I have an 8 month old A213 with a leak. Forest River and local dealers have been no help. The dealer we bought from is 450 miles away (we really wanted another A213). So two questions: anyone know of a competent dealer or RV service that is good with a frames and within 100 miles of Chattanooga? And second, what sealant do I use on the roof? Is self leveling okay as it should harden in the few weeks before use, or only use non sag that is horrible to work with? Thanks
Where is your leak(s)? I have a 2018 A213 and have found:
FR has a few engineered leaks in their design.
They have a poor choice of sealant IMHO.
Their manufacturing assembly is very poor and is responsible for some leaks. If you look closely you will likely find screws that were never screwed in - I did. About half a dozen.
Bad choice of component - lift.
The worse bad sealant leak is the bottom of the back panel to L member. It was totally loose and water just runs into it. It would be better if the panel secured to the outside of the L piece. I used butyl tape and covered it with Gorilla All Weather tape. The only butyl tape I could find was dbl sided, which is why I had to cover it. However, that bottom piece isn't something you would stick to, so covering it isn't totally necessary. The roof joints I originally covered with the butyl and covered, but ended up removing some butyl and just using the tape. So it is a mixed bag, but those were not leaking.
I think that Gorilla tape my have a butyl adhesive at it really sticks - and a very good covering.
I also tried a black rubber covered tape I got from Aliexpress. Only problem with that is the rubber shrinks and leaves gray adhesive. Soooooooo, I highly recommend using that Gorilla tape instead of sealant. The factory sealant hardens and is prone to breaking as in the bad one above - but there were no issues on the roof. I also had a leak in one corner of the rear skylight. I think I just solved that with Flex Seal and covered with tape. I was going to remove the plexiglass and reseal it, but it was to difficult to get it off. The last rain I had no leak. I'm hoping that is done. I covered rivets with tape, but filling the hole with sealant might be better.
The marker lights are poorly sealed. You need to remove them all and reseal them properly. They have big globs of sealant under them, which I assume they thought would cause any water not to run into the wire hole and get inside. It might if they did it properly. It does not seal the light.
The tail lights have HUGE holes behind them for the wire. There is no reason for that, but.......... Those need even more attention.
ALSO, the lift mechanism needs work. If it has been in the rain, it will fail due to water getting into it. Before you fix it, I would recommend disassembling it and draining the water and re-greasing it. I bought a piece of black ABS plastic pipe from Lowe's. Bar code 717141100307 and cut it about in half ~29". You can use any 2" pipe, but this one was cheaper than buying 10' of PVC. I drilled a hole thru the top big enough to get my socket into on the outside and the size of the screw on the inside. When fully up, the pipe hangs just below the top of the part the rod comes out of. After I attached it, I covered the top with a piece of inner tube secured with a pipe clamp. It sticks out far enough to shield the holes. NO water is getting to it now.
If yours is leaking into the front and rear side compartments, let me know and I will tell you about that.
That is an engineered leak and likely your problem. My middle front compartment had 1/4" of water in it.
