Engineering Defect?

[RandL]

We have had our 2008 Forest River Georgetown XL for 3 ½ years. We have driven 40,000 KM’s or 25,000 miles around North America on different trips. From Vancouver Canada south to Hemet California, east to Key West Florida, north to St. John’s Newfoundland/Labrador and back home to Vancouver.

Our unit has taken us “there and back again”. We’ve had a few learning curves along the way, nothing serious; generator relay, hot water heater element, light bulbs, batteries, faucets, loose mouldings,, etc. Normal stuff. Until this winter!!

It has been colder than normal across North America and I have felt it even more than usual. A couple months ago, having prepared the coffee maker for next morning, I tried to put it back under the cupboards over the counter. That’s been home since we started. It wouldn’t fit??? Upon closer examination, some of the cupboard doors were not lined up, the microwave door was drooping and the ends posts of our main slide were showing signs of stress.

Bottom line, the top rail of our main slide, approximately 13 feet long, had dropped 5/8 “ in the center. I could put my hand between the top of the slide and the seal! When we removed the molding we discovered there were two pieces of ½” plywood that met in the center of the span. They were supposed to strengthen it??

We contacted Forest River and they gave us some idea on how to rectify the problem. I was dealing with BMT Group on Vancouver Island and we decided to run a piece of angle iron the entire length of the span.

We contacted Forest River again, was there some kind of a recall or warranty policy to cover this problem? NO! Warranty only available to the original purchaser for one year.

To our way of thinking this was an engineering defect from the manufacturer.

Has anyone else had this or a similar problem?

[SeaDog]

Some things you may not have concerned is the weight of the items you have in the cabinets over the counter, If they are jammed full of stoneware or can goods that may account for the droop in addition to there being a seam in the middle of the slide.

Myself I think I would jack up the center of the slide to slightly over level and apply a stiffener inside to the top of the cabinets and see if that corrects the problem.

[RandL]

Thanks. That was the first question we asked the body shop at BMT Group. They replied that if there was that much weight, it should have pulled the cabinets themselves loose. The cabinets in question are mostly full of "tupperware" so weight was not the issue.

The body shop ran a plumb line from one lower corner across the span to the other lower corner and measured 5/8" of droop. Once they installed the angle iron, there was no more droop and the coffee pot fits again.

I will say that BMT Group gave us first rate service. The two main principals have worked together for several years, first at a local bus company and then set up BMT Group a few years ago. Highly recommend them for any mechanical or body type repairs.