Lippert Frame? - Coachmen Apex

mosseater wrote:
Mine is actually I-beam. I tried to drill it once for a screw and it's hard like woodpecker lips. Not complaining about that. The spring hanger locations and the welds are the source of my complaints. It doesn't take anymore time to do it wrong than to do it right, that's all. Most of the welds are iffy. Anybody who knows even a little bit about welding will look at them and just shake their head. Seriously, with a MIG? A three year old can run nice bead with a MIG as long as the set up is even close. There's just no excuse for it. Period.

Have you had weld failures?

jonmad wrote:

mosseater wrote:
Mine is actually I-beam. I tried to drill it once for a screw and it's hard like woodpecker lips. Not complaining about that. The spring hanger locations and the welds are the source of my complaints. It doesn't take anymore time to do it wrong than to do it right, that's all. Most of the welds are iffy. Anybody who knows even a little bit about welding will look at them and just shake their head. Seriously, with a MIG? A three year old can run nice bead with a MIG as long as the set up is even close. There's just no excuse for it. Period.

Have you had weld failures?

We are all waiting for an answer!!!!

wibigfoot wrote:
Through reading a number of topics here I find more people not a fan of Lippert frames than those that are.

We narrowed down the RV to a Coachmen Apex and the sales rep stated they use a Lippert frame on them.

All that's going through my head is to stay away from them but I have no reason to why other then what people say here.

So run away or don't worry about it?

I do not know your Apex model, if you can post some pics of the spring hanger arrangement and the frame construction we can see if you have the problem frames.

I myself have a Lippert frame who built them to Sunline specs. I know the good and bad about it. I corrected the bad myself and now have no worries.

I know we throw out the "I beam" term but I'll tell you, the RV I shape is nothing like a true ANSI I beam. The RV I shape has very little support of the flanges on the ends of the web. A true I beam has structure to strengthen the flange to the web. That said, if they made a camper out of true I beam the weight is considerable.

So, extra reinforcement is needed to keep the spring hanger from twisting the lower flange from fatigue and cracking the frame over time. Those with heavier campers have it worse as the same thin spring hangers are used on a 5,000# GVWR camper as on a 10,000# camper. (my case) It's the turns of tandem wheels that play havoc on twisting the hangers.

Need to know more about what you have to help better

John

wibigfoot wrote:
wow thanks everyone for the feedback. I know Jayco brags about their frames and was surprised to learn their frames were Lippert as well. I didn't know that.

It turns out Apex frames are designed for each unit. They are not stacked and built to Apex specs.

I guess there is no getting away from Lippert since most mfg use them.

Lippert is not used on all Jayco TTs. Jay Feather and Whitehawk models have a Norco frame that Jayco calls Nextgen and it's made by BAL/Norco not Lippert. Jayco info. here. This is what is basically the BAL Ultraframe and it has no welding on it whatsoever and uses huck bolts to fasten pieces together. It's a very interesting looking frame.

myredracer wrote:

wibigfoot wrote:
wow thanks everyone for the feedback. I know Jayco brags about their frames and was surprised to learn their frames were Lippert as well. I didn't know that.

It turns out Apex frames are designed for each unit. They are not stacked and built to Apex specs.

I guess there is no getting away from Lippert since most mfg use them.

Lippert is not used on all Jayco TTs. Jay Feather and Whitehawk models have a Norco frame that Jayco calls Nextgen and it's made by BAL/Norco not Lippert. Jayco info. here. This is what is basically the BAL Ultraframe and it has no welding on it whatsoever and uses huck bolts to fasten pieces together. It's a very interesting looking frame.

Thanks for pointing that out. Now that you have I do recall reading that. I'm sure you know how it is that you look at so many models you start to forget things from model to model.

JBarca wrote:

wibigfoot wrote:
Through reading a number of topics here I find more people not a fan of Lippert frames than those that are.

We narrowed down the RV to a Coachmen Apex and the sales rep stated they use a Lippert frame on them.

All that's going through my head is to stay away from them but I have no reason to why other then what people say here.

So run away or don't worry about it?

I do not know your Apex model, if you can post some pics of the spring hanger arrangement and the frame construction we can see if you have the problem frames.

I myself have a Lippert frame who built them to Sunline specs. I know the good and bad about it. I corrected the bad myself and now have no worries.

I know we throw out the "I beam" term but I'll tell you, the RV I shape is nothing like a true ANSI I beam. The RV I shape has very little support of the flanges on the ends of the web. A true I beam has structure to strengthen the flange to the web. That said, if they made a camper out of true I beam the weight is considerable.

So, extra reinforcement is needed to keep the spring hanger from twisting the lower flange from fatigue and cracking the frame over time. Those with heavier campers have it worse as the same thin spring hangers are used on a 5,000# GVWR camper as on a 10,000# camper. (my case) It's the turns of tandem wheels that play havoc on twisting the hangers.

Need to know more about what you have to help better

John

John - At this point we have not purchased a trailer. We are still in the shopping stage.

The trailers we have it narrowed down to is the Apex 239RBS, the Jayco Jay Flight 23RB and a slim chance on the Arctic Fox 22G.

The Apex 239RBS has the floor plan we like so it's at the top of the list. My dealer doesn't stock this model so it's buying sight unseen and factory order. The same would be true with the Jayco.

For the Arctic Fox the closest dealer is 7 hrs away and they don't stock the 22G.

For those reasons my buying is limited to online photos and videos.

wibigfoot wrote:
The Apex 239RBS has the floor plan we like so it's at the top of the list. My dealer doesn't stock this model so it's buying sight unseen and factory order.

Our local Coachmen dealer sells both Freedom Express and Apex ... summer of 2013 he had a newly arrived Freedom Express 192RBS which really interested us as we were ready to downsize to a shorter, lighter couple's trailer from our triple bunk bed KZ Spree. At ~ 4500 lbs loaded & ready to camp and just 22' 6" coupler to bumper the 192 is an easy tow for our Avalanche and I can put it on pretty well any campsite without any issue at all. We're now about to begin our third season with this trailer and overall it's been a great choice for us ... BUT had the Apex 239RBS been available at the time I suspect we'd likely have gone with it instead as it offers more open floor space, a larger bathroom with a full size neo angle shower, and a large galley counter, the end of which could be used as a "breakfast bar" when the weather outside is too unpleasant for eating outdoors. At 25' 11" it is ~ 3.5' longer than our 192 and another ~ 700 lbs heavier but if I had any beef with Coachmen it's that we personally could have done without that wardrobe that's part of the sofa slide ... ditch it and that trailer could have been nearly 2' shorter and several hundred pounds lighter, with no negative effect on the rest of the trailer. Nonetheless, it's still IMO a great design for two adults ... go here and you can see a series of 23 pics of an Apex 239RBS my own dealer currently has in stock. Nice camper! :B

myredracer wrote:
If they really have improved welding in recent years, I hate to think what Lippert's welding was like before that. I know that problems with Lippert frames are still occurring and the TT manufacturers and Lippert have not changed anything.Unfortunately, Lippert frames are on something like 95% or more of TTs.

The vast majority of issues with Lippert frames are not still occurring. The reports have become very few and infrequent. True, 95% or so of frames are Lippert and yet well over 95% of TT's on the road have no problems.

Part of the issue is that Lippert builds frames to a TT manufactures spec. Most of their frames are NOT stock item off the shelf frames as some other manufactures are. Thats why the majority of past issues were among the same TT manufactures while other brands with Lipperts had almost no trouble at all.

I have seen several frame issues reported on these forums from top TT manufactures such as Northwood and others who are not using Lippert frames.