Rust on Berkshire Chassie

[MrClic]

Imangine my surprise when I found excessive rust behind my basement doors, under the slides, and on the chassie. My Berkshire is a 2008 with less than 10000 miles. I ended sanding the areas down, treating for the rust, and completing repainting. I have to say that this was quite a job. I am concerned as I hope to run the coach for many years and did not expect this issue after only three summers of use. I park on a pad and keep the snow away so air can circulate in the winter. I had a Georgetown before the Berkshire, Used that for three years and it looked new when I traded it in. I expect the same from the Berkshire.

Has anyone else seen this with their coaches?

Other than this the wife and I love the Berkshire.

[wnytaxman]

Part of the issue for you may be the concrete pad. The concrete does attract moisture and, hence, rust. We have our unit inside, but I have the wheels sitting on Advanteq and plastic under the entire rig. This seems to keep the moisture down and also protects the tires.

[MrClic]

You are correct the plastic will make a difference. My pad is outside and I make sure that the air can circulate under the coach at all times.

My main interest in posting was to see if anyone else has seen rust behind their basement doors or under their slides.

All fellow Berkshire owners reading this thread let us know.

Thanks.

[Moracechaney]

I bought a new 2010 berkshire 360fs back in March and it is very rusty underneath! dealer handled some of it, painted over some of it and i still have it everywhere! apparently no undercoating from the factory, and by the way, if a unit rust up from parking on concrete, that is not good!! amd I am dreading the job of working on my back trying to de-rust!

[Harleydriven]

Originally Posted by MrClic

Imangine my surprise when I found excessive rust behind my basement doors, under the slides, and on the chassie. My Berkshire is a 2008 with less than 10000 miles. I ended sanding the areas down, treating for the rust, and completing repainting. I have to say that this was quite a job. I am concerned as I hope to run the coach for many years and did not expect this issue after only three summers of use. I park on a pad and keep the snow away so air can circulate in the winter. I had a Georgetown before the Berkshire, Used that for three years and it looked new when I traded it in. I expect the same from the Berkshire.

Has anyone else seen this with their coaches?

Other than this the wife and I love the Berkshire.

Just wanted to jump in, i'm always on the georgetown side,but considering we're thinking about moving up to a Berkshire FL 390 thought maybe you mite talk alittle about your experiences .. fuel mileage, i haven't broke 8 mpg yet with georgetown, we're thinking ride,handling,etc would be much better with a diesel chassis, would appreciate your overall option .. thank you

[Moracechaney]

Overall we love the coach, tile floors are easy to keep clean, coach drives really well even on very windy days, mileage is great so far and not close to broken in. Loaded up, averaging around 10.5, but not towing yet! Will know about what that does to my mileage soon. King size bed was very firm, so put a 3" gel pad on and now great. I think rust issues were from dealer moved to a NY location in winter with salted roads and never washed off under carriage??

Only other issues are slide out gaskets seem to want to fall down so just stuck back up, rear ladder rated for 300lbs broke with my stealth 250. Helps to be close to your authorized dealer, and factory very cooperative and helpful!

Hope this helps!

[Harleydriven]

thanks for the reply, none of these things are perfect but you sound happy with your unit,berkshire has a fairly new floor plan 390 FL . we're waiting for dealer to get, we deal with lazydays in tampa, so hopefully get a decent trade or find a buyer . thanks again .. happy motoring .

[wnytaxman]

We are also very happy with our Berkshire. We're averaging just under 10 mpg and I do tend to have a lead foot so a 60-65 mph driver should be over 10. Our unit is an '11 on an '09 chassis so we don't have the DEF engine.

For what it's worth we bought ours from RVOne at their Buffalo RV location and they beat Lazydays by a bunch of $$$ so you might want to check out their Orlando location to see what kind of a deal they'll give you.

[Harleydriven]

well thank you sir, up there in NY, we're looking real hard, love the 390 FL, with fireplace as we do enjoy it in our #378. How would you rate the ride ? Best i've seen in gas mileage is almost 8 pulling a fiat ... all thing considered say over a 5000 mile trip gas rig cost something $50. more even with the higher cost of diesel ... thanks again

[LiteEmUp]

We have a 2011 390BH with the DEF and 360 HP engine w/larger transmission. When the tanks are empty and not towing anything, it runs around 12.5 mpg.

With the tanks empty and pulling our Chevy Express 2500 10 passenger conversion van (weighs 6,500 lbs), it gets 11. The longest trip so far was a little more than 900 miles pulling the van. No mountains, basically flat land which helped achieving the 11. Also, I try not to drive faster than 65 while towing our van.

The readout on the dash has hit 14.0 on other, shorter, trips - this definitely isn't the norm.