I have not seen much in the way of reviews and information on the Cirrus 820. We recently purchased a new 820 so thought I would share some feedback I wish I would have had during our research process!
Some background....we finally decided to move into a full size, hard sided camper after over 15 years in a Hallmark Guanella. We had an awesome set up with a modified F150 that served us well for complete off the grid, dry camping with well over 1,600 nights in that setup!
After a lot of research and looking at a number of campers we decided to go with the Cirrus 820 on a modified F350. We chose the Cirrus for the modern design/look and tie to NuCamp. Although we could not find a lot of reviews specific to the Cirrus we felt the tie to the T@B and T@G family would carry over.
We really want to love this camper but having some issues that have us questioning our decision.
We currently have ~10 nights in the unit and have a warranty hit list of 16 items and appear to have a couple of new ones come up every trip. We purchased the unit from Bob Scott RV in Grand Junction CO where Chris and his team have gone above and beyond to take very good care of us even though they are a new dealer for Cirrus and don't have a lot of history.
To be fare, the Hallmark is an indestructible unit and we may have had unrealistic expectations for this type of camper and how we use it. I would say my bigger issue is specific to how Cirrus is handling, or more accuratly not handling, the situation. A few specifics detailed below:
* During our purchase with Bob Scott they told us the Cirrus rep would like to offer us an after the sales rebate, nothing big but would have been cool to get some goodies with. We had already committed to the purchase so it was not a tactic to close the sales. We were told this would come directly from Cirrus and here we are 3 months later and nothing. Would have been better simply not to say anything and then shoot us a cool little thank you. this sets up the communication issues below.....
* After the first two trips and the warranty items adding up I asked the dealer if they could have the Rep give us a call and simply walk through what we are seeing, if they are seeing this on a broader scale and share some insights we have on how they may be able to improve the product for those of us that will spend 80+ nights/yr dry camping in remote areas.
* With still no response from the rep I reached out to Scott Hubble (CEO) through the Cirrus Marketing team to simply share our excitement with the new camper and provide some insight as to both our experience to date as well as general observations on the product. I was told that they value such contact/feedback and Scott would be reaching out shortly. Similar to the attempted contact with the local rep, still no follow-up or contact.
* I posted my now growing experience and frustration on their FB page and got another immediate response in canned marketing style but still no direct contact to try and address the growing warranty items as well as simply try to provide some feedback to help improve the product.
Again, I may be jaded coming from the Hallmark tribe. At any moment you could pick up the phone and give Brian a call and he would be all over the issue giving you insight and suggestions on a fix/improvement or setting up an appointment to bring the unit in and they would address it. We got the same treatment with a 2003 used unit as a brand new unit. This is the true customer service experience we came to love and expect from a passion driven product company.
We will get the items fixed by Chris and his team at Bob Scott and use the rig over the next few months. I will continue to update with both positive and not so positive results. I truly hope we can work out the kinks and it proves to be a great unit, if it doesn't I will post it on the for sale form at a great deal and we will continue our search or simply go back to the trusted and loved Hallmark product.
If you are interested, just let me know and I'll be happy to forward our warranty list as well as thoughts on how the units could be improved for more off-grid dry camping.
Disappointed but hopeful!!
Some background....we finally decided to move into a full size, hard sided camper after over 15 years in a Hallmark Guanella. We had an awesome set up with a modified F150 that served us well for complete off the grid, dry camping with well over 1,600 nights in that setup!
After a lot of research and looking at a number of campers we decided to go with the Cirrus 820 on a modified F350. We chose the Cirrus for the modern design/look and tie to NuCamp. Although we could not find a lot of reviews specific to the Cirrus we felt the tie to the T@B and T@G family would carry over.
We really want to love this camper but having some issues that have us questioning our decision.
We currently have ~10 nights in the unit and have a warranty hit list of 16 items and appear to have a couple of new ones come up every trip. We purchased the unit from Bob Scott RV in Grand Junction CO where Chris and his team have gone above and beyond to take very good care of us even though they are a new dealer for Cirrus and don't have a lot of history.
To be fare, the Hallmark is an indestructible unit and we may have had unrealistic expectations for this type of camper and how we use it. I would say my bigger issue is specific to how Cirrus is handling, or more accuratly not handling, the situation. A few specifics detailed below:
* During our purchase with Bob Scott they told us the Cirrus rep would like to offer us an after the sales rebate, nothing big but would have been cool to get some goodies with. We had already committed to the purchase so it was not a tactic to close the sales. We were told this would come directly from Cirrus and here we are 3 months later and nothing. Would have been better simply not to say anything and then shoot us a cool little thank you. this sets up the communication issues below.....
* After the first two trips and the warranty items adding up I asked the dealer if they could have the Rep give us a call and simply walk through what we are seeing, if they are seeing this on a broader scale and share some insights we have on how they may be able to improve the product for those of us that will spend 80+ nights/yr dry camping in remote areas.
* With still no response from the rep I reached out to Scott Hubble (CEO) through the Cirrus Marketing team to simply share our excitement with the new camper and provide some insight as to both our experience to date as well as general observations on the product. I was told that they value such contact/feedback and Scott would be reaching out shortly. Similar to the attempted contact with the local rep, still no follow-up or contact.
* I posted my now growing experience and frustration on their FB page and got another immediate response in canned marketing style but still no direct contact to try and address the growing warranty items as well as simply try to provide some feedback to help improve the product.
Again, I may be jaded coming from the Hallmark tribe. At any moment you could pick up the phone and give Brian a call and he would be all over the issue giving you insight and suggestions on a fix/improvement or setting up an appointment to bring the unit in and they would address it. We got the same treatment with a 2003 used unit as a brand new unit. This is the true customer service experience we came to love and expect from a passion driven product company.
We will get the items fixed by Chris and his team at Bob Scott and use the rig over the next few months. I will continue to update with both positive and not so positive results. I truly hope we can work out the kinks and it proves to be a great unit, if it doesn't I will post it on the for sale form at a great deal and we will continue our search or simply go back to the trusted and loved Hallmark product.
If you are interested, just let me know and I'll be happy to forward our warranty list as well as thoughts on how the units could be improved for more off-grid dry camping.
Disappointed but hopeful!!
