I totally agree and a point that I express often when mentioned. I have been told no video at other repair facilities however these guys were an open book. At the time of our repair they didn’t know we had a channel but had said they don’t care if we take video. They did an excellent job that has withstood our continued travels. Thanks for hanging out with us!
If you want to go to them get put on the waitlist and continue to check in. Rod is talking about opening and second shop to help with the flex issues. 😎
Have the same issue, saw the great work they do but unfortunately I was told that February 2025 was the earliest appointment. Was willing to drive there from Long Island too. Had to find another repair facility, which is June of this year. Hopefully they do as good a job on it.
Thanks for this video. It's great to know there is a place as Affinity for such repairs other than the folks that didn't do it correctly in the first place.
We have had an aljo 1902, aljo 24 foot.. Kz new vision Ultra, a Prowler.. NONE have given us problems.. With our Newer montana it has been one issue after another...PURE JUNK...Just saying 'they all DON"T have problems"..
I think I have found the bottom of the Rabbit Hole. This video is the most calm, easy to understand and informative on the flex issue I have viewed so far. I never knew anything about frame flex, but once my wife said "Hey lets buy a camper and travel a little bit", I went on a research to find one that we would like. Now, I am thinking of buying a boat with a new fishing rod instead. Some of the products mentioned in other videos with this problem have scared the crap out of me. Your video on the other hand gives me a much better understanding of if broken, can it be repaired. I am still researching to see if there is an insurance that can be purchased that will cover this issue and is it only available for some campers. Anyway, thank you for your video. I hope your future travels are uneventful other than having fun.
Thank you for the kind words. I am aware of several folks that had theirs repaired filing an insurance claim. We had some similar feelings when this first happened to us as the manufacturer stated they were uncertain how or if it could be repaired. We have over 25k miles since repair without issue. A kayak and that new rod may be a better idea - less to go wrong. Thanks for stopping by!
After seeing how Affinity repaired and strengthened the frame, it really makes how the manufacturer built it look flimsy. The manufacturers should build it this way in the first place.
Fantastic video Ryan. As your aware we have gone thru this issue with our 5th wheel as well. I guess the good thing to know is at this point if it happens again, I will know right where to take it. Thanks for walking people thru this potentially frustrating part of RV life. Safe travels to you, Sarah and the pups.
Agree with @Watchdogger! And thank you both for sharing! We started full timing 8-30-21 after selling our home and own a 2022 GD Momentum 397ths. We did not have the issues you have. We had squeaky master bedroom flooring. Took off the philon cover under the front cap and all 5 small beam attachments were broken. Missing some screws and lag bolts and undersized. Sill plate cracked in a few places. Have not had the front cap off - yet. Really really appreciate the photos and info on Affinity's repairs as, per everyone else also stated, they are very booked up and so would need to go elsewhere if we have any further issues. So happy to hear your repair is holding and hope to see you all out on the road! :-)
I follow your channel because I feel bad for you guys. However I love how you guys push thru the issues. Please don’t give up. Your trailer seems short to having these serious structural issues. Hopefully things will be okay at this point.
Great video, very detailed and informative. Affinity RV appears to have worked hard to come up with a solution to this problem. You two deserve to have some worry-free adventures. I look forward to continuing following you on your journey. Take care.
So glad you found Affinity. We have been using them for several years. We had almost the same issue repaired on our this past September and they did an awesome job.
My parents have been pulling a 1998 Alpenlite 5er for nearly 20 years. Many thousands of miles and it is as solid today as the day they bought it. I guess it’s true when they say they don’t build them like they used to. Glad your problems are finally resolved.
Impressive shop! To find that level of skills is a real find! Beyond that, I sure hope you are able to get reimbursed for all the work you have had have done to correct these factory created problems! Wish you good luck that this time is the last time! 👍
Thank you Midlife Detour for your quick response! Since Affinity is only 400 miles from where we are now, and kind of in the direction we are going, we will be pulling in there first thing tomorrow morning to discuss our options. I have heard about Tishomingo RV repair but it's so far out of our way at this point, and from all the reviews I've seen on Affinity, I don't think I trust anyone else to do it right the first time! I'd use them for other small repairs if we travel down south. We have paid reservations in Rockland, Maine, May 1 through end of October. Time is ticking away. Praying Affinity will make some magic happen for us! Wish us Luck! I'll keep you posted !
