Good, Bad, and Ugly of Build and Repair

[BandJCarm]

I'll try and make this brief, but it's a long saga...........

5 month old Cedar Creek 5th wheel. Our first 5'er, not first trailer.

All well at first, other than terribly bumpy ride and tankless water heater that sucked. Got water heater replaced with conventional, works awesome. Got air bags for truck, and Joy Rider II shocks for trailer and axle alignment, and things are better.....though the air bags have to be at about 80+ to make any difference.

Then we noticed a bad odor, mostly in basement, but sometimes throughout trailer.

Then the slides started sticking and would open but not shut. Once max effort was done to shut, they'd creep back out on their own.

Odor got worse, and worse, and slides got worse and worse. End of September on a trip home from Vicksburg, MS, the slides started falling out, while driving down the road. Finally limped home and got it to local dealer in town. We did NOT buy it there, they are way high on initial costs. (I would say what I saved buying it elsewhere but I told that number once and was told I was wrong, so never mind on that). While in the parking lot leaving it, the black tank 'compromised' and BAM, spilled out what it had (not much, as I had flushed it as well as I could). Whew!

That's the ugly.

The good is that the dealer didn't bat any eye about taking it in even though not being bought there! They were glad to have it. Trouble is, they get about 3 -5 a day coming in for work, EVERY day, and they are backed up. But no issue with getting work done. Techs are good.

Because they are backed up, it took 6 weeks to get it. But they found a 6" piece of ABS mis-installed between black tank and dump valve. Is a compression fitting, and just wasn't seated on one side. UGH! "Stuff" was leaking from the git go. Insulation ruined, etc.

They originally worked with Lippert and said the manifold was bad on the hydraulics. But Lippert balked on replacing and asked for more tests. They took it apart, put it back together, and it passed all tests with flying colors. It still works now.

They got a part from Cedar Creek for the black tank, pulled it, put in new insulation, and put in a few 1X2 boards on the frame for more support for the tank. Put it all back together and tested. Works fine.

So......I have no idea why the slides failed. I have less idea why they decided to start working again!! I do have confirmation from Cedar Creek that they'll fix it whenever it might happen again! I know why black tank failed, a failure to install that short piece correctly on initial build.

When I picked it up, the dealer said "Do you have black streaks on the roof?" I said "some". They got up there and looked and sure enough, I have what they say is oil coming out of the main A/C unit in back. They took the 'data tag' off of the unit and are getting a new one, under warranty, from Dometic. When it arrives, they'll put it on, free, and Dometic will pay to clean the roof.

But as for a local dealer taking it in, agreeing to work on it, I had zero issues. And while it took a long time, their work is good and they billed CC for all work. No cost to me.

The local dealer does have every make and model known to man there being worked on. I can see why. But this is a little different than the normal maintenance and warranty story that I read here.

[Seasonal]

What is the name of the good dealer? They are providing excellent service.

bruce...

[bob caldwell]

Good deal for you!

[BandJCarm]

Originally Posted by my_crib_too

What is the name of the good dealer? They are providing excellent service.

bruce...

Moix RV in Conway, AR. They are good. They are honest, but not cheap. They also sell Traeger grills, fancy lawnmowers, and Bad Boy Buggies. They have their own Owners' Club and have rallies. I wish I could have bought there, but I never could have afforded my trailer if I had bought there. Glad they work on them, though.

I usually comment that warranty issues are overrated, since they only last a year. But this time I am glad to have had a way to get warranty work done. I am hopeful that I have most everything fixed and working for years to come.

[awellis3]

Originally Posted by BandJCarm

Moix RV in Conway, AR. They are good. They are honest, but not cheap.

Reminds me of an old saying: You can get it good, fast or cheap. Pick two.

[KatanaPilot]

Originally Posted by awellis3

Reminds me of an old saying: You can get it good, fast or cheap. Pick two.

If you buy an RV from your local dealer (fast), are you getting a better built unit (good) than you would if you bought it from an internet dealer (cheap)?

I doubt FR or any other manufacturer sends their "seconds" to the internet dealers and reserves the "properly built" units for local dealers.

Like someone posted in another thread - buying an RV is a crap shoot.

[2Evil4U]

Slide-wise, if they are hydraulic and whatever they did during the R&R of the hydraulic system caused the system to start running at the correct pressure, I would say that could have been your problem.

[JAClend]

Originally Posted by BandJCarm

When I picked it up, the dealer said "Do you have black streaks on the roof?" I said "some". They got up there and looked and sure enough, I have what they say is oil coming out of the main A/C unit in back. They took the 'data tag' off of the unit and are getting a new one, under warranty, from Dometic. When it arrives, they'll put it on, free, and Dometic will pay to clean the roof.

We have those black streaks that I figured were just from dirt and a/c water runoff. I guess we'll have the dealer check this out when she's in for service.

[Cowracer]

My bet on the hydros was that you have some FOD hung up in one of the spool valves, and that was bypassing fluid all the time. With blocked port valves like you have, when the pilot is de-energized, all 4 ports of the spool valve (pump, tank, A, B) should be closed or "blocked". This effectively locks the cylinder as no fluid can flow anywhere. IF a cylinder can move (even with the pump off) you have some leakage somewhere, and if it was at a fitting or hose, you would have noticed the fluid. So it had to be internal. When the pump was on, it would show up as increased resistance opposite of the leak. In other words, if the valve bleeds to the "open" side, you will be fighting that pressure when driving them "closed"


I'm not exactly sure of your configuration, but what you call a "manifold" is probably actually a block of valves. I bet taking them apart and "inspecting" them cleared the debris and now the spool works properly. I have to deal with that kind of stuff all the time. Good news is there will be no permanent damage.

Tim