Coachmen Adrenaline 21LT-Poor Quality Control

[dagwood18]

Picked up a new 21LT a couple weeks ago. I took my time during the "walk Thru" to check everything out as best I could. Person at the dealership was nice but had little knowledge about the unit. We drove 370 miles to the dealership because it was the closest Adrenaline dealer for us, and they had a couple in stock. Once we returned home, we discovered several issues. The Schwintek slide is grabbing the bubble seal and chewing it up. The bottom half of the folding queen bed is not flush with the top half, 1/2 inch lower, a 1/2 inch is a lot, therefore the screws in the hinges are not holding and have detached. The top support that holds the sliding door to the bedroom was not mounted to anything solid on one side, screws missed the stud, and has torn out of the ceiling. Hopefully I won't find much more! The bed and door I will fix myself, not worth a 700+ mile trip to the dealer. Not sure about the seals on the slide yet. I have spoken to the service department twice and I'm still waiting for a call back from a tech, 10 days! I have had many campers and realize most need a little TLC, but this one is just poor workmanship from the factory. Have a little pride in your work Forest River! Horrible!

[LakeArrowEd]

I drove from CA to AZ to buy my 2021 Adrenaline 21 so taking it back to the dealer for repairs isn’t an option. We’ve had too many problems to list. Majors are slide out misalignment issues. It has literally been in the shop more time since we’ve owned it than with us. The entire slide out system had to be replace. Still worry about it every time we go out. Carry precut 2x4’s to wedge the room incase we have a total slide out failure. Horrible quality control. Super shoddy build. Shower enclosure was junk, had to “field” modify it. Tires have worn unevenly and had a blowout that tore off fender trim completely off entrance side. The flying tire rubber almost tore off our front door grab rail. Probably an axle alignment issue or simply crappy Carlisle tires. Will be measuring axles to determine if it’s off. Replaced with US made Goodyears.
Our diamond plate front rock guard is detached due to poor stapling. I’ll be using screws to re-attach it. There’s more but my fingers are tired. Besides all that it’s great! If we buy another one, it WILL NOT be an Adrenaline. Sorry for the DebbieDowner review and it’s been our experience with ours. Mexican piñatas are built tougher.

[PhotoMac]

**Yes I know this is an old thread but my wife and I are interested in one of these.

Did things get better? Do you still have these campers? Did things get worse? Any other problems pop up?

Thanks!

[LakeArrowEd]

Our camper has settled down a bit. Or I have. We have had other problems. Heater quit firing on a very cold Desert night this past April. Luckily my camping buddy is an HVAC tech so we did some analysis and literally took the heater out of it’s cubby (not easy) and after testing the sail switch determined it was acting up. We blew dust out of it with pressurized air, slapped it all carefully back together and it worked. I also rewired my kill switch so it actually eliminates all parasitic loads. That was posing a problem for me. I don’t recommend it for everyone. My bottom line is it seems that many manufacturers just don’t quality control their products. You get what you pay for. If you are a hands on , DIY kind of person, you’ll be fine. Frustrated at times but fine.

[LakeArrowEd]

The slide out on these are an absolute nightmare. Our’s malfunctioned out of the box. We had it replaced under warranty (that was a huge pain and took 6 months). Last night we were forced to cancel a week long camping trip to the Sierra’s we booked 6 months ago due to this piece of junk slide out malfunctioning again. I’m going to get it fixed and sell it. Probably at a huge loss.NEVER, EVER buying another Forest River product again. Horrible experience. Terrible company that produces junk.

[LakeArrowEd]

Amen. My 2021 Adrenaline 21 is an absolute piece of junk on wheels. What a nightmare experience. We’re selling ours. Nothing but problems for the last two years. Shame on Forest River for putting this stuff out there. It’s actually really unsafe and in my opinion immoral of them.

[MrScott1]

Back hatch had daylight showing past the seal. Eventually they told a local RV place how to fix it.

Loose wire clamp screw on the AC power inlet: FIRE HAZARD. Easy to fix, if you ever find that wiggling the power inlet connector makes AC power go on and off.

Couple of loose plumbing fittings; water leak at the toilet and fill vent.

Too small of a tie wrap around the clean water fill hose seems to be what made it kink and collapse in two places.

I ended up designing and 3D-printing a replacement for one of the door glides.

[latner]

Originally Posted by MrScott1

Back hatch had daylight showing past the seal. Eventually they told a local RV place how to fix it.

Loose wire clamp screw on the AC power inlet: FIRE HAZARD. Easy to fix, if you ever find that wiggling the power inlet connector makes AC power go on and off.

Couple of loose plumbing fittings; water leak at the toilet and fill vent.

Too small of a tie wrap around the clean water fill hose seems to be what made it kink and collapse in two places.

I ended up designing and 3D-printing a replacement for one of the door glides.

I'm interested in this model, but after reading some of the issues, might have to reconsider. What year is yours? Thx

[MrScott1]

Originally Posted by latner

I'm interested in this model, but after reading some of the issues, might have to reconsider. What year is yours? Thx

We have a 2022, bought unseen "at invoice" from a dealership at a considerably lower price than locally.

These have been the significant problems, which perhaps should not overshadow that most of the trailer has been decent quality and trouble free.

Though we did not understand the consequences when we chose the 120V / 12V refrigerator, which has enough power consumption that you either need hookup to AC or to greatly upgrade your battery system.

Of course any RV you buy is built lightweight, assembled by workers (some who had a bad day, do not care, are in a bad mood, weren't paying attention, etc.), and may get called away in the middle of what they are doing. These aren't space qualified. However I do hope that they will start checking the AC for properly tightened screws and the main hatch seal.