Pete's RV Center - PA — Local services in West Hempfield Township

Recently purchased a Jayco JayFlight 28BHBE from what is now Pete's RV Center. It was my first camper purchase and I had heard great things about Gayle Kline RV but that was not my experience with "Pete's RV". The initial visit was great and I made a selection and put down a deposit. But everything after that went sharply downhill. It took over a week to hear back from the salesman (Jim) and I only received a reply when I "offered" to take my business elsewhere. It took another week to make any progress all of which was initiated by me as it seems an impossibility for anyone to actually take any initiative to call you back or do anything that they say they are going to do. After receiving no response back to schedule an appointment to finish up the paperwork (which was supposedly all ready to go) I stopped in on my way home from work only to be told repeatedly for 50 minutes that someone would be right with me. Nobody showed so I left as I needed to get home. Someone finally called me 15 minutes after I left wondering where I was. I told them that I had left and explained what happened and was told that I should have scheduled a time to complete the paperwork which I had tried to do with Nick (sales manager) but had not received any response. No apology or any explanation was offered but I was told that I could call back when I returned from vacation (I was leaving the next day for a week) in order to schedule a time to come in. I called every day starting Monday after my vacation and received no return phone calls from either my salesman (Jim) or the sales manager (Nick) who also would not reply to multiple emails. When I decided to try my luck again with stopping in on Thursday of that week it took almost 30 minutes before someone came and got me to complete the paperwork only to find out that the paperwork was incorrect and they also didn't realize that they had the information that I had sent them 2 weeks prior. Having finally completed the paperwork and provided the balance of the money I was putting down I scheduled to pick up the camper the following morning at 9:00am and was promised that it was ready to go but they would wash it that night so it was nice and clean in the morning. So I show up at 9 as agreed only to be ignored for almost 30 minutes while they were in some type of "meeting". Once the meeting was over they went to check to make sure everything was ready which obviously it wasn't since after another 15 minutes of waiting around I walked over to the service building to find them washing the camper. By this time I was ready to be out of there so after a quick walk-through of the camper I hooked it up to my truck and left.

Now with all of that said I understand that COVID-19 has made a lot of ordinary tasks more challenging and I also understand that there has been significant increase in interest in campers due to everything that has been happening, but that is no excuse for the worst customer service and lack of communication that I have ever experienced. If something is delayed or moving slower than expected a little communication is all that is needed. But when you treat people as if they don't matter or that their business doesn't matter you end up with very dissatisfied customers.

So in case you haven't figured it out yet my recommendation is that you find somewhere else to purchase or have your camper/travel trailer/RV serviced. And based on the conversations that I had with other customers while we were waiting around for someone to assist us my experience is far from...

AVOID using them. Here's a warning: Because they are a Jayco dealer, and I had good previous experience with Gayle Kline (the owner before Pete's), I used Pete's for some minor repairs to my 5th wheel. I had a typed list of relatively minor issues which I offered to send in advance, but they declined. I waited 6 weeks for my appointment. It took more than an hour to do through their intake process and more than an hour to pick up. They altered and damaged the connecting plate for the hitch of my Jayco 5th wheel, which was not on my list and worked fine before they damaged it. Since there was no one who seemed to be in charge of service, and I had been exhausted by the tedious "it's not our fault" attitude of Karen, the bureaucratic service technician, I wrote a two-page letter to the senior official at corporate to detail my concerns. Even though I made sure it was signed for as received, I got no response. Karen, who writes the work order, seems to lack technical knowledge and experience and is the other side of Route 462 from the technicians who do the work. This place does not seem to be well managed or supervised. Nearly all employees are relatively new and seem to be more interested in "CYA" than customer service. This place is a text-book study in business ineptitude from sale of a long-time owner, Covid, poor corporate training and management, paranoid and defensive employees, and "good help is hard to find" in this economic cycle. One side of the street does not communicate well with the other. My intake and pick up appointments were interrupted repeatedly with phone calls, which not only wasted my time, but gave me an opportunity to discover that I was not alone in my frustrations. Maybe over time Pete's corporate will find time to care enough to respond to complaints, hire a competent on-site service manager who can develop a system to overcome the dysfunction of the shop being separated from the office, and train their office staff how to communicate efficiently to service a customer rather than excessively with a CYA "it's not our fault" priority. However, I do not expect to return. When I recently discovered that some minor issues were not fixed as they appeared to be at the time of pick up, I paid someone else to do what should have been done the time. AVOID this place unless and until the reviews change for at least 6 months. If Karen is still there, expect a tedious intake and pick up process that will test your patience and take more time than your would expect to be necessary, either from your previous experience at Gayle Kline's or from other vehicle service operations. CONSIDER YOURSELF TO HAVE BEEN WARNED. Even if it is a closer or more convenient location, literally drive an hour further to get to a more stable business and you will...

Generally a pretty good experience! I stopped by the other week to look at a few used teardrop campers they had. Unfortunately one of them was already sold but got a chance to look at another one.

The salesman was nice, not overly pushy or constantly trying to get me to look at other bigger campers I wasn't interested in. After looking at one of the Nucamp TAGs, I decided to go ahead with the paperwork. They got everything ready fairly quickly as well as an assessment for my A frame pop up trade in. Only paid $8k for my A frame camper and they gave $7k for a trade in. This is even after mentioning the front floor and a spot in the back was getting soft. The loan/paperwork person was a little disorganized and didn't seem to be listening to what I was saying 100% of the time? I had to repeat a few things multiple times but at the end of the day, all the paperwork was correct.

Waited a few days to hear back as they do a check on the camper before you take it home and order anything that's needed. Got a call and scheduled to pick up the camper the Wednesday before Memorial day weekend. This is where it loses a star. Not sure if this is standard at other places, but you can only pickup at 9am, 12pm, or 3pm. I arrived just before 3pm and sat around for maybe 15 minutes until they got everything ready. They stated their phone systems and internet were down and couldn't call me to tell me they needed to replace 2 parts but couldn't check on the shipping of them. Its only for the sink faucet and the outside shower pipe that needed replaced, not a big deal to me since I usually replace my own stuff. The whole process took about an hour and a half. They showed me everything with the new camper and showed what needed replaced. Anyway, I work in IT and can't understand how they don't have a backup/failsafe for these types of issues. The building across the street that the parts department uses didn't have internet but the main building did? They couldn't use a cell phone to call me? They don't have a laptop they could use in the main building to check on parts? I actually still haven't received any calls about the parts they said they ordered..which was 2 weeks ago! Honestly wouldn't recommend getting parts here. I was able to find a replacement faucet on Ebay for around $56 so I'm just going to replace it myself.

This is already too long of a review..but if you know what you're looking for and can replace you're own parts, I would recommend checking...