5th wheel durability

stargirl96 wrote:
We traded in our 5th wheel for a class C motorhome awhile back. One reason for the change is our 5th wheel suffered damage on a road trip 3 years ago in which the frame was bent. No other vehicle was involved, and the only thing we could conclude was that we hit a pot hole in a street. We just heard a loud bang from the 5th wheel and when we got it home we saw the damage. The process of getting it fixed was a nightmare, and even though the frame was straightened, we could tell things like the slide and the rear wall were off a little. In short, we didn't feel like we could trust the unit. This has caused me to wonder about the durability of frames in 5th wheels. Any opinions or similar experiences?

What FW did you have? Odds on, it was a Lippert framed one.

FWIW, I passed a 40+', triple axle FW (non-TH) today, parked in a friend's neighborhood. New to the guy towing, since it had temporary plates on it and a faded front cap. Driving past, slowly so as to check it out, I noticed the tail seemed to be sagging a bit. You could even see that the left-rear slide was no longer square to the cutout for it, behind the rear axle. Can't remember the name, though it started with an "A", and not familiar to me. Hope the guy knows what he's in for, or got a deal too good to pass up.

Lyle