Unless they have replaced the frame from the main floor 10 inch Welded Flanged I Beam up to the bed room frame through to the pin box frame , he will have more frame failures . That grade of steel Lippert used is not high strength. I found this out on my travel trailer frame . Welds can only be as strong as the metal it fuses with . The metal fractures where no welds are located . While some unauthorised pinbox hitches can over stress the frames the failures are just too common with common failure points clearly no where near welds .Lippert uses the same grade of metal for trailer homes but they make one road trip as a general rule and are never moved again. RVs are road vehicles and the frame should meet the intended use.
Bless your hearts. You've had more than your fair share of problems in a short period of time. It looks like that should fix it! Be careful out there!!
Y’all are breaking my heart!! We had flex issues with our Solitude, Grand Design took the entire front cap off and welded in gussets, steel supports, reinforced welds. Hope your fix works for you. We did trade ours in for a motorhome after the factory went through everything on warranty so the next owner was set but man we were tired of repairs, slide issues, etc. It was our second fifth wheel, a 2022 - one of the first 22’s built. Maybe true about Covid built rigs. 🤷♀️. So sorry for everything you have had to deal with. So hard to see your home in constant repair mode. Blessings and safe travels!!
the goshen elkhart area is where i grew up. that area is where a ton of these rvs come from in the first place, it is the best place to go any time you need anything done. best chance of having knowledgeable people and parts available.
Welcome to the club. Our dealer (out of warranty) pulled off the cap and we had cracks on both sides of the cap frame. Thank goodness the frame was fine and no missing lags bolts. They ended up installing a cross beam to the frame and inserted web frames on both sides. About 65 lbs of extra steel. I was getting about 1/2" of movement between the pin and the cap. The manufacturer wanted me to 'weigh" the rig (after the front was removed - and wait 6 weeks) in order to consider reimbursement ... we couldn't wait that long and I thought it stupid to have the dealer reinstall the front and drive 50 miles to get weighed and then return. Good video. There will be more as folks start realizing what is going on.
Was the manufacturer looking for weight to see if you were over weight and caused the issue? They completely inspected my steel frame and my breaks were all in the aluminum so hopefully with the reinforcements we will sustain. Our total weight add was 23lbs.
@@MidlifeDetour We're not sure just 'why" they wanted it. Will probably never know. At any rate, as soon as the repair was finished, I went to a CAT scale and was at least 1500 under the GVWR. The dealer estimated about 75 lbs of steel added and from what he described, that's pretty close.
Excellent video. It describes exactly the problem I have with my 4 year old 5th Wheel. What started a couple years ago as 1/8 to 1/4 inch separation of trim from the caulk line, resulted in a bulge in the side wall such that I can stick hand between the bottom slide seal in front when the slide is otherwise in snugly. To fix it, the front cap, the slide, and the filon have to be removed so they can add structure to the framing and weld in gussets. It has to then be reassembled. Awfully scarry!!!
Worst nightmare. Frame welds at front and rear wall seem to be weak points. Are you willing to share cost for work that was performed? No issues now but intend to keep Affinity's number around. Great that somebody has a fix.
They should have plated it. Saying it can't be done is them just not knowing what to do or want to do. Thankfully you found good place to go. A welding shop that deals in frames is another good spot to go
Good to see you got that problem fixed! I always told you you had a lemon and this confirms it. The cut of your frame was the start of all your problems AND the ‘unknown’ problem I kept telling you was causing your problems. I’m still wondering if all this was related to all the water leak problems also or if that was another ‘lemon’ issue? After watching this I am SO GLAD I traded out of my 34RLB. For me, life is too short to go through all you went through…..but you are younger than me and it makes for a good story for your videography. BTW, this video was shot and edited very well. I can see your improvement since the last one I watched. 😂 Good luck and hope this fixes at least that problem for good.
Ryan, thanks for the detailed video... I'm going through the same issue with my 2019 Montana 3791 RD. I had the driver side with the bedroom slide-out repaired about 1.5 years ago under the frame warranty... After our trip through upper PA the we have the passenger side showing singes of frame flex. it is currently in the shop awaiting the shop to get back tome with the autopsy report but my guess is aluminum frame flex. how has your repair held up and is there anything you would have done differently. Thanks for your informative post and safe travels.
“Ours we fixed and no issues as of yet but now we know how to fix it .” I may have read this wrong as I thought your comment about knowing how to fix meant you may have fixed yourself.
