In this blog, I’ll talk about the ownership experience with my 2020 Keystone Bullet 243BHS travel trailer over the past three years. These three years include over 400 nights of use, including three longer multi-month trips. While owning the Keystone Bullet has generally been good, my ownership experience hasn’t been without several annoying issues. We’ll get to it all, and at the end of the blog, I’ll reveal if I would buy the same trailer over again.
Let’s start with some background. I purchased my Keystone Bullet 243BHS in the Spring of 2019 as an early 2020 model. I discovered about a year later that it was only the fourth unit off the assembly line with the new Hyperdeck composite floors. Keystone was an early adopter of composite water-resistant sub-floors, predating Airstream. This was important to find out because we did have a significant water leak at the cargo bay door that we’ll get into shortly.
Year 1
So, let’s look at Year 1 (from Spring 2019 to Spring 2020). The first year of ownership was only fair, with several initial quality issues. I keep a record of my RV punch lists from the past, so I can see everything done on the trailer.
Likely the most annoying problem encountered early on was the Dometic 300 toilet that Keystone used in the 243BHS. Not to cut to the chase too quickly, but I am on my third toilet! This model toilet is plastic and has both an outer and inner bowl and has been a real problem for customers over the years as the outer bowl can fill up with waste from the toilet. We had to replace this the first time while on the road, and it was an absolute nightmare, almost ruining the trip. The entire cabin began to stink of sewer, and only after researching it did we discover that it was the toilet waste overflowing into the outer bowl.
I put out two videos on the subject, including one on how to fix the issue. You never want to have happen to you what almost ruined an extended RV trip for me. To be clear, I equally blame Dometic for continuing to produce this toilet for so long and allowing customers to use it, and I blame Keystone for installing it and subjecting customers to it.
Next, the Dometic CT Thermostat acted up badly during the first year, with the touchpad often not responding. It may not sound like much of an issue, but when your digital thermostat doesn’t receive user input, you lose all control of the furnace and A/C. It’s a huge deal. Once again, I had to research the issue and discover the root cause. Like many of the problems I encounter, I put a video out on the subject that includes how to use the thermostat. Again, this is a component issue for which both Dometic and Keystone can be blamed. It added significant stress to my camping experience.
The Keystone Bullet came with a nice Furrion stove/oven unit. The stove has always worked perfectly, but the oven has typically been difficult to start. It was taken in for warranty work, but the tech couldn’t discover a problem, and to this day, the oven is still sometimes difficult to start. One has to take a series of steps to ignite the pilot light and then the oven, and it is a process that has worked only about 40-50% of the time.
There were a few other minor items in Year 1, including the bathroom door not staying closed when in motion, a small leak in the bathroom cabinet, a window shade breaking with regular use, a trim plate coming off in the outside kitchen area, and a rear bunk window shade snap coming out of the wall. These were all minor issues easily dealt with at my Year 1 service appointment.
Year 2
Unfortunately, Year 2 (Spring of 2020 to Spring of 2021) was actually worse than Year 1. The biggest issue was the Dometic A/C unit failing at 18 months of ownership. Fortunately, the A/C unit was under warranty, and it did get replaced, but not until after a long trip in warmer weather. If you don’t know this, travel trailers are not well insulated, and hot weather without A/C usually means it gets very hot inside the cabin. This made a long trip unbearable at times, with us having to leave the trailer in the afternoons on warmer days.
While we are still talking about Dometic, the control board for the Dometic refrigerator on the trailer went out during Year 2. This happened before a long trip, and fortunately, we got a replacement board just days before our planned departure. It was very stressful.
Besides more minor issues, like the screen door not being adjusted correctly, the backsplash panel falling off, and a fender support brace coming loose, the other main issues were the black tank flush not working, the water pump cycling on and off, and the cargo bay door leak.
The black tank flush not working was very frustrating. Being out on a more extended multi-campground trip and not being able to flush the black tank when dumping is less than ideal. Filling up the toilet bowl multiple times to flush the tank became the norm, as well as trying a few other RV items to flush the tank.
Another Year-2 issue was the water pump continuing to cycle when turned on. Unlike my 2017 R-Pod 179, which had a water filter right before the pump, the Keystone Bullet does not. Since many freshwater tanks are plastic and drilled out at the factory, tiny plastic shavings can get into the pump and clog the check valve. We had to tear down the pump and clean out the plastic shavings from inside the pump and had no further issues. There is a video on the issue.
The biggest issue in Year 2, besides the A/C, was the cargo door leak. The Keystone Bullet slam latch door problem is notorious on various Keystone forums online, and I had little idea this trailer had the problem. There is a complete video on how I went about discovering this issue and how we troubleshot it. See the video links in the description below.
To boil it down, Keystone used a slam latch cargo door and attached it to the frame without putting sufficient caulk on the screws. Water would get in the door frame when it rained, move to the screw heads, and drip down into the cargo area. If you were unfortunate and didn’t have the newer Hyperdeck composite subfloor, your wood subfloor would soak up the water and rot. If you were like me and had the Hyperdeck subfloor, you likely never realized there was a leak. To their credit, Keystone has offered many owners full floor replacements at great expense. However, this is a massive case of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. Just a few cents of extra caulk on the screws at the door frame stops water from getting into the cargo area.
Year 3
This brings us to Year 3, which would be from the Spring of 2021 to the Spring of 2022. That Spring, besides regular maintenance of having wheel bearings packed, we also had a new Maxxair Fax put in the bathroom and had a new electrical outlet installed near the slide-out. Both of these upgrades were great additions to the trailer. We also added the Maxxair Fanmate cover to the roof of the trailer. There was yet another toilet fix and a fender support replacement that wasn’t done earlier, but other than that, I recorded no further problems. We did have a long trip after these maintenance issues, and the trailer was easily the best ever in terms of being a consistent performer.
Conclusion
It took a couple of years to work out issues with the Keystone Bullet and get the trailer to a place where it is enjoyable without some sort of major issue needing attention. Looking back, I am especially disappointed with the Dometic items used in the trailer. The Dometic 300 toilet, the Dometic thermostat, the fridge, and A/C have caused me significant stress. To be fair, I also had Dometic items in my 2017 R-Pod 179, none of which failed.
Overall, build quality is only fair for my unit but likely on the better side for mid-level travel trailers. To me, none of the low-to-midlevel travel trailers have excellent quality, and the owner is expected to do pretty much what I have had to do, fix things, and work things out as you go. I can bemoan this plenty and think it should change, but right now, it is what it is.
So, would I repurchase this trailer? How about buying a Keystone-branded RV again? My answer would be “yes” for this trailer based on the 2019 price I paid. It would be much harder to swallow, given the higher prices. Keystone does seem to be committed to slightly better build quality and some measure of innovation, but alas, like most RV manufacturers, a real focus on the customer experience is still lacking, given all the issues I’ve dealt with. My three-year ownership experience rating is only a C+, given the amount of stress endured having to rescue various trips from problems that arose. The trailer seems somewhat dialed in now, but it took a long time to get here.
All the best in your camping endeavors!
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