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Prevost parts drops the ball
Well, I am at Prevost TN awaiting tomorrow am to get my dash a/c fixed. As you may have read, I was at Jeff Rowe’s for some scheduled maintenance this week. Everything went great that was scheduled. My dash air decided to quit on the way over there from Nashville on Sunday. Jeff worked on it Monday and determined that it needed parts. They were ordered from Prevost with the VIN # for verification. Since it was later in the afternoon, the parts could not ship that day so we didn’t get them in until Wednesday.
When the parts arrived, they were not correct. Jeff had to reorder them causing a delay of another day and wasted time for him as well as me. Then today, the reorder arrived and it was not correct either. After many calls and texts to Prevost it was decided that I would leave without working a/c and head for Nashville to see if they could figure it out since nobody Jeff had contacted at Prevost was able to do so.
I arrived here at about 5PM and the service mgr. on duty and I had a discussion about the snafu up to that point. He then got a mechanic out of the shop to come out to actually look at and verify what I had on my coach. We then went into the office and the mechanic looked it up in the computer. It had the wrong part shown for the expansion valve and a questionable one for the dryer. He knew the valve was wrong as he had just looked at my coach. He then went into the drawing for a coach with full bus air and found the correct part drawing there for the expansion valve. Then they went to the parts dept. and checked stock and came out with what appears to be the correct parts. They are now in the office so they won’t dissapear before I get in tomorrow.
I wasted basically two days waiting for a fix that couldn’t be completed because of the failure of Prevot to supply the right parts, and now have to wait until tomorrow to see if they can actually get it fixed here.
I will update this after I see how it goes tomorrow…..
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8 Replies
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Mark:
I was there last year for air suspension troubles, and can say they will work on your coach until closing at 2 am…. or anytime you are ready to sleep, they will roll you out to the hook ups, then back at it 7 am…. I was there several days and can say the service and attention to detail were the best. Seems they give us bus owners priority when we show up with a problem as i was there without an appointment….
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Based on feedback both on forums and private conversations getting the wrong parts has been an issue.
When ordering parts it should be as simple as providing a VIN and the name of the part. Unfortunately there are problems within the Prevost / Volvo system that require the customer to assume the role of “test pilot”. If there is an error in the part listing it does not get corrected until we find the error and in doing so lose time and possibly end up paying more due to the error.
The folks in Prevost parts can only rely on the part numbers the system calls for. If the numbers are wrong they will not know it until the customer gets the wrong parts. It is rarely an issue with the wrong parts being pulled, but almost always it is because the part listed is wrong.
Then there is the usual give and take when the customer complains and the parts guy goes at it for a while trying to figure out what to do next. After all the parts guy can only provide what is called for. It would be a huge help if the parts people were more knowledgible about the coaches instead of relying on the computer screen, particularly if they had some hands on experience.
When the notice of the error is acknowledged the system remains wrong until someone can research to find out why the wrong parts are called for and begin the process of correcting the error.
This has been the case with air bags and flex hoses for the CAC when numbers were transposed. But until the problem has been corrected within the system customers continue to get the wrong parts, or the right parts but they get put in the wrong place.
If you or a non-Prevost sevice provider have to order parts your best course of action is to attempt to get the part number from the part. Not only the Prevost part number, but if you can try to get the manufacturer’s name and part number. Sometimes you can get a trade number, and sometimes you may need to provide a good description such as the part size.
What Prevost needs to do is set up a procedure to immediately respond when parts are returned because they were wrong. The response needs to be two reactions. The first is to get the correct part in the customer’s hands, but simultaneously the error needs to be corrected, not after a 3 week study or when someone gets around to it, but right away. Right now there is no sense of urgency or accountability when parts errors occur.
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Good post Jon…are you a former NAPA parts jobber ?
In the parts world it’s the nature of the beast. I understand Mark and Jeff’s frustration.
My guess in Mark’s case was a production change during the build year and Prevost failure to properly record before and after date changing part number or supplier during manufacturing.
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It is a very hard and detailed job to maintain the bills of material. Errors can be made. But what separates the men from the boys is as soon as anyone notices an error or thinks there is an error, there needs to be a way to flow that information back upstream in the organization. There needs to be a simple way to communicate if there is an error and get a response confirming the error or why it is not an error.
In Mark’s case he lost 2 days. Jeff lost a lot of billable hours because he did a lot of work for nothing and he can’t bill Mark, and we know Prevost will not compensate him.
Some time over a bowl of prize winning chili we can discuss how I made my employees pay dearly for errors that got as far as the customer, and how once they understood how expensive it was to deal with that error why I was justified in penalizing them. This problem in part will continue due to what I see as a lack of accountability.
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I dented a driver’s side stainless steel panel a couple of years ago. I scheduled repairs for Jacksonville on my way back to NC from Naples. The next morning the parts container was there with two panels. That was good since one of the panels was already dented. Fortunately, at least I thought so, the second panel was not damaged. I was watching as the techs removed the old panel and began fitting the new panel. It seemed to me to be taking an unusual amount of time to match up the predrilled holes in the panel with the existing holes in the structural framing. Well it turned out the two new panels were both predrilled for the passenger side. Now I did not care for the “fix” but did not have days to spend either. So the techs actually drilled a new set of holes in the structural members so that a passenger side panel could be used on the driver’s side of the bus.
The parts I order through Elgin, Illinois are always spot on what I need for the job. Tom Irvin is my go to guy up there.
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I have ordered a lot of parts from Prevost I learned to ask for the parts and pic of break down of the area you are working on never once got wrong part , I get the parts guy on the phone to email the break down so I can look at it and try if I can to have old part number but if you can’t the other way will work while I am on phone with them
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As a rule of thumb parts are correct with no problems. On this occasion it didn’t go that way. However on Marks coach was something very different and possibly never used on motor home shells as it turns out. Going by vin works almost always but once in a great while you will see something very different. When I sent pictures and they still couldn’t figure it out for sure I knew we were in trouble…..
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I am back at home with working dash a/c again. Friday morning, there was more drama as the expansion valve that they pulled from stock to hold Thursday night turned out to be the wrong one. The tech and John B. in parts spent some time trying to figure it out. It appears that neither of them have seen a dash a/c setup like I have in the 14 plus years they have been at Prevost. They were able to come up with a part number for the right valve.
It turned out that they DID have the right valve in stock, which came as a shock to the tech. He installed it, replaced the dryer and did the suck and replace on the system. Fired it up and I once again have cold air. He poked around in the dash a bit and found another part there he had not seen on a dash air only coach before. For some reason, my VIN# does not get you to the correct parts breakdown. However, if you tell the system it is a bus..not a motorhome chassis, you get to the right drawings. I have no idea how, or why, but that is what the tech said.
I have had no issues prior to this getting parts by VIN#. Why this area is not correct is still a mystery to everyone.
So, it appears that there is still a gremlin at work in the parts system. When, or if it will get fixed remains to be determined.
I have to give the shop guys at Nashville credit for getting me in and back on the road. They have always been good to work with.
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