with everything you mentioned, but I definitely would have handled it a different way. Good luck to you

 

I have a feeling @rockymtnbushwacker doesn't have much experience in the way of ordering and acquiring custom offroad parts.

I spoke with the fella while he was camping out at VO HQ(figuratively speaking, I think he had a hotel room) for 3 days while he hovered over the construction of his custom made camper. I got the feeling he was super enthusiastic about owning a prototype rear hatch model.

Frankly, I was/am jealous that he has a hatch. I’d almost kill for one. But if I had issues with a prototype, I would most definitely give my feedback to the manufacturer in a different format...

Let’s be frank here. This was a dick move to get attention. Unfortunately it will probably garner the wrong kind of attention he is seeking.

Good luck and thanks for all the fish.

 

I tried to speak to VO about the issue when I was waiting for my camper to be finished after the scheduled install date. VO didn't seem concerned to discuss these matters and just walked away instead of trying to offer solutions. Waiting almost a month for the pigtail so I can have power to the camper, not getting responses from VO on the camper not being ready the day before I traveled for install and having to wait 2 days to have the build finished has a colorful term as well. @MJonaGS32 glad you didn't have the problems with your build as I have. It's probably easier to not have problems with local customers.

 

This is true, to the extent of non-local offroad items and I have not traveled out of state to pick up a camper . Local shops have always needed flexibility for custom requests. Thta's reasonable. My camper was due in Feb 2019 and it wasn't started. VO requested the 30 Apr 19 new install date, that too wasn't met. Hotel room? no, I had to sleep in my truck and got as much remote work accomplished as possible as my time off work didn't allow to 2 days extra time. I popped in to check on progress about hour or two, apologies to VO if that was thought of as hovering as @Anderson stated, I was an am very enthusiastic about the camper. There are kinks to work out and this really impacted the family vacation. I am definitely not a attention/affirmation seeker. Setting a second install date because the first one was forgotten about and then still not having the product completed on the second install date is a dick move. This experience just highlights a order/install occurrence that hasn't been posted and contradicts what the normal fan boys post. @Anderson, thanks for the insights you provided, your camper is remarkable!

 

@rockymtnbushwacker

John, just so the conversation doesn't go sideways, what kind of outcome are you looking for?

 

You keep saying that you are an angel in all of this but this conversation should be offline as no one wants the facebook story of your life. Posting conversation history and such is not cool. I didnt even read it because it felt wrong.

 

It sounds like you’re frustrated with your build @rockymtnbushwacker but putting a large private text convo in here derails from the thread and honesty is confusing. The thread is “The Drifter - Specs and FAQ” not “VO Custom Build - Specs and FAQ”. I’d appreciate if you could take it to a private conversation or another thread so the rest of us who are interested in a standard Drifter build don’t need to filter all this noise out.

 

Iggy, I have no expected outcome. People post their positive experiences with their builds/installs all the time. Mine was a departure from the normal posted experience. The community should have all perspectives represented. Considering the distance factor, VO isn't able to correct the issues. I have already started working with a local fab shop to make the camper as ordered.

 

I don’t understand the logic being followed here. Please explain to me why you are having another shop do the work you feel needs to be completed? If you had communicated this to VO about these issues before this, I am sure they would have found an amicable resolution.

What are you having this other shop do for you? I’m curious as I REALLY want a rear hatch.

 

I get your frustration, especially because you aren't local and have to plan vacation days around estimated completion dates. But it seems that every issue that you mentioned in your initial post was addressed in Phil's replies. And then the barrage of screen shots ensued. I just don't understand the need to put every single detail on full display. Because now the VO guys have to put that much more effort into addressing your issues because it is now on full display.

In my understanding with everything, you ordered a custom camper, prototype at that, and had several modes of communication with VO (phone calls, emails, and the text messages). Then you arrive to their shop earlier than anticipated and watched them complete your camper for 3 days straight - and when I hear they worked that long on an individual camper, I'm probably guessing that they weren't working on anyone else's camper (otherwise it wouldn't have taken them that long to finish yours - but I could be wrong). And then the aforementioned reply post from Phil with all of the solutions, and now Iggy, it seems like VO has spent a significant amount of time working with you.