It’s scary that this happens on something so expensive and supposedly we’ll built, there are so many videos out showing the low quality of rv’s today. Hopefully this works, good luck
It’s crazy to see what they didn’t do at the factory and how thin the material is. The large 2”x4” looks like 1/8” and the wall beams 1/16”. You can’t bevel the ends to lay a nice weld and when welded it has to be ground off for the skin to go on. It’s not a matter of if it will fail but a matter of when.
wow....those guys there know what they are doing for structural repair...and the finish job??? You could never tell that front cap and sidewalls had been removed... THANKS for sharing your ordeals on this...just hope that our 2023 Vilano has the additional gussets in the proper areas and we never have any issues...but that is something I will keep an eye on for any movement....
Greetings fellow Vanleigh owner! I am completely impressed with the work they did in that shop. It's a bit nerve racking to watch the cap come off and have them rip of the exterior fiberglass but the results are fantastic. Something I meant to put in the video but somehow missed was my separation / bulge only shows while hitched up. Once the unit was on its own feet it closed back up sometimes depending on how things settled the bulge would be present sometimes it wouldn't. I hope you do not experience issues as well and most won't, but keep an eye on it. Thanks for hanging out with us!
Ha! That is great. We always call it a rig as we don’t think of it as a “recreation vehicle” but now I might start calling it a RV again. Very fitting. Thanks for hanging out with us!
I agree - the corrections that Affinity made were pretty impressive and we have not experienced any issues in that area since and doubt we will. Thanks for hanging out with us.
That’s a difficult question to answer. Our only guess is that they had implemented reinforcements on the new units and didn’t know how to retro fit that on the older ones. We were simply told it wasn’t available to us…
I would have preferred to see those gussets on the underside of the frame in the curvature rather then a diagonal brace from the frame up and attached to the wall system of the rv. Seems to me that the problem just got switched from the bottom to the top.
WOW great video , i believe I've now found my problem after watching this , i do get a bubble once the bedroom slide is in and do believe i can see movement through that expansion joint , only reason i noticed it was because the nose cap seems to move up n down n pin box dose not , mines a 2012 Durango , has it held up so far ? cheers from AUSTRALIA
It's my understanding that the actual problem is with the underlying steel lippert frame. Apparently they are undersized for the task on a lot of different manufacturers and there's an expected 70% failure rate of them.
If the manufacturer asked Lippert for a lighter frame, it’s not Lipperts fault. They built the frame as specified. The manufacturer needed to lower the GW. Of course I doubt marketing allowed that. They expect you to drive 5 miles on a smooth road to camp 5 time a year.
Thanks for the video. Well done and great approach in presenting it. You may have said in a previous comment, but on average what is the cost of the repair work done.
We are full timers with a 2013 Heartland bighorn Ti32 we come from southern Ontario and don’t know where to have it repaired maybe your viewers know of someplace
They were within scope - all of our movement came from the street side wall where the welds were broke. Sorry to hear you are having a similar issue with your GD.
Did the frame itself break as well or just wall frame breakage due to normal frame flex. I'm curious b/c we are looking at 5ers but there seems to be a lot on frame breakage out there.
With all the issues with the front I hope you weren’t out of pocket getting it repaired and my next concern did this start to snowball it other issues as a result of the first problem?
You pose an interesting thought although we had the majority of the issues prior to our frame issue 🤔 The repair was covered by our warranty, thankfully!
Great video. Now I'm sure, I will never ever buy an American RV. It's ridiculous that you have to pay a pile of money for a RV and then spend bunches of money on repairs. Absolutely unbelievable.
It seems like using aluminum instead of steel is one of the big issues with these RVs, aluminum is a lot softer material and can’t hold up to the stresses of twisting and shearing forces. I think if they used heavy gauge steel for the walls, you probably have a lot less issues, but I know that would raise the cost up quite a bit. Do you want happy customers or do you want to just keep fixing something over and over again wondering why this issue cannot be fixed. When it can be just by using steel.
My question is, who covered the costs of all of these repairs? Did Vanleigh? Did you have to cover the cost out of your own pocket? It seems like since Vanleigh tried to fix the problem and failed (a few times) that they should have covered the costs under the frame failure warranty? I'm just curious as our 5th wheel, not even 3 years old, had a frame failure which caused the aluminum wall structure to fail and causing our slide-out (non-door side) to collapse and doing exterior fiberglass and interior wall paneling to crack. The manufacturer (parent company has initials of FR), only had a 1 year warranty on the entire 5th wheel and told us that the issue wasn't their problem. So I'm just curious if Vanleigh did you right and covered the repairs for you.
