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 always shout against Clayton 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.
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??!!
DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
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rmurray
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
I am certain you read your warranty papers at the time you bought the home...1 year warranty means 1 year warranty...why would you expect any manufacturer to warranty a home for longer than what they had promised??????
The A/C WAS NOT installed by the manufacturer of the home...ALL a/c's are installed by local vendors after the home is set on your site..Seems..Clayton..who paid for repairs that they probably were not technically responsible for did the right thing...You should have gotten the name and number of the a/c company when you got the home..
Did you ever think you might have a "lemon" of an insurance policy..
It is hard to clearly understand your problems...but it seems somehow you have had much too much moisture in the home....A moisture problem cannot be a factory problem...maybe if the skirting was not vented enough..it could be a dealer problem...but never a factory problem..
Unfortunately you have press board floors...you would do other potential buyers a bigger favor making it clear that these problems can happen with this perfectly legal floor...
I am sorry you have had problems...if might be best to move on..fix the problems of your 4 1/2 year old home and move on..
The A/C WAS NOT installed by the manufacturer of the home...ALL a/c's are installed by local vendors after the home is set on your site..Seems..Clayton..who paid for repairs that they probably were not technically responsible for did the right thing...You should have gotten the name and number of the a/c company when you got the home..
Did you ever think you might have a "lemon" of an insurance policy..
It is hard to clearly understand your problems...but it seems somehow you have had much too much moisture in the home....A moisture problem cannot be a factory problem...maybe if the skirting was not vented enough..it could be a dealer problem...but never a factory problem..
Unfortunately you have press board floors...you would do other potential buyers a bigger favor making it clear that these problems can happen with this perfectly legal floor...
I am sorry you have had problems...if might be best to move on..fix the problems of your 4 1/2 year old home and move on..
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chase
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
was this air unit inside the home? clayton often uses an internal self contained heat and air pump that is entirely inside home and is installed at the factory. one problem we had with those is sometimes the clearance between front of unit and the door to unit must have 4 to 5 inches of clearance any closer and the unit cant get enough air flow and it will actually suck the condensation from drain pan back into unit and into duct system, this was a problem i dealt with from 1997 to 2000 with several clayton homes. also sometimes the door to the unit closet would be installed up side down , thus making the airflow up and then down, and causing the above problem although not as bad as being to close. also it was not uncommon for loose connections in the pipes leading up to shower head, and as far as nails coming thru carpet it was probably decking nails that missed the joists. but it is entirely possible for the ac to be inside a clayton
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Kara
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
Murray,
We were never given our warranty papers at the time of purchase. We were told that the home had a 5-yr. warranty and that the "wonderful" OSB floors had a 15-yr. warranty. It wasn't until much later that we learned that the trailer truly only had a 1-yr. warranty. However, this was another problem we had with Clayton, they were horrible at doing paperwork and getting it done corerctly, etc. We should have walked away from the dealer based on a lot of these problems, but we always try to play nice and this is an instance when we should NOT have. We asked repeatedly for the warranty papers and didn't receive them until after the horrid deal was done. That was totally our fault for being naive and trusting and believing we would be treated fairly. We thought that Clayton was famous for its great treatment of its customers. We didn't realize at the time that shopping for a manufactured home was much worse than dealing with used car dealers and that virtually no dealer is truly reputable (and don't try to argue this point with me either as we have had other horrible experiences with dealers and know way too many others who have too). And at first we chalked our bad times up to the particular dealer we dealt with, however, when the higher-ups at Clayton didn't care either....well, that was a problem.
The AC unit in our home WAS most definitely installed at the factory. It was one of those inside heat pump units. This was something we didn't know about the home until it was delivered and set-up. We had never even known this type unit was ever used in mobile homes, thought the regular split units were all, so it was not something we even knew or thought to check on. That type of unit is why the Clayton dealer could not get anyone on their end to try and fix our AC problems. These units are not common around here and none of the repairmen want to bother with them. We had a very hard time getting people out to look at the unit ourselves. We were highly disappointed in the unit from day 1 (it was VERY NOISY), but what could we do??
As for the insurance co., it was one of those policies that Clayton pushed on us at the time of purchase and we were stupid enough to buy it.
