rusting out cargo bins

My coach is having warranty work on welds not being painted properly. I usually go under my RV each spring with a wire wheel and paint. You have to keep up with it or it will get away from you.

I've seen Freightliner chassis stored outside at Forest City already starting to rust before work even gets started.

My 42ad Ellipse had a lot of rust the first year, welds done in the Winny factory had not even primer protecting them...it was bad. Took a week underneath the coach to solve the problems with rust and now you couldn't tear my coach away...

I love my coach but Winnebago must be ******** to leave their work so unprotected for the sake of a couple extra hours getting welds etc painted properly.

just dont drive your motor home in the slushy salty environment. I wouldn't. they are not made to have a salt bath.

Wow, this is scary to me. I had a 5 to 7 year old Winnebago in mind as my target next and hopefully last purchase. Guess I will remember to have that checked carefully and calculate treatment in purchase price. Being in the snow free deep south, I had heard you needed to undercoat your vehicles up north, but really hadn't thought about a MH. I guess I assumed folks didn't drive in snow, so didn't expose it to road salt.

I read the "4 Questions" promotional piece put out by Winnebago and my first reaction is to want to go out and buy a new Winnebago RV. I'm surprised by some of the posts here especially indicating a lack of quality in the structural steel and how it is primed. Also, as I look at a particular Winnebago line and study it carefully, my preliminary analysis is that the fit and finish of their "lower end" RVs is marginal. For example, the shower is not a 1 piece fiberglass shower stall. It is thin cheap panels glued on the wall. Posts like these scare me away from the Winnebago dealership. I really wish these problems didn't exist because they are close to me and it sure would be a convenient place to do business. Winnebago overall has an owner satisfaction rating in the 70's (RV consumer group ) perhaps in part due to this rust problem. Todd in Minnesota. (Planning to order a new RV in 18-24 months)

On my 2005 Sightseer 29R I used a wire brush on a drill and Rustoleum paint. At the time I didn't know that we would trade it in six months later. It looked great and resold quickly.

I agree that driving on roads that have salt will cause under carriages to rust IF you do not wash it off after such trips, But it seems like I have read many posts from Winnebago owners that have had a rusting problem. One that really sticks to my mind is the owner of of a Journey and he posted pictures of the problem and it was terrible the way every component was rusting away underneath through out the chassis parts. I figured that maybe the coach before it was sold had been in one of them places that have had severe flooding and the coach chassis was under water. But I am not sure!

We had a rust problem with the storage cabinets on our 2001 Adventurer. Unfortunately we got caught in to many blizzards in Minnesota. A couple of times we had salt softened snow and ice packed solid between the body and the frame. I'll bet there was over a ton of ice slush/ice mix hanging on the motorhome.

Over the years it took it's toll and some of the cabinets started to rust out. We had them repaired with new panels at Forest City. All the panels and framework should be available from Winnebago. As I recall the parts weren't all that expensive.

If you are having that problem with your storage bins, you can bet that your radiator is also rotting away from the Winter salt, etc. Aluminum does not do much better than steel in your environment and the aluminum in your radiator is not coated with anything.

I used to do por-15 just too labor intensive and hard to get in some areas. Now I just use a good rust preventive paint and fluid film in the tough areas and square tubing. You'll never get POR-15 inside the tubing or hard to reach areas.