And now you mention that there is no expected outcome from of all of this? Complain to work toward a solution, not complain just to complain. Maybe we all need to do our part in this thread and not talk about it anymore so this issue can organically die.

 

I can agree with sharing the good and the bad. We never claim to be perfect, but we try to fix our mistakes. Since we are doing all this for the sake of transparency, I'd like to offer our side of the story as well. As you know there is your side, our side and the truth somewhere in the middle. Please don't take this as a personal attack, but we also had challenges on our end as well.

My primary focus with VO is product development, R&D and prototyping. That's why some times you see things on my camper that aren't available yet or maybe won't be. Creating a new product or option has several layers of complexity, and here's some insight in how we do it.

I spend most of my time in Solidworks creating what I think will be the first initial rendition. After what I do what I can to test in SW, part/product goes through evaluation to see a) is it physically possible to manufacture and b) how much does it cost. From there we adjust the balance between A/B. Most of the time this is a rinse and repeat with SW to get something that functions as expected, doesn't cost and arm and a leg for you, and can be reproduced effectively and timely in production. As I develop things the biggest challenge is not using shop resources so that we are not interfering with the production of customer campers. Sometimes these cycles can take up to 10 weeks to get what I need to keep developing and testing.

I bring this up because your rear hatch was definitely a prototype. It is the first and only we have ever built, and we threw all that I just described out the window to meet your deadline. Phil and I had many discussions about releasing the rear hatch, and I was very apprehensive about it. Phil is definitely more accommodating than I am, but we both try to make our customers happy. As illustrated in your text screen shots, the rear hatch was a request and the camper was never ordered that way because it never existed as an option. But again, we wanted to make you happy for missing the original timeline.

The next thing is we scheduled your camper to be completed sometime Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, and you arrived to the shop Monday morning. While there is nothing wrong with this, we started working double time to get you out a head of schedule, however the result of this was it created tension at the shop with the staff. As you saw we were very polite and accommodating as well, but we were rushing a prototype door with zero room for revisions, all while under your supervision. You can see why it was hard to take "input" during this time because there were a lot of moving parts. We said possibly Tuesday, and you left on Wednesday.

So in the end we own up that we missed your first date of completion. You're the last hard date we had promised because things happen out of our control. In return we gave you the rear door, we didn't charge for any of the work, parts or labor involved with that type of custom work. We worked on your camper for almost 3 full days at the expense of working on other campers and sacrificing our quality control. We also installed your solar panels for free, I know you paid for wiring as part of the order, but we made the brackets and installed the panels you shipped to us free of charge. We did all this because we were trying to make things right. I'm very sorry after all this you are still unhappy.

The lesson learned here is managing expectations, a few things I am noticing you are upset about are thing you said you wanted and expected us to do, but we didn't agree to. We will take the necessary steps in the future to make sure this doesn't happen again. We also implemented some new rules at the shop, not all because of this, but also to avoid future upset customers.

1) Lead times are estimates only.
2) No customers in the shop while campers are being produced.
3) No prototypes on customers campers, ever.

We've also been pretty accommodating with special requests, but will most likely say no going forward.

I hope this serves as our side of the story, and welcome a health discussion publicly or privately to make sure we are covering customers needs and exceptions.

 

Meh, lets get back on the barn door retrofit!!!

 

Paracord would work well too. I originally bought this to create an interior tailgate pull, but works great to hold rear window at rain dripping angle.

 

On my Tradesman I use paracord to limit the travel of all my doors. Works great

 

So as one should do with family, I have an announcement to make. As some of you may remember I took the family Drifter camping in Baja in February and my significant other came back pregnant.

Anyone want to swap their Nomad spot for a pre-order Drifter?