OUR Truck Build Nightmare

Since building a truck in Europe wasn't really possible, we started searching for a builder here in North America. Our experience in the design and manufacturing sector made it easy for us to design the truck, but we no longer had the facilities to build such a vehicle. Nor did we have easy access to some of the unique components used in the build. Besides, we’d spent our whole life building things and thought at this point we’d let someone else expend the effort.

So after about a year, we decided on who we thought was the best candidate to build our truck here on this continent. Unfortunately, choosing GXV in Springfield, Missouri turned out to be a monumental mistake of the highest order.

Early Days

One of the saddest things we've learned after spending over 60 years on this rock, is that you can't always take someone at their word. There's a lot of people out there that are expert in extolling their own virtues, and it can be painful when you come across one who's ego and self-promotion far exceed their actual abilities. Unfortunately, our builder was one of those and we didn't realize it.

We started discussing a build with them at Overland Expo, a large event catering to everyone and anything associated with overland travel. They were displaying some of their work there, and although what we saw was not the type or size of vehicle we wanted to build, the discussions were good, and the owners of the company were very personable. It seemed like we would be able to work well together.

Early the next year, despite Wendy having just broken her foot, we made the long drive in the motorhome from Phoenix to the builder in Springfield, Missouri. We wanted to look at their work first hand, in the shop. It's usually the best way to determine if someone knows what they are doing. At least we thought so at the time.

What prompted us to make the trip were some stories we had heard from buyers of their builds, and the problems experienced by them in the early days of this company. What we saw, however, appeared to be well made, and the materials that they used in the early days had apparently now been replaced with the proper ones. So at the time, we felt that we could proceed with them. Besides, there really wasn't many other alternatives to choose from back then. It was still early days for these sorts of trucks here in the new world.

What's important to emphasize here is that our build was not an "off the shelf" project. The builder would not be taking a standard product that they produced on a regular basis, and just letting the customer select the interior fabric choice and cabinet colour. Ours would truly be a build made according to our specifications.

We understood from this builder that this was exactly what they specialized in, and they would be able to accommodate our wishes completely. Unfortunately we would learn further into the project that the builder mislead us. Their idea of a totally custom build was indeed to take an existing product and tweak it, using all their regular items. So things like the under body storage boxes, ones that we had specified dimensions and shape for, did not get built. They stuck their standard product underneath and then argued that this was the way it was done everywhere in the world. Not exactly an accurate statement.

Ya pays yer money, and takes yer chances

Over the next few months we finished our work detailing what we wanted to build. Although it was similar to trucks the builder had made before, our floor plan was unique, and included a few features that would make using the truck more enjoyable.

Once this was done, we sent the specs to the builder so they could quote us a price for the build. Their response was 25% higher than what they questimated when we were at their shop. So there was a bit of back and forth, making tweaks here and there to finally come to a consensus. We were now about to step over the threshold, and past the point of no return. We had to send them the deposit, which was 25% of the build. The non-refundable deposit, you understand.

Unfortunately, we did…

Working on the Details

The following month was spent waiting for the builder to produce the build drawings for our approval. These drawings were to finalize all of the dimensions, inside and out, for the size of the box, the location of the inside walls and windows, the size and location of cabinets, the electrical supply outlets for both 12 volt and 120 volt circuits, the plumbing and size of fresh water tank, along with the sizes of grey and black tanks... you get the drift. They also had their in house "engineer" (I use that term loosely) do all the technical things like the steel structure under the box, and so on. Unfortunately, we would discover later that although the guy did actually have an engineering degree, he had no real world experience and worse yet, appeared to be out of touch with simple engineering principles. Something that I discovered later on when discussing technical issues.

It was during this process that the hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up. You see, we've been through this process countless times back in the day of running our own manufacturing business. So we knew the process very well. What started to bother me was the fact that the drawings were so long in coming. When I inquired about this, we were told that they were having problems with new updates to the SolidWorks CAD software they were using for the drawings. They couldn't get the software to run properly, and it was causing them all sorts of problems. It was a logical explanation. After all, we've all had our share of software problems over the years. However, when I called a friend who also uses SolidWorks for his manufacturing business in Arizona, to see if they were having the same problems, he said no. They had just done the software update and everything was working perfectly.

But problems with the drawings weren't constrained to software glitches. Revisions that I sent back with dimension changes were not getting inputted into the next version of the drawings. Sometimes it would take two, even three goes at it before they were finally adopted. Based on our experience, this was very unusual. And here's the kicker...

