I've been watching this topic with an ethical dilemma.
We loved our 12 year, 123,000 mile adventure in our '04 Monterey.
On the other hand, it was far from being well built. As near as we can tell, it was built in Bend during the summer of '03. It was our first motorhome and, when we bought it, we knew nothing about motorhomes. Our experience with RVs was limited to a couple Terry trailers.
My theory is that it was a "perfect storm". Kay Toolsen was running Monaco and putting extreme pressure on Beaver in Bend to "get them delivered and out the door, no matter what." Being summer, it could be that the best in the plant were on vacation and ours was built with the "second string". Financing was cheap. Demand was so high that anything "nice" would sell.
The first surprise was that there was not a pound of "useful load". The sticker said that there was room for about 2,000 pounds of room for our stuff. Curious, I drove it over the scales a few days after we bought it. The tanks were full and it weighed more than the 33,000 pound "legal" weight. When I complained the salesman said, "It is common. Lots of RVs are overweight. Just have fun and use it." We did! It was always 5 to 10 percent overweight. I later learned that Kay Toolsen would approve new axles if owners would promise not to tell anyone.
The rest of the story was a very thick file of warranty claims. Monaco employees and various dealers worked hard to fix things and it took 18 months to get it to a point that we were comfortable.
There was no shortage of loose screw, broken bolts and things that didn't work. The front door, after several tries for adjustment, was never right. All the slides leaked for lack of proper sealing. The engine had a "special" exhaust manifold for motorhomes that failed.
Again, BJ and I had a wonderful travel experience. But, quality control at Beaver in '03 still seems non existent.
