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My Keystone Bullet recently had its 1st birthday. We’ll look at the issues I encountered in the first year of ownership, as well as review the general build quality and satisfaction of the travel trailer thus far. Given my experience with Forest River R-Pods, I’ll also do a basic comparison between the two brands of trailers to help those who may be considering either.
For those unfamiliar, I owned a 2016 R-Pod 171 for a year before buying a 2017 R-Pod 179, which I have used extensively since purchasing it. I continue to enjoy using the R-Pod 179 for shorter trips. In 2019, I decided to buy a larger travel trailer, the Keystone Bullet 243BHS, for extended working trips, as more space would better facilitate longer times away. The Keystone Bullet has now been used for extended trips for living and working remotely, including a longer winter work trip this past year. So, what issues have I had to face with the Bullet in its first year? Also, how does it stack up against the R-Pod?
Year-1 Issues
A good practice when getting a new RV is to quickly take it on a short “shake-down” trip. We did this immediately with the Keystone Bullet and found several minor issues which we immediately made our dealer aware of. The dealer who was within 10 miles of our location was able to fit us in quickly and remedied all but one of the issues. This all happened within the first few weeks of owning the Bullet.
So, here was our immediate Punch List after the first shake-down trip:
1. The rear lower bunk window hinge was actually off the track on the right and obviously not installed correctly. It potentially could have popped out with a significant bump. Another window had a scratch.
2. The outside fridge wouldn’t cool properly, and it got extremely hot to the point of concern of overheating in the small space. This happened during a particularly hot day when camping.
3. The thermostat often didn’t respond to touch. It was odd, sometimes it wouldn’t respond to touch, especially with changing the temperature.
4. There was a slight vinyl floor buckle at bedroom heat vent.
5. The kitchen floor vent kept popping loose and the screws wouldn’t stay tight.
6. The rear dinette lower cabinet door hinge kept slipping even after tightening.
Besides the thermostat and outside refrigerator, each of the other items were remedied by the dealer within a couple of days. The outside small fridge was working against 100-degree outdoor heat at the time and later worked fine and still does. The thermostat replacement request, however, was denied by Keystone and we lived with it for a while just not working well.
One issue that did occur mid-year while using the trailer was that the Dometic 300 series toilet began to develop a bad odor. After research, we discovered that this was a common defect with this series of toilet. Being remote, we had to replace it ourselves. In some respects, Keystone deserves a measure of blame for using a model of toilet with known issues. We have a video that speaks to this situation on the channel. We have not had any issues with the replacement toilet to date.
It’s also a good practice to be aware of the end of your warranty period and get any items dealt with prior to the warranty expiring. Here are a few items we had queued up for our dealer just before our 1-Year anniversary was up. As you will see from this list, most items are more serious versus the original punch list, yet none were huge issues, and all were resolved.
1. The thermostat continued to be problematic. As mentioned above, the touch-sensitive pad only responded some of the time, which was very irritating. This was on the original punch list and never improved. After a couple attempts at finding one that worked well, the dealer did replace it with one that worked much better.
2. The Furrion oven igniter was difficult to use. This was discovered while on the aforementioned long work trip. The oven pilot light was very difficult to get lit and stay lit. It made the oven very tough to lite. This was repaired and has worked well since.
3. The bathroom door didn’t stay closed when traveling – the door would shut, but each stop we noticed the door was open again. While not a huge deal, it wasn’t right and was an easy fix for the dealer.
4. There was a very minor occasional leak in bathroom vanity cabinet. We tracked this to using the black-tank flush. However, sometimes it didn’t happen when flushing the black tank. It was a bit of a mystery. All the under-sink connections seem tight. The dealer was able to fix this, and we no longer see any issues.
5. The window shade on one of the small windows in the slide-out cord was getting frayed. This was due to it being installed slightly off which meant the cord was rubbing and fraying over time. The dealer replaced the shade under warranty.
6. There was a snap that came out of the wall in the top bunk rear shade. It needed a simple reattachment, but with the wall being thin and not wanting to drill a hole in the wrong place, we let the dealer cover this fix as well. They did this without issue.
7. A piece of trim fell off near the outside fridge. This again was a very minor issue that was an easy fix.
So, in summary within the first year, the major frustration was with the thermostat not responding to touch. Fortunately, they did replace this with a good unit with the last set of warranty work.
I should pause to talk about the benefits of having a good reliable dealer close-by. Many times, with RVs the enticement is to buy cheap far away vs choose a more expensive deal close-by. The downside is when you need warranty work or other items serviced. Not all dealers are created equal, and a good dealer will take care of their techs who service your unit, including investing in their ongoing RV education and paying them well. A sign of a good dealer is the longevity of their service staff – the same staff who will be working on your RV.
Many of these fixes we could have done and likely would have done ourselves had our dealer either been far away or not available for a while. This is one of the benefits of having a good local dealer. In our case, the dealer was only 10 miles away and available to do the work.
So, what are my impressions of the Bullet vs the first year of ownership of my R-Pod 179?
The 179 had a few issues in the first year:
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- The black tank drainpipe bracket fell off while traveling, which unfortunately has been a common problem on many R-Pods.
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- The shower surround separated from the wall in warmer weather, which has also been a common issue.
- My 179 had surface fiberglass cracks at the rear campsite corner of the unit that occurred while traveling in Florida. This was no minor issue and required a trip to the factory to have it repaired.
- The toilet seal leaked preventing water from staying in the toilet. The toilet was replaced while at the factory for the fiberglass repair.
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- The slide had a minor leak during heavy rain which was also eliminated by the factory techs.
The main issues above were not minor. Given my dealer was 150 miles away, we fixed the black tank bracket and the shower surround. All of these issues are fully covered in the 1st year birthday R-Pod 179 video.
My overall impression is that the Keystone Bullet was built slightly better than the R-Pod even with the minor issues that needed to get fixed. I did have some very significant issues with my R-Pod 179’s floor in the second year which are well documented on the channel in other videos. Fortunately, my 2020 Keystone Bullet was one of the first units with the new HyperDeck water-resistant floor installed, which should mean better floor performance over time. In general, I have to say that the Keystone has a more solid build-feel vs. the R-Pod. I still use my 2017 R-Pod 179, and since getting the issues worked out, it is actually a very reliable trailer and I still very much enjoy using it, especially on shorter trips.
All the best in your camping endeavors!
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