Keystone closing plants

[Rhortie1]

Has anyone heard about Keystone closing two plants in Goshen this month ?
https://apnews.com/article/indiana-g...es%20travel,23.

[Jay Merritt]

The story is over a year old - "Published 3:38 PM EDT, July 22, 2022"

[Rhortie1]

Originally Posted by Jay Merritt

The story is over a year old - "Published 3:38 PM EDT, July 22, 2022"

Sorry I read it as closing Sept ‘23 instead of Sept 23, Writer was a little confusing but it makes more sense.

[DutchmenSport]

The RV Industry in Northern Indiana is always up and down. Plant closings are not anything new there. It's all part of the business. A few short years ago, Elkhart County in Indiana was in absolute destitute condition because of a massive down-turn in RV manufacturing. It was devastating. But it also was not the first time either. Covid turned Elkhart and Goshen into boom towns again when RV manufacturing when insanely crazy. They were spitting out RV so fast,.... well ... you all know about the horrible "quality" issue from the Covid era campers! It's now at an end. The industry is resetting itself, once again.

There is nothing nice about anyone loosing their job, even if the job is a temporary one or a contract assignment for a specified length of time. When the end comes, it's never nice and leaves the employee in a very lost and helpless state of mind. But this is the nature of the RV industry.

Given the right conditions and things will upswing again. What that will take is anyone's guess, but it will happen again, and then another down-swing. That doesn't give comfort to those 300 employees, but they also knew the risks when they became employees.

Actually, no one is secure in any job or place of employment, anywhere!

What this does mean for those of us who are avid camping people, it means there is a down-turn in new sales of campers. A down turn and more and more folks now dumping their Covid era built campers means campground availability is opening up for the rest of us. Although, you'd never believe that if you tried booking a campsite ANYWHERE East of the Mississippi Rive for Labor Day week end!

You have to remember, in order to own and actually use an RV of any type, one has to have "disposable money" to buy the thing in the first place. Then they need "disposable time" to actually use it. After Covid, folks are finding they now have neither any more!

[432bartman]

Glad I am retired, and my wife has plenty of time off so we can use our rig, which we take out almost monthly. Even if it's just for a few days, we love it, and it affords us time by ourselves. When my elderly mom moved in with us about 2 years ago.......the trailer has been our saving grace for our sanity and marriage. My mom is the sweetest lady, but still we need our time.

[Byron B]

The Wall Street Journal has recently had a couple articles about the big downturn in the RV industry. Which is nothing new, as DuchmanSport reported above. I am still waiting for the campgrounds to have vacancies when I NEED THEM! We normally are settled in somewhere when the masses can and do travel but this year is a bit easier than the past couple have been. We only put about 7K miles on our traveling rig this year. But we now have disc brakes and independent suspension! WOOHOO. Now if we could just get back to 2019 or so when we could wake up and decide will we stay here or move on today! Not yet possible again but I see it on the horizon!

[Rhortie1]

Originally Posted by Byron B

The Wall Street Journal has recently had a couple articles about the big downturn in the RV industry. Which is nothing new, as DuchmanSport reported above. I am still waiting for the campgrounds to have vacancies when I NEED THEM! We normally are settled in somewhere when the masses can and do travel but this year is a bit easier than the past couple have been. We only put about 7K miles on our traveling rig this year. But we now have disc brakes and independent suspension! WOOHOO. Now if we could just get back to 2019 or so when we could wake up and decide will we stay here or move on today! Not yet possible again but I see it on the horizon!

Can’t wait for that to happen. We started full time in 2020 and it was pretty easy to find a place to stay but since then we book 6 months to a year out for our trips around the lower 48.

[Foldbak]

With interest rates in the 10's who's going to finance 100K rig over 15 years? Trailer sales in CA are down big time.