Forest River RV | Camping World — Local services in Columbus

I have never written a negative review in my life. Ever. I always thought it cowardly; bad for karma. But after my experience with Coates RV in Hugo, I feel it would be bad karma to not warn others of this dump. Most of the 4 and 5 star reviews for Coates have to be fakes. Bottom line - I don't want anyone to go through what my husband and I went through with these people.

We live in Forest Lake and figured it would be good to live close to where we buy it.. if anything happens, Coates is right here we thought - plus lets support a local business we thought.

Our friends had a newer Flagstaff Highwall... we had the money so we went all out and bought supposedly a brand new Highwall pop-up for 16K from Coates. Jason was the Salesman and Steve did our super rushed orientation. Steve was condescending, irritated and in a hurry to move us through. Looking back we should have acknowledged the bad vibe and walked away right there but we moved forward with the purchase anyway.

From literally the day we bought it, it was one problem after another. Screws falling out, broken bathroom stall, loud squeaking coming from the trailer axle, air conditioner didn't work most of the time, fridge stopped working, busted stove, broken velcro for the dining seats, busted dining table legs, the radio never worked, nuisance carbon monoxide alarms at 3 am. so on and so forth.. The camper is a complete lemon, no other way to put it.

We called them about every item as they occurred; while camping (keep in mind this camper was supposed to be brand new). They told us to make a list and send it to them because they couldn't look at any of the items during their selling season. Great. No air, no radio all summer I guess. We still took it on 4 small camping trips as Coates said they couldn't fix anything until September. We bring it in in Sept and they don't have the parts, and the repairs last into December. So we missed all of fall camping MN in 2018. At this point, we ask if they will just take the camper back and give us most of our money back as we'd lost faith in the reliability of camper and Coates. They reluctantly offer us $8K. I laughed at them and asked them to winterize it and store it. They agreed.

Fast forward to April 2019, I ask if they can de-winterize the camper so I can pick it up. They say they can't find it because they "switched systems". Awesome. After a slew of unreturned phone calls and a couple weeks, they end up finding it and I pick it up. I bring it home - the tires are low, the battery is dead and they didn't de-winterize it for use. So, I plug the camper in overnight to charge the battery and the battery melts. Literally melts and is boiling in my garage. Battery acid everywhere. If I wouldn't have caught it on time who knows...

So, I call Coates immediately and I take the camper in the same day only for Travis to strong arm for us an additional $324 for a diagnostic fee on their lemon camper - including $67 to put air in the tires plus a new battery even though his technician says the problem is most likely the converter/charger. Tech says, "try it out, If the battery issue happens again just bring it back." OK, great. By the way, the battery that came with the new camper lasted just over 1 year, not covered by warranty.

Then to top it all off, as if this disaster can get worse, I get the camper home after the battery debacle and the exterior protective grill for the refrigerator is missing and the cap for the fresh water tank is popped off. I call Travis immediately to ask for the protective grill and he says it was missing when we brought it in. "not my problem" he says and hung up on me after I finally let out an F-word. I have doorbell video of the grate being on the camper when I left to bring it in. If it fell off on the ride to Coates, it would have been because they didn't screw the cover on when they fixed their broken fridge.

So, brand new camper from Coates, the entire experience was a complete disaster. The worst buying experience I've ever had. DO NOT BUY FROM...

We bought our trailer in 2013 and checked it out 1 month before delivery as we were having them deliver to a campground up north as we don't have a vehicle to tow it with and sits there all yr round and it came without our blinds over the sliding glass door which were there when we checked the camper out and a dent in side along with some other things broken and chips in the windows. After fighting with them to come up and give us service it took almost 6 months to get someone up there and that was after a screaming match many times. They took care of it in the end but many, many calls, and emails and then everyone I talked to was gone there. Salesrep, service manager, anyone that was there when we bought was either fired or left.

Now I have a paint defect that the manufacturer acknowledges that it was a defect from that very cold winter we had in 2014, says they will pay for parts and labor, but I can't for over a year, get them up there to repair the defect. My whole front of the camper peeled all the paint off. They have to replace the pieces and I have no way to get it down to them since I had them deliver it. I have tried for over a year, with hundreds of emails. Then they said we couldn't find the emails since we changed email systems. Of course I kept good records, so I forwarded them all, then that person either left or was fired last January 2015. Finally I gave up, then they called me back a few months later because they were stuck with $600 in HUGE parts they ordered since they have to pay for the parts until the service work is completed. Then the mfr will reimburse. Since they never did the work, they don't get paid. The key to these relationships is to have leverage. Hold your title from your old camper before getting your new one, so you can check it out first. Then they will be all over you to get your title and will give you attention. I gave up and figured many places take trades site unseen and I figured I will just trade it in when the time comes it's someone else's service problem at a dealer to fix.

Needless to say, they (and MANY, MANY other places) will gladly sell you a camper, but will not service you well. At our campground we have horror stories of many places doing similar things. Our door knobs came hugely dented which they noted and never ever fixed. Said there was no way to get the part so I had to live with it.

Just overall sad state of affairs, and just goes to show you, all they care about is taking your money and running out the door!

if you actually get a service tech, make sure he wears booties in the camper as one guy had caulk all over his shoes and got it into the carpet and I can't get it out...

BUYER BEWARE...

During 2020 with COVID affecting everything including the kids school and activities brought us to camp every weekend. Using a nice but very small camper with two adults two kids and three dogs we felt very cramped. We started our journey looking for an different camper with more space and room for us all to share. During that journey we met with a lot of helpful and knowledgeable sales people. Although every dealership had something to offer in their own way we felt something totally different when we stopped in to Coates now Camping World. Jason was our first interaction and to state he had a lot of knowledge on the campers would be an understatement. He showed us every camper possible and explained every detail and difference in benefit between them. She showed us the value between the different brands and models. Which gave us the comfort to be able to decide on which one we would be happiest with. With that we meet Matt and Dan who also went above and beyond to help us when Jason was not available on his day off or was busy with another customer. Dan the GM made sure that our needs were met and we were taken care of in every way possible. With that we had struggles getting into something we wanted but we did not give up nor did they. In the spring of 2021 we started the journey again. The moment we walked in the door in Dan welcomed us back by name (the first time seeing us in eight months) what a great feeling. We felt like part of the Camping World family even though we had not bought a camper yet. We came on Jason‘s day off, but that did not stop Dan from showing us different campers and helping us even after they closed. We finally located the perfect camper. Dan started putting the numbers together. I didn’t know what to think on what he would come back with for a price on our current camper so when he gave us the price we where very pleased and even gave us an exceptional price on the new one. At the time of delivery when we showed up our camper was parked out front with all the slides opened, cleaned and stuck out from all the other campers there. After we looked around the camper we wanted to just sit and just take a second to enjoy it. They came out to us to see what we thought and had the paper work so we could just sign for it inside the camper, boy was that a fun experience. To top it off they even had something special for us in the fridge to help us celebrate. Thank you Jason, Dan, Matt, Ryan, Renee and everyone else involved. With out all of you working together we would not have been able to find the perfect camper to allow us to continue our journey for...