Correlation between weight and "quality" build

When my wife and I began shopping for travel trailers our first choice was Airstream. There were several things we liked about them, then after a little homework not so much. The first on our list was the lack of a slide, the second and more important was the fact that they would void your entire warranty if you were to add to or modify its frame. They quoted, the Airstream trailers frame is not designed or built in such manner that by adding additional welding and weight to the tail end can have adverse effects on the frames ability to maintain its engineered integrity.

Lantley wrote:
Don't over think this. Materials are really a small part of the issue.
RV are assembled by piece workers. They are not paid by the hour but by the unit.
They have no real incentive to assemble things correctly/carefully. Their incentive is to assemble the RV quickly.
As long as workers are paid by the piece quality construction will be limited at best.

The YouTube video on how Jayco builds a trailer in seven hours just drives this point home on so many levels. If they are considered one of the better builders, and they are just slapped together....then how much worse are some of the other brands?

Sadly, you are correct

I don't think quality would go up much even if they got paid by the hour. RV's in general are of lower quality than homes. Most fixtures are cheap. I'm pretty certain that unless you buy a high end unit that most RV buyers wouldn't buy any of the furniture, faucets, beds, cabinets, etc for their home. RV's are, with the exception of high end units not intended to be full time homes meant to be lived in for 20-40 years. They put lesser quality items in them because the average camper goes out 6 times a year and maybe has a couple week long vacations in it. The rest of the time it just sites by the side of the house or on a storage lot. So why have top end items inside while it's just sitting and not being used.

Most all come with only a one year warranty. Right there that tells you that the manufactures don't have faith in there product either.

Don't over think this. Materials are really a small part of the issue.
RV are assembled by piece workers. They are not paid by the hour but by the unit.
They have no real incentive to assemble things correctly/carefully. Their incentive is to assemble the RV quickly.
As long as workers are paid by the piece quality construction will be limited at best.

The model we're most interested in are the ones that have the larger double bunks. This is what is currently offered by Forest River:

Grey Wolf 23DBH, 26C, 26DBH
Salem Hemisphere 272 BH
Heritage Glen 272 BH
Rockwood Ultra Light 2702SS, 2702WS
Surveyor 245 BHS, 291 BHSS, 296 BHDS
Windjammer 3006 WK
V-Lite 30TBSK
Vibe Extreme 272 BHS
Wildcat Maxx 30DBH
Wildwood X-Lite 262 BHXL
Palomino Canyon Cat 22RBL
Solaire 239 DSBH, 267 BHSE, 267 BHSK
Solaire Ultra Lite 239 DHBS, 267 BHSE, 267 BHSK
Solaire Ultra Light Eclipse 269 BHDSK
Puma 28-DSBH, 29-RBKS
Cherokee 274 DBH
Salem Cruiser Lite 262 BH
Evo T2850
Flagstaff Super Lite 27BESS, 27 BEWS

30 different models, some differences but alot of similarities floorplan wise, in 19 different brands. Too confusing, even if it is just slapping stickers on different models.

There has to be a better way.

BubbaChris wrote:
I suppose some of the factor is how you define Quality?

If you focus solely on initial build defects, then it seems like any of the makers can have a bad day/week/team. But then once those things are ironed out, other factors can come into play.

Is this acceptable in the automotive or electronics industry? What are the regulations for the rv industry? Are there any apart from the rolling frame? Seems like the box part is not part of this. What are the minimum standards for an rv in terms of quality and safety?

Most of those brands are little more than slapping different stickers onto the same trailer, made at the same factory. So - let's assume they all are for a moment. Since I can't find figures (after about 30 seconds of looking) for FR sales for last year, let's be generous and assume they sold 100,000 units.

Going through their website, picking a single brand (Palomino) of each type, and counting floorplans (probably missing a few - again, being generous) I get:

PuP: 12
TC: 13
Lightweight TT: 15
TT: 0 (same as lightweight tt - most mfg steps should be similar)
Destination: 7
Fiver: 12

Total: 59 floorplans

If there are some floorplans that are different in other brands, that would just increase this number. If some of the TT should have been counted, that also would just increase this number. This number also doesn't include ANY driveable RVs, which are included in the RVIA figures. Again, that would just increase this number. Therefore, the number below is WRONG - it should be smaller.

If they made the same number of each, they would have made ~1700 of each unit. No where near enough units to invest in mass production design and fabrication equipment.

If you look at the floorplans for the trailers that are generally listed in the well-built category of lightweight trailer, they tend to have very few floorplan options. Another possible correlation: The number of floorplans available is inversely correlated with the average quality.

Forest River has:
13 brands of toyhaulers
18 brands of 5th wheels
28 brands of travel trailers.

Excessive duplication of product lines. They could easily get rid of a few product lines that are virtual duplicates from one another, centralize production, increase automation, R&D, and have better economies of scale.

Just a thought...why doesn't Warren Buffet think of this since Berkshire Hathaway owns them

sushidog wrote:
You'd think if someone could have opened up an RV plant and done a better job of design and construction they would have already done so ...

Some have. See previous posts with brands that are known for building quality lightweight trailers (CampLite, Lance, Scamp, Casita, and more ...).

Problem is people get distracted by other things - the trailer that costs 2k less and is slightly bigger - and bypass the better built one.

In terms of computerized design, etc... That is assuming you're going to be making a lot of them. The general rule-of-thumb for car companies is that they have to sell 100,000 cars of a particular model before they'll make a profit on that model. Trailer models aren't made at anything like those volumes.

From this page total RV shipments of all models across all manufacturers total between 250 and 350,000 a year. The end result is that each is essentially hand-built (just like low-volume cars) which leads to a great deal of variability and the need for good quality control (costs money) and a willingness to fix errors (costs more money)...