Newbie Comparison question

falconbrother wrote:

FFMDX wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
what is the roof made of? if rubber, buy the other one.
bumpy

The Wildcat Max is rubber.....why is rubber worse than TPO if it remains sealed?

TPO wicks water. If it gets a small leak and you dont find it for a while, which is likely, water will really spread bad with TPO. Also, you cannot use most of the products in the RV stores to fix it. But, you can use cheaper products from Lowes on TPO. TPO is pretty rare these days. I don't think it's been used in a while. These days it seems to be EPDM and plain old rubber. Our 2017 Coleman 262BH has a "rubber" roof, not EPDM. EPDM products can be used on it but it's not EPDM. How to know the difference: Pull a vent liner on the inside and see where the manufacturer folded the rubber in. If it's white on top and black on the bottom it's EPDM. If it's a newer unit and the rubber is all the same color it's just plain old rubber. In my experience TPO has like a fabric on the backside and it's textured on the top. These days I would tend to want to avoid TPO. I had it on my old class A motorhome and it was a pain. Our first travel trailer was a Prowler that had a metal roof. That was the best roof ever. Easy to fix and stayed dry. Maintain it and it will last a lifetime. Of course it's heavy. That little trailer weighed a lot for it's size. Rubber has a 10 year life expectancy. That means they need major coating in under a decade. But, rubber/EPDM is pretty easy to work with and the products are easy to find.