Cabinet Quality in Mobile Homes

[Kurt Jensen]

This is some feedback regarding shoddy quality of cabinets in mobile homes, from owners of a newer Fleetwood Festival. My wife and I purchased a 1998 Fleetwood Festival series home after getting the feeling that we could trust the product and reputation of the companyand get a home that looked really nice. Well, some of those expectations worked out but many others did not!

Our purchase from Fleetwood left us with some very rude surprises! Weeks later, after finding serious cosmetic problems with many of our cabinets, (not to mention other problems that we disovered) we found out all of our once beautiful cabinets were made with a cheap paper laminate layered on chincy MDF fiber board or a balsa wood style product. We did not know that this kind of thing was even being produced and installed like this.

Not only had no one advised us of what these materials were before our purchase, we began to seei them just fall apart and/or change color just weeks after our new home purchase! We are trying our best to negotiate a fair solution to this problem with the vendors now, but it has not been easy. Yes, the cabinets looked really great at purchase, but not for long. We thought the home would have been a good value. Many parts have already needed replaced at least once because the material is so easily damaged, impossible to protect or care for adequately if you live in the house, and cannot be cleaned once stained, or repaired like woods.
In comparison, none of the laminated furnishings we have purchased over the years have ever had these serious problems. And that is certainly not expensive furniture or wood either.

Fleetwood claims that ALL their homes are built using this paper-laminate material which is produced by a company known as Omnova. In our efforts to resolve these obvious quality of material problems with the vendors, we have run into many delays and obstacles. Omnova even admits their paper-laminate is used by many vendors but it is not designed to tolerate any amount of food oils, soaps, grease, stains, steam, body oils, or many of the other common materials used day to day in an average kitchen or bathroom, etc. Nonetheless, Mobile Home builders such as Fleetwood (and many other MH vendors) choose to supply these materials as a solution to build cabinets, cabinet doors and trim or decor parts. Much worse, the paper-laminates are applied to material that is not even durable wood, but MDF. MDF contains various kinds of particles and glue. This only makes matters worse because the paper laminates absorb the glue from the MDF underneath, plus any kind of natural moisture found in any typical home as listed above, as time goes on, turning the colors of the laminate into a ugly blue stained appearance. There is no way to clean out the stains that appear, and the materials are too chincy to fix as there is nothing really there to repair or work with but paper, glue, particles and fake colors, etc. These MDF - particle booard panels have no semblance of a natural wood grain or surface to stain, paint or treat with protective coatings.

All that said, at this point I would never buy a Fleetwood home again. And to top that off we would never consider buying any other manufactured home that uses any such materials in their construction. My wife and I see this as nothing less than a rip-off. This does nothing to speak of all the other problems we had to confront them about after we purchased our home. It was humiliating. At least many of those problems were repaired. So far, after almost two years of battling this issue regarding the paper laminates and MDF, they have done little or nothing. If anyone that knows the ropes on this kind of thing can help, that would be appreciated.

Kurt Jensen

[Jon DeTora]

Kurt:
What role has your retailer played in this? Usually the retailer is the first and often the best place to seek redress of the problems you mentioned. Also, the retailer has a direct line of communication to key individuals at Fleetwood. If you haven't made full use of the retailer as a problem-solving resource, you should.
Have you reported the problem to a consumer advocacy group, or a governmental body such as a consumer protection agency? In some states you can also report consumer problems to the state attorney general.
With the cabinets deteriorating as you described, Fleetwood should have been willing to correct the situation. I find it a surprising circumstance that company has not addressed the matter in a satisfactory manner. You and your retailer should contact them again. If you still get nowhere, try contacting your regional office of the federal Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD). Depending on the person you reach at HUD, you may find it to be a rich resource of information. Unfortunately, I have found HUD personnel most often to be buried in work and generally lacking time to provide the kind of help expected. Then again, on occasion it is possible to hit upon an extremely knowledgeable and helpful soul. So it is worth a try.
Of course, you always have the option of retaining an attorney to represent your interests.
Before buying your next home I suggest you request the retailer to provide a complete specification sheet. Thoroughly review it. I realize some spec sheets don't always list or fully describe one or more home features in which you have an interest. Whenever that happens, ask the retailer to obtain such information for you. In the case of cabinets, many manufacturers offer a cabinet upgrade as an option.
Good luck.

[Cheryl]

Kurt,
In regard to all the comments that you made about your Fleetwood, we have found the same to be true about our Gold Medal mobile home. The worst thing about our home is our cabinets also. We have had our home going on 6 years, the paper cabinets just keep getting worse. One of them even fell apart. In our bathrooms, where they are exposed to steam from showers and water splashed out of the tubs by our kids, the cabinets are just peeling apart.
It's is really hard to think that we are paying the next 13 years on something that is going to have to probably have a complete remodeling job done on it sooner than later. I wish that there was something that we could do, but we feel totally helpless in this situation, and totally foolish for wasting our hard earned money on such a money pit when we could have spent more money and built a house, and not have had half the worry. If you find anymore information on the situation let me know.
Cheryl

[Judy]

I have only been in my Fleetwood for two months and I am already noticing the shoddy quality of the cabinets. I am constantly using one of those felt tip furniture finish repair pens to go over the seams and marks on our cabinets and this is only after two months.

This is in addition to the "big" problem with our furnace vent that I listed on the other forum which I will cut and paste here ''My husband and I purchased a 16x80 Fleetwood in July and took delivery and moved in August 17. According to the floor plan the sales office gave us the standard furnace is gas, however, the home was delivered to us with an electric furnace which we did not want and the park where we wanted to go could not handle the 200 amp service. Fleetwood had the furnace changed from electric to gas and downsized the electrical service accordingly. This was two months ago. The a/c-heater installer person did not want to be responsible for venting our roof, so the furnace was not vented. Fleetwood's local customer service person picked a roofer out of the phone book and sent him over to cut a hole in our roof and install the vent. The roofer would not do this work without the furnace person being there to tell him where to put the hole. I have stayed home from work twice for this to be done, the second time the roofer didn't show up. I am very concerned about a hole being cut in my roof by someone who is not familiar with this type of installation. I talked to the roofer on the phone and told him to put this on hold, because I wanted the manufacturer to send someone who routinely does this to cut the hole in my roof.

We have had other problems with this mobile home, but the roof is what concerns me the most. Needless to say I am pretty frustrated with this situation and am just about ready to write a letter to the president of Fleetwood, and cc the Better Business Bureau and anyone else I can think of. Any suggestions?"

I feel like we were misinformed by the sales office and the customer serice is a joke. We bought this mobile home for our retirement in about ten years and we will be lucky if it holds up until we retire, much less through our retirement years. I am thinking about writing to the Louisiana Manufactaured Housing Association, The Administrative Director of the Manufactured Housing Division of the State Fire Marshall's Office, the Better Business Bureau, the president of Fleetwood and anyone else I can think of. Any comments would be welcome.

[LARRY HASWELL]

I TO GOT SUCKERED INTO A FLEETWOOD HOME. MY SALESMAN TOLD ME THAT THEY ONLY USED QUALITY MATERIALS. YEAH RIGHT. NOW THEY WON'T FIX ANYTHING RIGHT. I NOTIFIED THE BBB ABOUT THEM AND ANY COMPLAINT SITES ON THE NET. SUCH AS THIS ONE. WE NEED TO SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT FLEETWOOD SO NOBODY ELSE GIVES THEM ANY MONEY. THEY ARE LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK. ( FLEETWOOD HOMES ) NEED TO TALK MORE EMAIL ME.
LARRY HASWELL