Chad - I hate to hear that as our situations are similar with exception of the coverage. In addition to the breaks we also had cracking in our fiberglass in the front panel that was replaced and still have cracking and delam in the panel just under the slide that will have to be repaired in the future. Tiffin did cover all of the work under our 3 year structural warranty not necessary at no cost to us due to the additional travel, fuel and hotels associated with getting to Affinity for the repair. However we are happy to get to this point.
@@MidlifeDetour Lucky you, for having Tiffin cover your repair expenses on the trailer. Hopefully the frame is fixed for good. From what I saw in the video, it looks like the last repair shop knew what they were doing and added some major reinforcements to the aluminum structural wall on your trailer. Hopefully the other side doesn't give way or the main trailer frame doesn't have any more welds break/crack. We were lucky enough that our insurance company eventually covered the trailer damage and eventually decided to total out our camper as the repairs were pretty costly and they didn't feel too confident that this wouldn't happen again and possibly cause worse damage to either the truck or possibly somebody else. We ended up purchasing a new 2022 Jayco North Point the Monday before Labor Day Weekend last August. We were able to get 4 or 5 weekends of camping in last Fall before we had to winterize it and leave it sit for the winter. Now I am waiting patiently (as we just got a 12" snowstorm last weekend) for things to clear up and get warmer so that we can start our 2023 camping season. Good luck with the rest of the repairs that you need to have done for your trailer.
They added a ton of support, makes you question the original engineering on these units. Jayco had the same issue with units 2020 and older. Similar type of fix but not nearly like yours. I have a Jayco 2022 northpoint , supposedly Jayco fixed the problem at manufacturing now.
So glad for the added support! Now hope it holds up! It really is across brands and such an issue! Wonder if Jayco had “the” fix! Will be interesting to hear how it goes! 🙂 thanks for watchin!
You are correct in that most brands have a steel frame produced by Lippert - only a hand full that produce their own. Most manufacturers produce their own wall frames. Vanleigh had them produced off site just down the road from the plant.
Our other side is without a slide so we shouldn’t experience anything over there - but of course there is a chance of anything. Thanks for hanging out with us!
So, I am wondering if Vanleigh/Tiffin has taken care of you on this repair? Are they going to cover any of the costs? Also, can you tell us approx. how much a repair like this would set someone back? We are hopeful, future full-timers and have looked at many 5th wheels. Any info you could share would be appreciated. Thanks for the video.
Tiffin did cover the cost of the repairs under our structural warranty but we did have to pay for our travel and hotel expenses which we knew and anticipated. Tiffin was directly billed for the work however I was told the work would fall between 4-5k. Good luck in your quest toward full time. Although we have had bumps we would prefer not to have with our rig the lifestyle is awesome.
Our repair was covered under our structural warranty but for a painted unit the ballpark price is just above 5k. The repair took 3 or 4 days to complete.
Just curious, did Tiffin go good for this repair or did it have come out of your pocket? So hoping they at least helped you guys out to get this corrected and hope you have many trouble-free miles in the future!
Tiffin did cover the cost of the repairs under our 3 year structural warranty. Thank you - we have a few hurdles to jump but good to get one of the big ones out of the way and looking forward to getting back to adventure! Thanks for hanging out with us!
When they pulled the siding off, you can see how low quality the initial "weld fix" was. Spatter everywhere, shallow weld, awful grinding finish. Those Affinity guys obviously took so much care in the quality of their work, even if it's going to be covered up and not visible.
The crux of the problem is the very poor quality of the Lippert frames. You said the problem is across several manufacturers, i'd be willing to bet the majority had the Lippert frames. I try to avoid buying anything made by Lippert ! They bought out many quality companies and destroyed the original quality by cheapening it to the point they were no longer good products! PS; how much did the repair cost, and who is going to pay for it ?
Very scary... it's unacceptable that you need to take your rig to a third party to fix the manufacturers screw up... hope you're ok from this point on!!.🤬♥️🇺🇸
I'm curious, if this wasn't covered under warranty, how much would this have cost? Especially curious because I've been suspecting that we may have this issue with our Dutchman Voltage, but we have no warranty.
We were told that this effort would fall between 4-5k. Our rig being full body paint did add to that cost as it spent a full day in paint and had prep for several hours the day prior.
More slides - More Risk - Less Structural Integrity ? Less ability to handle torquing ? Larger Unit - More Complex in Every Way ? Ton of Variables - None of them Good ? 🤔