And our floors were NOT pressboard, they were OSB, and it is my understanding that these are not the same thing. We were given the impression that OSB was def the way to go. As for a "moisture problem" causing the floors to mess up like they did....nope. Not true. We had NO moisture problem that caused the floor to start to become unlevel at the seams like it did. We knew this all along, a carpenter who looked at it said it was an improperly done floor, the insurance adjuster who looked at it agreed. I also forgot to note that Clayton did at one point hire someone to look at the floor. Even HE scratched his head at it. He said that short of redoing the floors throughout the home, there wasn't much that could be done. He did tell Clayton that it was a defective floor, but all they wanted to do was put "filler" on to help even up the seams and replace the linoleum in the kitchen where the nails had torn holes in it. The problem with all this was....who wants a NEW HOME that barely a year old and has messed up floors??????? And for them to replace the linoleum, we would have had to have seams in several places in the kitchen....who wants that??? (Actually the floors began having trouble before we had had the home a year, but at first we figured it was just due to the home "settling" in or something. We figured it woud correct iteslf. Again, MAJOR stupidity on our parts!)
The bottom lines on this are: (1) we went into the trailer buying situation too naive and trusting and that was our fault (2) NOBODY, and I DO mean NOBODY, should ever have the kinds of problems we had with a home that was well under 2 years old. Whether you have a 1-yr. or 30-yr. warranty matters not. When you purchase a NEW home, you expect it to at least hold up for several years, not 1. We knew (and were told by numerous others who knew) that our home was a lemon. We realized that it was possible for a manufacturer to have a bad egg in the bunch from time to time....but we did expect Clayton to make THEIR mistake good and they did not. And like I said before, it's a little too ironic to me that at least 2 other Clayton owners had the SAME floor, AC, and pipe problems we did.
And as for the trailer, THANKFULLY, we no longer have it!!! After almost 2 years of dealing with the problems and lack of service, we got out. I just hope no one else ended up with it. I always think of it when I know people who are looking for used trailers.......ya never know WHAT you are getting!! It should have been burned. We did lose a lot of money on the whole deal, and almost went nuts in the process of fighting for justice, but we did learn some very valuable lessons about dealing with anyone selling anything. We are now in the process of purchasing another new home and I can assure you that we will not play the role of suckers this time around. And we now know how to fight for our rights should things go wrong again.
We were never given our warranty papers at the time of purchase. We were told that the home had a 5-yr. warranty and that the "wonderful" OSB floors had a 15-yr. warranty. It wasn't until much later that we learned that the trailer truly only had a 1-yr. warranty. However, this was another problem we had with Clayton, they were horrible at doing paperwork and getting it done corerctly, etc. We should have walked away from the dealer based on a lot of these problems, but we always try to play nice and this is an instance when we should NOT have. We asked repeatedly for the warranty papers and didn't receive them until after the horrid deal was done. That was totally our fault for being naive and trusting and believing we would be treated fairly. We thought that Clayton was famous for its great treatment of its customers. We didn't realize at the time that shopping for a manufactured home was much worse than dealing with used car dealers and that virtually no dealer is truly reputable (and don't try to argue this point with me either as we have had other horrible experiences with dealers and know way too many others who have too). And at first we chalked our bad times up to the particular dealer we dealt with, however, when the higher-ups at Clayton didn't care either....well, that was a problem.
The AC unit in our home WAS most definitely installed at the factory. It was one of those inside heat pump units. This was something we didn't know about the home until it was delivered and set-up. We had never even known this type unit was ever used in mobile homes, thought the regular split units were all, so it was not something we even knew or thought to check on. That type of unit is why the Clayton dealer could not get anyone on their end to try and fix our AC problems. These units are not common around here and none of the repairmen want to bother with them. We had a very hard time getting people out to look at the unit ourselves. We were highly disappointed in the unit from day 1 (it was VERY NOISY), but what could we do??
As for the insurance co., it was one of those policies that Clayton pushed on us at the time of purchase and we were stupid enough to buy it.
