Lippert Components - Not our friends.

Very disappointed in Lippert Components. I have a dual air/hydraulic leveling system on my motor home made by Lippert for Valid Systems. One morning we woke up and went to leave our site. We were only there one night so I leveled on the air system. When I put the leveling system into travel mode the pump motor starting a high pitch and very loud whine and quickly failed. When we reached our destination and I could start to look at things better I took apart the pump assembly from the manifold and then removed it from the jug and found that a small plastic piece that looks very much like a straw had broken off from where it was inserted into the pump. This plastic piece was about 1 inch long and 1/2 inch in diameter. The pick up tube connected to it and therefore the pump and motor were running dry right before it failed.

I started dealing with Lippert and was told that they would not sell this plastic piece to me and that I would have to buy their part # 359354 @ $2176.95. This part number is for the entire pump assembly. How nice of them. The little plastic piece could not cost more than a few pennies and I would have been happy to pay a premium for it, but not thousands of dollars. I know I am smarter than the pump so I drilled out the area the plastic part clipped into and threaded it and screwed in a brass hose barb that will never break. Then I bought a new motor from Ebay for $165.00. Put the whole thing back together and it works great. But it still eats at me just how bad they would have ripper me off. My end cost was just under $200 to make the repairs.

I wanted to share this for two reasons. 1st because of how disgusted I am with Lippert. and 2nd so that others may find this and be able to help themselves not be taken advantage of.

Photos of what I did are here in no order. https://imgur.com/a/mzWmbkk