I was an IDIOT for buying a Thor Palazzo!!!

And to think... Today I just got a Welcome letter from Thor. I don't even know what to say.

I am sorry to hear of your woes. As an owner of a few Thor products I have every confidence they will make it right. Thor treats their customers well. Doesn't excuse the problem, but at least Thor does care about support. If only that had that level of care when putting it together....

So sorry for your problems, and I sincerely mean it. We've owned 9 RV's, one being a Thor product, and BY FAR, Thor was the worst.

I see the pics and where the "rep" had the shaft cut and welded. THAT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME AT ALL. I have replaced and worked (AND FIXED) scores of Scwintek slides and when you get to the point of your pics, you REPLACE both sides with a new system. Once you get to the point in your pics, you will NEVER get the 4 gears/top and bottom aligned correctly. The mechanism comes as a complete unit with shipping/alignment plastic rivets. You replace BOTH sides as a unit and then push the room till the outer flanges are flush to the outer wall. You then install your side flange screws and operate the room. Once the room moves, the shipping/alignment rivets shear off. I would like to know what LCI thinks of what the Thor rep did. Doug

G.Lewis wrote:
Not to highjack, but my friend has a 2013 Tiffin Breeze 32BR diesel for seven months. He has not had any problems. I asked about the slides and he said his are hydraulic and work well. I guess he knows, this is his fourth DP and put over 100K miles on his last one. I am looking closely at a Breeze...never had a slide or diesel so I am moving slowly. My Bounder runs good and no problems in 14 years of ownership.

Your friend's unit is hydraulic and not electric. I've got one of these on my motorhome as well, but it can also have it's own issues as I've had the dealer replace the ram rods due to hydraulic oil leak so I wouldn't think these are fool proof either. If I had a choice, I prefer hydraulics over electric for the "heavy" slides. Wish tiffin could have spent a bit more money and engineering for this to come true.

93mastercraft wrote:

mccsix wrote:
From an amateur engineering look I'd say they have the rack and drive gear assy in the wrong location (on the side). The slide rack should be on the bottom of the slide out so that the s/o weight works for you. As it is now, any misalignment or wiggle will eventually strip the gears.
I believe most other makes use this approach, my current Entegra does as well as my last Monaco.
Of course it's doubtful those small motors could handle that much additional slide weight.

There are huge rollers on the bottom mounted to the floor that carry the weight of the slide. I found out that one was way out of adjustment. I think that could have caused the catastrophe.

Out of curiousity, how did you know that this roller was out of adjustment, as I also see two of these things under my kitchen slide on my tiffin. Also, did you happen to get the error code from the the controller? I find it odd that I can move the slide back and forth without issues through the manual override but not through the wall switch. Please keep us posted on what the thor tech does as I would be interested in knowing to have my slides fixed for good.

93mastercraft wrote:


Thor Sent a rep to my local Camping World to fix this. I had a nice conversation with him today. Someone put some kind of lubricant or WD40 on the Schwintek gears. I didn't do it, I doubt Thor did it, so that only points the finger in one direction. I will just leave it at that. Lubricating these are a bad idea. It will only make a bad problem that is caused by something else worse. The metal shavings from the aluminum gear just gets caught up in the gears and make matters worse.

Bad idea to lube the track, does the maker of the slide know how many people are going to be doing this over the life of the motorhome.

That does not sound right, lube should not cause that issue you have, sounds like they are using any excuse to avoid future repairs..

93mastercraft wrote:

mike brez wrote:
Is that the slide out motor next to the cigarette butt? I had slides before but never saw the motor. If so I thought it would be way bigger. I had motors in my slot cars when I was a kid almost as big.

Yup. Ya know, I've heard of electronics getting smaller due to advances in technology... But I am not so sure the same applies to electric motors. I am not going to go into the whole point of these Schwintek motors, as I now don't agree with it, after all these problems it has caused me already. You can google it Schwintek to see what they claim.

SERIOUSLY?!?! That thing is the size of a danged power window motor!

mccsix wrote:
From an amateur engineering look I'd say they have the rack and drive gear assy in the wrong location (on the side). The slide rack should be on the bottom of the slide out so that the s/o weight works for you. As it is now, any misalignment or wiggle will eventually strip the gears.
I believe most other makes use this approach, my current Entegra does as well as my last Monaco.
Of course it's doubtful those small motors could handle that much additional slide weight.

There are huge rollers on the bottom mounted to the floor that carry the weight of the slide. I found out that one was way out of adjustment. I think that could have caused the catastrophe.

93mastercraft,
Thanks for posting the pictures. I have a better understanding of how they are put together. I have my coach at the dealer now to take care of some small warranty items and told him I want the one slide that uses this system to be examined and adjusted to prevent any future problems. I don't have any current problems but the tracks show uneven wear from misalignment.