Why are Truck Campers so poorly made?
So I bought a new hard side truck camper recently. I'm not going to say which. Before that I had a pop-up, so this is my second camper. I looked at a half dozen more campers before my purchase, but...
Forum Discussion
While we're all going around in circles here, I would like to add my 2 pesetas. With as small an output as TC's have, saleswise, you are bound to get wild fluctuations in quality, from TC to TC even of the same make. It's got to be all individual workmen's quality control. These things are slapped together very quickly, at least at Lance. After our latest sojourn on HIGH SIERRA HIGH, it struck me how really tough our Lance 165-s really is. This was, overall, some of the roughest roads for a long period of time I've ever been on with a TC, mainly because it was so steep and so rocky. I dare say it took as much of a beating as Martin Denny did during the Rodney King Riots. I would not be so fast in thinking aluminum frames and other modern materials are the best over all. Maybe, just maybe, Lance knew what they were doing when they built mine. Maybe ours was made on Tuesday morning as I have no complaints (except that I don't have the cold weather package).
The fact is, after 12 years in the saddle, I have learned all of it's intricacies and learned to adapt, make-do, improvise our style to get the job done (Hu-rrah). On our latest trip, the second shelf in the fridge popped its flange and sank from too many beers stored there on the roughest of roads. lesson learned: keep the beers off the door and down low.
The Glow steps ripped right off somewhere, but that was operator error, not Lance's fault.
The woe is it took the door threshold and all lower brackets with it.
All my cabinets secure well on bad surfaces except the fresh water jug cabinet at the rear near the door. I made a special drop down latch for it. Too many times the weight of 5, gallon jugs of water popped the door open and flooded the floor with cracked jug water. I did use pliers to widen the diamond to make the latch set up stiffer. Of course, the other side of the coin is that they are more difficult to open and close, a price I'm willing to pay with my TC style.
We installed a latch on the freezer door as it wanted to drop open.
I see no signs of wobble of looseness in the TC wooden frame. Still tight as ever, which is perplexing since the major side pieces are stapled together. I am still surprise more stuff has not fallen out or off and not gone south.
Raz, I think you were just unlucky. If were to buy a new one (I do have my eye on a Lance 845 with winter package) I would try to find out on what day of the week it was built, and knowing what I know now, take a good long look, trying out every position I would eventually find myself in. Like sitting on the pot, holding the wand, washing my hair, doing other business all at the same time.
It still, after all this BS boils down to: caveat emptor!
Here is a shot on a dry lake below Mt. Whitney eleven years ago. The Lance is largely unchanged, but for a handful of dents. Notice the Jax are on and no camper struts as of yet. The learning curve has just begun. All the off-road running gear upgrades were applied after this pic:
regards, as always, jefe
The fact is, after 12 years in the saddle, I have learned all of it's intricacies and learned to adapt, make-do, improvise our style to get the job done (Hu-rrah). On our latest trip, the second shelf in the fridge popped its flange and sank from too many beers stored there on the roughest of roads. lesson learned: keep the beers off the door and down low.
The Glow steps ripped right off somewhere, but that was operator error, not Lance's fault.
The woe is it took the door threshold and all lower brackets with it.
All my cabinets secure well on bad surfaces except the fresh water jug cabinet at the rear near the door. I made a special drop down latch for it. Too many times the weight of 5, gallon jugs of water popped the door open and flooded the floor with cracked jug water. I did use pliers to widen the diamond to make the latch set up stiffer. Of course, the other side of the coin is that they are more difficult to open and close, a price I'm willing to pay with my TC style.
We installed a latch on the freezer door as it wanted to drop open.
I see no signs of wobble of looseness in the TC wooden frame. Still tight as ever, which is perplexing since the major side pieces are stapled together. I am still surprise more stuff has not fallen out or off and not gone south.
Raz, I think you were just unlucky. If were to buy a new one (I do have my eye on a Lance 845 with winter package) I would try to find out on what day of the week it was built, and knowing what I know now, take a good long look, trying out every position I would eventually find myself in. Like sitting on the pot, holding the wand, washing my hair, doing other business all at the same time.
It still, after all this BS boils down to: caveat emptor!
Here is a shot on a dry lake below Mt. Whitney eleven years ago. The Lance is largely unchanged, but for a handful of dents. Notice the Jax are on and no camper struts as of yet. The learning curve has just begun. All the off-road running gear upgrades were applied after this pic:
regards, as always, jefe
