SoundGuy wrote:
Ralph Cramden wrote:
The ABS roofs that went south were only on a couple specific years out of those.
While FFT was able to reduce ABS Strata roof failures, over the course of the 8 years it was in production the failure rate was still excessive and was the reason the company finally dropped this roof entirely, replacing it with the also ill fated AlumiTite roof for the 2003.5 model year. Not long after this roof was introduced with the 1996 model year all too many samples were showing signs of suffering lateral sag so FFT quickly introduced the steel ceiling brace, installing it as a standard feature on all newly produced models and offering it to existing original owners as a retrofit, free of charge. Unfortunately that proved to only be a partial solution, with many owners still reporting sag, so much so that the ends of the roof would not seal with the ends of the body. As these roofs aged other issues arose - blistering, bubbling, cracking, and delamination of the outer skin, along with partial or total loss of the perimeter seal. As the roof aged hairline cracking also became an issue for many owners. Originally FFT produced this roof themselves, later farmed it out to a third party manufacturer which eventually went bankrupt when so many of these roofs had to be replaced under terms of the lifetime warranty, and FFT once again produced the roof themselves. Certainly the latest versions of this roof produced for 2002 and 2003 model year trailers were arguably the most reliable produced but failure rates were still excessive so the company dropped the roof entirely with the introduction of the 2003.5 model year. My own 2000 roof was one such example - stored indoors in my heated workshop it's entire life except when out camping yet 3 yrs into ownership it suddenly began to delaminate along the curbside sidewall. In my case this delamination was relatively minor, hidden by the bag awning, and didn't affect the ability of the roof to seal properly to the body rail. My dealer got authorization to replace the roof BUT only if I paid a $750 freight charge ... I declined, which in retrospect was a great decision since the replacement roof I would have received would have been the then newly introduced AlumiTite a.k.a. AlumiLeak roof. :(
Having seen plenty that disintegrated, I have also seen quite a few that still look like the day they rolled out of the Somerset PA plant.