After a number of times of repeating this process, we started to get push back from the builder. At one point they said they would have to charge us more than the budgeted amount for this phase of the build because it was taking so long for the amendments. Really...? They're having software problems, and operator problems, and that's our fault? When they sent us the bill for the extra work, there was a line item for changing the length of the front sofa, and making it longer by one foot. They claimed it took them 6 hours to do this. That's 6 hours at $100 per hour, which is completely preposterous! The most junior of CAD operators, working upside down, with their head in a fish bowl, wouldn't take that long. It's a two minute change. I know... I've done it hundreds of times myself. So this really got my spidy senses tingling.

Well, we couldn't back out now. We'd already paid them a six figure non-refundable deposit. So, under protest, we grudgingly paid the extra bill in the hopes we could move along. But then the next process brought a real push back from the owners of this company. They said they were starting production of our truck in a few days. But wait a minute, where are the detailed shop drawings for me to approve?

For those of you who don't know, there are normally two sets of drawings for a project. At least in our experience there is. The first are the design drawings where all the details are worked out as far as overall dimensions, numbers of this and that, everything needed for all parties to agree on what is going to be built. And then come the second set of drawings. These are the comprehensive shop drawings where every single manufacturing detail is drawn out and specified to the Nth degree, so the people working in the shop know exactly how to build it. Without these drawings, the shop personnel will have to infer from the design drawings how everything is to be done, and that's a recipe for disaster.

When I voiced my concern, and pressed them for shop drawings, I got a long two page email from the owner telling me I was interfering in their business, and I should just back off and let them get on with it. That they didn't need shop drawings because they had "shop procedures" that they used, and this is all they needed for the shop workers to build the product. Oh my word… in all our years of running a manufacturing business we've never heard such a claim. It's ludicrous! In hindsight, we should have walked right then and there… forfeited the deposit and run screaming for the door. It would have been the cheaper solution to what we ended up with.

But we were stupid. We tried to see their point of view. Maybe their previous business experience of being fast food restaurant owners gave them insights into the realm of manufacturing that we were heretofore unaware. We continued to move it along. But this was not the last time a frenzied email was sent to them telling them to stop work. You see, they would send photos of their progress which, to the trained eye, revealed glaring errors in the way something was being done. Again came the response from the owner, which of course was non-sensical. What did we know about building expedition trucks? How dare we question the manner in which they do things?

Well, eight months later we get the truck. Sure, it looked pretty good from ten feet away, but it only took a few minutes to start noticing things that weren't right. Like the fact that we wouldn't be able to get the large diesel filler nozzles into the tank filler necks, and even regular retail gas station nozzles would be difficult to use.

A few hours later we discovered that we couldn't get into the dinette under seat storage without lowering the table, and then removing absolutely every seat and back cushion around the dinette. That's nine cushions with plywood backs, the largest of which is nearly two and a half feet wide and six feet long. Not exactly easy or convenient. Really, it was like a Chinese puzzle box.

Then we discovered that the shower door opened outward into the narrow hallway instead of inward like in our drawings. There was also no venting for the shower. When you got in and closed the door, you were essentially in an airtight sealed container where no oxygen could enter. Worse yet, they made the hallway too narrow for the bathroom door to open all the way around 180º. They could have made the hallway wider by as much as 2" without affecting the usage of either the shower or bathroom, or they could have made the bathroom door an inch narrower. It wouldn't affect the ease of going into the bathroom one bit, and it would have allowed the door to swing right around.

These are all things that would have shown up in the detailed shop drawings that they never produced. The result is that we, the truck owner, now have to live with things that are a major irritant every time we use it. Isn’t that just brilliant.

We also learned when we got the truck, that they had to fire their plumber halfway though our build because of incompetence. That's comforting, especially since the management seems to rely totally on a single "tradesman" for knowledge on how things are done in any specific trade (plumbing, electrical, etc.). Just how much of our plumbing will turn out to be garbage, is still unknown. Already we've had a major line burst for the hydronic floor heating circuit which spewed hydronic fluid over the inside of our bathroom cabinet, and had the laundry plumbing p-trap leak and then completely fall apart because it wasn’t glued. And after looking at a lot of the plumbing copper work, we certainly don't have a warm and fuzzy feeling. Eventually we'll probably start redoing it so we know all is good.

And so it's been, on and on ever since we got the truck. And that was in 2015.

Please visit the Build Screwups section to read about all the failures on the truck, and what we had to do to make them right. There's also a section on all of our own projects. Things that we preferred to do ourselves, and thank goodness we did.