And our floors were NOT pressboard, they were OSB, and it is my understanding that these are not the same thing. We were given the impression that OSB was def the way to go. As for a "moisture problem" causing the floors to mess up like they did....nope. Not true. We had NO moisture problem that caused the floor to start to become unlevel at the seams like it did. We knew this all along, a carpenter who looked at it said it was an improperly done floor, the insurance adjuster who looked at it agreed. I also forgot to note that Clayton did at one point hire someone to look at the floor. Even HE scratched his head at it. He said that short of redoing the floors throughout the home, there wasn't much that could be done. He did tell Clayton that it was a defective floor, but all they wanted to do was put "filler" on to help even up the seams and replace the linoleum in the kitchen where the nails had torn holes in it. The problem with all this was....who wants a NEW HOME that barely a year old and has messed up floors??????? And for them to replace the linoleum, we would have had to have seams in several places in the kitchen....who wants that??? (Actually the floors began having trouble before we had had the home a year, but at first we figured it was just due to the home "settling" in or something. We figured it woud correct iteslf. Again, MAJOR stupidity on our parts!)
The bottom lines on this are: (1) we went into the trailer buying situation too naive and trusting and that was our fault (2) NOBODY, and I DO mean NOBODY, should ever have the kinds of problems we had with a home that was well under 2 years old. Whether you have a 1-yr. or 30-yr. warranty matters not. When you purchase a NEW home, you expect it to at least hold up for several years, not 1. We knew (and were told by numerous others who knew) that our home was a lemon. We realized that it was possible for a manufacturer to have a bad egg in the bunch from time to time....but we did expect Clayton to make THEIR mistake good and they did not. And like I said before, it's a little too ironic to me that at least 2 other Clayton owners had the SAME floor, AC, and pipe problems we did.
And as for the trailer, THANKFULLY, we no longer have it!!! After almost 2 years of dealing with the problems and lack of service, we got out. I just hope no one else ended up with it. I always think of it when I know people who are looking for used trailers.......ya never know WHAT you are getting!! It should have been burned. We did lose a lot of money on the whole deal, and almost went nuts in the process of fighting for justice, but we did learn some very valuable lessons about dealing with anyone selling anything. We are now in the process of purchasing another new home and I can assure you that we will not play the role of suckers this time around. And we now know how to fight for our rights should things go wrong again.
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Greg
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
What model MH was this????? I would like to ask my Clayton sales rep if he knows of any of these problems on this model or any other models and if they have improved on them.
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Kara
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
Greg,
It was a 1999 Clayton Omni, if my memory serves, 16X80, 3BR, 2BA.
It was a 1999 Clayton Omni, if my memory serves, 16X80, 3BR, 2BA.
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michael
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
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. This is not an expert way of doing things but fi you receive 5 calls against franky and 10 calls against bobby and 1000 calls against clay well draw your own conclusions..
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. This is not an expert way of doing things but fi you receive 5 calls against franky and 10 calls against bobby and 1000 calls against clay well draw your own conclusions..
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rmurray
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
Are you sure this home was actually a Clayton...In the SE..Clayton sales centers also sell other product..and the name Omni was a model name for Destiny homes of Moultrie, GA...
Your original post was somewhat decieving...you made it sound like you have been suffering with this home for 4 1/2 years....Now you admit you "got out"..I assume you did not live up to your financial obligations and gave it back to the bank...Why are the worst problems with homes usually with folks behind in payments....or...giving the home back??????????
Sorry about the a/c...I was wrong...
By the way...Jim Clayton..the original owner of Clayton Homes started in the used car business...
Another point...he just sold Clayton to new owners for a lot of money..
Your original post was somewhat decieving...you made it sound like you have been suffering with this home for 4 1/2 years....Now you admit you "got out"..I assume you did not live up to your financial obligations and gave it back to the bank...Why are the worst problems with homes usually with folks behind in payments....or...giving the home back??????????
Sorry about the a/c...I was wrong...
By the way...Jim Clayton..the original owner of Clayton Homes started in the used car business...
Another point...he just sold Clayton to new owners for a lot of money..
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Shelly
Re: DON'T BUY A CLAYTON HOME!!
Wow... What a mess! I'm so sorry that you had such bad dealings with Clayton... My grandpa bought a Clayton 5 years ago, and he has never had any problems with it at all! In fact he loves his Clayton more than any other house he has ever owned... But everyone is different... And experiences can vary... Good luck in your future home buying endeavors! 
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