Chassis (frames) mfg??

Merely looking at a weld cannot tell you how good the weld is. My little sister is a welder, I'm not. I asked her one time if there was a way to tell a good weld from a bad weld...her reply was "No, not without x-ray or magnafluxing the weld seam. She explained that it was possible to lay down a perfectly smooth bead and not have penetrated the metal at all (in effect, no weld at all) and that a really ugly weld could have perfect penetration and good flow, just lousy technique. No real way to tell how good the weld is by looking at it. A professional can do a better job "eyeballing" a seam, but, to the layman or casual welder there is no "visual" way to ascertain for certain. You can get a better idea if you can see both sides, that will at least let you know if the seam was adequately penetrated, but, if you can only see one side, you are kind of lost. That's why for high pressure pipelines or critical applications, they use machines to check and verify the welds as opposed to a purely visual inspection. That's how she explained it to me and I, while looking at a weld, can determine if the weld is "pretty" or not, I withhold judgment on the durability of the weld. I've seen (and done, I have a welder for my farm equipment and "ugly" is my welding ability) plenty of "ugly" welds in my lifetime that have held up better than the "prettiest" of them.

As for Lippert? For the amount of frames that the company produces, they would, statistically, have a higher failure rate. They are, by far, the largest producer of frames, not only for RVs, but, other towables as well. I don't worry about whether the frame I'm pulling is Lippert or not. You can get a bad frame from anyone.

Ooops... Should read "have higher number of failures", not a higher failure rate...see what happens when you get old! Fast fingers, slower brain. Thanks for picking up on that for me. :C