Carriage Fifth Wheels
Curious, does anyone on here, have a Carriage product for full time? Or know of a friend who does? Any opinions? We have an opportunity for one, it's a 27' rear kitchen, with 2 slides. We do wi...
Forum Discussion
FiverBob wrote:jsr21 wrote:
Fiver Bob...why would you tell people to stay away from 2011 and newer Carriage product? They produced until part way thru the 2012 model year.
Regretfully the president of the company in those last few years was milking it for all the profit he could squeeze because that is what was making him his big bonus. He left the company in somewhat rough shape and it went bankrupt shortly following his departure to go to another company and develop a competing brand that was anything but wonderful. He was not allowing any improvements at Carriage to correct or improve anything on the different lines that would cost money - - it caught up with them. Most of the workers and engineering people went to another company and created the Lifestyle, a close copy of the Cameo line but with the many updates they wanted to put into the Carriage line, but were not allowed to those last couple years. Carriage was a great unit, but those last couple years had some glitches that can give problems. Hence, my suggestion pretty much anything prior to 2011 is a great unit. Mine sure has been. Very well insulated even with single pane windows. Very good cabinetry, all made in house along with the frame.
One poster made a comment about tires - - that is one place that was scrimped on - - on anything above the Cameo line, be sure to upgrade the tires to at least G-614's. Look for MorRyde IS suspension also and disk brakes.
I believe that the top executive of Carriage at the time moved to Thor to start Redwood. I believe he has just moved again to Evergreen. Near the end of Carriage and the president you are talking about moved on the owner came back out of retirement and was trying to make changes. We toured the plant in August of 2011 and was impressed with all the QC that was in place. The bank that had the loan sold the loan and the bigger bank called that loan.
G-614, IS suspension, and disk brakes were options at the time that you could get. Our 2011 Cameo has these options. I'm not sure what glitches you are talking about. Our Cameo has been a great rig and the few problems we've had are things like the water pump not working and the heater on our fireplace stopped last month. We've had far greater problems with other RVs we've owned.
