DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!

[Kara]

We purchased a brand new Clayton single-wide home 4 1/2 years ago. We searched for quite a while ahead of time and thought we had found a great manufacturer. WRONG!

Within a few months, our air conditioning unit quit. Within a year, leaks sprang from improperly tightened pipes within the bath/bedroom wall causing the wall to mold/become rotten. After about a year and a half, the floors began to sink causing tears in the linoleum in the kitchen, nails coming up through the carpet, etc. After 2 years, the air went out a second time.

As for the air unit, the first time it quit, we were told by a half dozen independent repairmen that the unit was improperly installed from the factory and that we should fight to have it removed and another type unit put in. (We could not even get Clayton to send a repairman to look at it....however they did reimburse our costs to have it repaired the FIRST time it quit.) The second time it quit, Clayton told us to turn it over to the insurance company.

We fought tooth and nail to have the mold wall and (especially) the sinky floors repaired. We got absolutely NOWHERE!!!!!!! It sickens me to see people on here spouting about what great customer service Clayton has. We were told by our Clayton dealer that all of our problems had to go through as insurance claims b/c our warranty had expired. The insurance co. argued that they were manufacturing defects, and we knew this. After a lot of bickering back and forth, the insurance co. sent out an adjuster who said that we def had some major manufacturing defects. He told us, in confidence, that we were in for quite a fight and to not give up until our problems were solved b/c we had definitely gotten a lemon of a trailer.

We were then told by our dealer to take our complaints to the top, that there was nothing more they could do. So, we began contacting the higher-ups at the company and manufacturing plant that we were told to contact. That got us absolutely nowhere either. All we got was a lot of run arounds: people who would not take or calls or return them, etc.

We encountered many other problems with Clayton also, but these were the worst. We never did get Clayton and their reps to do anything but lie to us. The situation never did get resolved by them. We did vow, however, to shout from the highest mountain against Clayton every chance we get about their severe lack of "customer service." We wouldn't bother wasting the time to move our stuff into a Clayton home if they GAVE us the nicest, biggest model they have.

And just a little after note, we recently found a couple of other Clayton buyers who had THE SAME EXACT problems with their Claytons that we did!! Is that ironic or what?? We were almost willing to at least say that maybe we ended up with the one lemon of a home that Clayton had....but obviously not. How likely is it that 3 different owners have the same problems??!!

[michael]

When we looked we did a unique thing we put an add in the paper and asked a simple question.
If you have had problems with clayton homes please call and leave message.
of course we used swb answering service so as not to have people calling us all night. We did this for each manufacturer of the homes we were interested in.
Sure who cares what they say we just counted how many calls we recieved over a 2-week period. I figured if someone sees the add they may say yeah we bought one but let me tell you about so and so.... But if 1 takes the time to call you can bet there is at least 3 that had problems but didn't call and on the clayton ad we received a lot of calls alot,, alot,, alot,, so that crossed them off the list

[TONY]

I TOO HAVE BOUGHT A LOVE HOME FROM CLAYTON ABOUT 4 YEARS AGO. WE HAVE TWO SMALL CHILDREN, ONE A NEWBORN JUST DAYS OLD. WE DISCOVERED MOLD IN THE CELLING OF THE BATHROOM AND RIGHT BY THE KITCHEN DOOR. WE ARE SO UPSET. IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO HAVE THESE PROBLEMS FIXED. IS A LAWYER NECESSARY? OUR LITTLE GIRL IS ALMOST 2 YEARS OLD AND IS NOT SPEAKING YET SHE IS VERY BIRGHT BUT HARDLY ANY WORDS. IS THIS AN EFFECT OF MOLD IN OUR LOVE MOBILE HOME FROM CLAYTON.
ANY INFO WOULD GREATLY BE APPRECIATED.

THANKS. TONY NOVEMBER 26, 2004