How durable/reliable are slideouts?

Get manuals on the slide. Almost all of them have some kind of override to make them operate when the system fails.

There are a lot of variables in "reliability". Who the manufacturer is. How often is it used. What materials are used in it's construction.

I have a 3 slide outs on my MH and never had a problem. They are powered, but there is a method to retract them manually. The premise is that if the unit fails you don't want to drag it out because you might not be able to get it back in and then you are stuck.

You might want to if there is a procedure for doing what you want to do in the owner's manual

Think safety. Ours has a manual way if the electric way fails. This is our first slide and have had the same concern. Now i wouldn't have a trailer without one. Extending the width of the trailer is very nice.

I'd be more worried about having to sleep on a sofa bed.
Most I can take is two nights.

if it is a sofa bed, you will have no comfy place to sleep, even before it breaks. both of my slides worked fine for 14 years.
bumpy

Ours is 17yrs old and while I've never used it, there is a hole for a hand crank (now where the hand crank is...)

Our 2002 Sunline TT had a slide and it only gave me a problem once. I couldn't get it to go in or out, so I started looking and discovered a ground wire under the slide had come out or broken off. Once the wire was back in the ground connection and tightened, everything worked fine. We just traded in that trailer a year ago after ten years of service.

Our Winnie has one of the newer Lippert slide systems, which is working fine so far. I've read about some problems with them, but it seems many problems in earlier years were due to poor installation of the 4 tracks that are used.

We like having a slideout, especially for the room it creates in our smaller trailer. I would just check it out carefully before signing on the dotted line and make sure it works properly.

Ditto on making sure you have the instructions on doing a manual override.

3 trailers with slides over the years. Never had even one not come in or go out every time we pushed the button. Never had one leak either.

Leaky slides that dont retract are a very common complaint.

johnnyrv wrote:
Leaky slides that dont retract are a very common complaint.

I think quality of the RV and of the slide mechanism has a great deal to do with that. if you buy cheap, you get cheap.
bumpy