Universal Marine & Rv

This was my second purchase with Universal Marine, I purchased a brand new Wildwood camper on June 3rd and took it out for its second trip on June 22, and couldn't get the slide to retract out, it jammed up and the gear went off its track, was not able to retract out. It ripped off the front framing part of the bed. Universal was great at first. A mobile tech came out to the location next day and spent all day trying to get it to retract. I forget the tech's name but Thank you to him, He did an exceptional job. The office crew at Universal on the other hand had horrible customer service skills. I had to call multiple times to get any communication after tech was there. Ended up taking camper there on June 27th after finally getting ahold of someone. Bringing it in was all arranged by the manager I requested to talk to because the service advisor was to busy to call me back. They had my camper for month with no communication or call backs. I ended up showing up unexpectedly on Thursday July 20th to figure out what was going on. Magically the camper would be done the next Monday I was told while there. Asked to see the camper when I was there, camper was inside shop tore down but service advisor did not want me to go back and see it, until I argued with him that I wanted too, While they had slide out of camper they put a hole in one of the walls. That today is still on order and have not heard a word about it sense they called and told me the camper was ready to be picked up. I couldn't pick the camper up until after hours. I picked it up Tuesday the 25th, they left it sit out front of their building on a public road. The side of the camper has dents in it near the slide, the caulk job they did looks very unprofessional and the slide still does not go in like it should.

I can not say enough good things about Herb Howard. After being burned at Camping World, I was very cautious about trusting salespeople. Herb listened, understood and went way above and beyond what I expected. He was honest, he cared and he actually fixed, to his liking, not ours, what he didn’t have to fix on an “as is” camper. I communicated via email sometimes as it was after or before hours and to my surprise, he answered right way. This man is a one in a million salesman. He is what I remember, way back when people actually cared about the product AND the buyers. I hope he is still there when I’m ready for another upgrade. From Herb to our finance guy (sorry I don’t remember his name, but he was from Eyota) we had an amazing experience. What a team they have over there. They will have my repeat business and I would highly recommend them to new campers. They won’t screw you. Thanks for everything guys. It was a pleasure doing business with you.

Universal Marine and RV My brother’s and mine 20 ft cargo trailer was hit in the rear while parked in front of our dad’s house. We used this trailer for our food concession business, to move equipment from fair to fair. The damage was to the rear and to the front trailer jack. Thank God we were still able to open the rear ramp door, otherwise, this trailer would be useless. But the trailer jack was broken and needed to be changed. This was three weeks before our fair season was starting. Our trailer mechanic told us that Universal Marine and RV are the only ones that work on trailer body repairs in the surrounding area. So we took our trailer there and told them we have two weeks before we need that trailer. We asked if they can make an estimate for the insurance claim and if they can replace the trailer jack. Fixing could be done at another time if they are busy. So for more than two weeks, they did nothing. Although my brother and I called them a few times to check if they started the estimate. We needed that estimate for the insurance claim. Two days before our first fair started, they scrambled to replace the trailer jack, (something I could’ve done myself), and it failed after second use. Apparently, they installed a used and malfunctioning trailer jack. We went to our trailer mechanic, who replaced the trailer jack and he referred us to a place in Winona to do the estimate and the body work. Eventually, we ended up repairing our trailer at Zephyr Trailer Sales in Byron. The guy that we worked with at Universal, Zack, did nothing for two weeks, regardless of the urgency (Insurance requesting a quote and our fair season starting). It appeared that the place was just not organized and not run well. I would say that the guy was almost confused about what to do with my trailer and what was going on. No communication with us. We were never updated about any progress, because I guess, there was no progress. Well, I would appreciate a no-progress-update, so I can go somewhere else. We were never told it cannot be done in 2 weeks. In the end, to make matters worse, they installed a used and malfunctioning trailer jack, when a new one is about $60. I would not recommend doing business with Universal Marine and RV. If you do, do not expect much service. I cannot believe they have 3.8 stars on Google reviews.

Trust the other 1 star reviews about this place, I wish I had. It’s a wonder they’re even open with their horrible customer service. I dropped off my camper last fall to get winterized, No “levels” of winterizing were mentioned while setting up the appointment or dropping it off. Apparently they assumed I wanted the basic winterizing which doesn’t include antifreeze, just blowing out the lines. I would never skip using antifreeze due to the fact that I live in MN but again this was never mentioned by anyone. I pulled my camper out this spring and obviously had cracked parts due to freeze damage. I get a hold of the owner Jake through a family member that knows him. Absolute A hole about this situation and will “graciously” allow me to drop off my camper so I can pay for these repairs. I told him no, he’s responsible for fixing the damage due to them not winterizing it correctly. Instead of apologizing for the miscommunication from his team, he argues with me about it and refuses to help. $40 in parts and an hour of shop time will now cost this business thousands in lost revenue from me and my family. I will never do business with these hacks again. Do yourself a favor and go to camping world instead.

This year, this shop attempted to repair and perform RV 23 Travato recalls. They placed screws just anywhere not knowing or maybe knowing…. They screwed through existing wiring! This caused our motherboard in the RV to blow up! Start on fire! This was verified and fixed appropriately by a Winnebago Certified & TRAINED service shop! So Beware ! Shows NOT BBB accredited ahem