I went camping last week and while at the campground I decided to do a simple survey. Unknown to my fellow campers, I struck up a conversation with them one-on-one, mostly inquiring about their specific camper. This is an easy approach. "I'm thinking of buying a new camper. I noticed yours, it kind of caught my eye. What do you like about it, what do you not like about it?".... They will ramble with passion! Then came the bomb shell? "Your camper has slides. Have you ever had problems with them?" Once again, a myriad of responses. Mostly they fell into 2 categories. Seems pretty much everyone had no problem with slides working. About half said they had problems with leaks. When investigating further, they admitted they were not diligent in cleaning the roof of the slide. Tree sticks, leaves, nuts, bark fell on top of the slide roof, then the owner retracted the slides. In time, or for what ever reason, the derbies would catch under the rubber seals causing them to tear and eventually leak when it rained. Everone who said they meticulously cleaned off the slides before retracting each time, never had a problem with leaks.
I talked to about 10 different campers. Here again, this is not a scientific survey, it was something I just did for fun.
Bottom line... today's RV are pretty well built. Any problems with slides will probably be because of user failure, not manufacturer failure. If the slides work at the dealer PDI session, they will continue to be OK for a long time, provided the owner does reasonable care and maintenance, like cleaning the roof of derbies and keeping the tracks greased, oiled, or whatever.
