"Leather" coming apart and peeling

[pigfarmer]

I started reading ChewyRV's post about upgrading to a newer model RV and decided I needed to post this as a warning. Our 2015 Fleetwood Expedition's furniture started to crack and peel. Now mind you, this furniture has been well taken care of. Cleaned with recommended cleaner and protected with recommended leather protector. No animals and no children. Bradd and Hall in Elkhart told us the "stuff" (play on words)the RV manufactures put in these units is not meant to last. They also told us they are making good money on replacing this so called leather furniture...as a final word on the subject, if you plan on "Upgrading" be careful of the furniture in your new unit. You could ended up down-grading. And as a foot note, Fleetwood reminded us of the "ONE YEAR warranty" And ChewyRV, rethink the Fleetwood part.

[willald]

This issue isn't specific to Fleetwood. Our 2012 Forest River Georgetown (see signature) did exact same thing after just a few years.

We had an upholstery shop re-upholster both captain's chairs, the sofa, and the recliner a few years ago. Went with a really nice leather material they recommended. Was not cheap, but was much cheaper than replacing it all, and it worked out really nice. No more peeling, and the new material is much nicer. Real happy with it now.

No, manufacturer (Forest River) would not help us out. Nor did I expect them to. Hated having to spend all that $$ for reupholstery on a unit that was only a few years old, but is what it is, I guess.

[pigfarmer]

ScottG, that was two very plush Captains chairs, ($950 each) but oh so comfortable for hours of travel, bench seat dinette that makes into a bed and theater sofa. Sofa has a wide fold down arm that makes it three seater. So far we are very happy with all of it. I forget what the labor was but with the wiring etc. etc. we didn't think it was too bad. Bradd and Hall were nice to work with.

[ScottG]

pigfarmer wrote:
ScottG, our first signs were the arm rests on the Captains chairs had fine hairline cracks. We covered them with long tube socks thinking that would be the end of it. WRONG ANSWER! Next the sofa showed hailine cracks that became larger cracks that started to peel. At that stage we took a detour to Elkhart and ordered all new furniture from Bradd and Hall. The theater sofa was on back order as they had sold so many of them to people like us. We lolly gagged around the country until ours came in. Within a day the old furniture was removed and replaced with our beautiful new furniture. End of story. Very happy with the new and ticked off at Fleetwood who basically told us we had what we had...$8500 later!

Thanks for the info.
Wow, $8500!
It's nice to have good stuff though. Bet it's very comfy.

I suspect mine is made from 100# free-ranging, grass fed (organic, of course) naug and wont have the same problems. Just different ones.

Scott

[Bruce_Brown]

Alan_Hepburn wrote:

Bruce Brown wrote:
I could be wrong but the stuff thats failing isn't bonded leather.

If it's peeling it's bonded leather. Bonded leather is made by grinding up all the scraps left over after making "real" leather products, then adding the resulting powder to water to make a slurry. That slurry is then sprayed onto a fabric substrate and allowed to dry. When the manufacturing process takes shortcuts - either using poor quality materials, or just sloppy processes in general, the top layer will eventually separate from the substrate.

There is also a man-made product with the trade name "UltraLeather" - it is a higher quality product that seems to not be used much anymore.

We had a sofa and love seat set in our house made with bonded leather. It started peeling right as the warranty ended and the company would not do anything; they said it's "normal wear and tear". In contrast, our 2007 Bounder has UltraLeather upholstery and it still look great after over 12 years and 45,000 miles.

Thanks for the info - I just learned something. Ours too has Ultraleather which has held up well.

[pigfarmer]

ScottG, our first signs were the arm rests on the Captains chairs had fine hairline cracks. We covered them with long tube socks thinking that would be the end of it. WRONG ANSWER! Next the sofa showed hailine cracks that became larger cracks that started to peel. At that stage we took a detour to Elkhart and ordered all new furniture from Bradd and Hall. The theater sofa was on back order as they had sold so many of them to people like us. We lolly gagged around the country until ours came in. Within a day the old furniture was removed and replaced with our beautiful new furniture. End of story. Very happy with the new and ticked off at Fleetwood who basically told us we had what we had...$8500 later!

[Alan_Hepburn]

Bruce Brown wrote:
I could be wrong but the stuff thats failing isn't bonded leather.

If it's peeling it's bonded leather. Bonded leather is made by grinding up all the scraps left over after making "real" leather products, then adding the resulting powder to water to make a slurry. That slurry is then sprayed onto a fabric substrate and allowed to dry. When the manufacturing process takes shortcuts - either using poor quality materials, or just sloppy processes in general, the top layer will eventually separate from the substrate.

There is also a man-made product with the trade name "UltraLeather" - it is a higher quality product that seems to not be used much anymore.

We had a sofa and love seat set in our house made with bonded leather. It started peeling right as the warranty ended and the company would not do anything; they said it's "normal wear and tear". In contrast, our 2007 Bounder has UltraLeather upholstery and it still look great after over 12 years and 45,000 miles.

[OkieGene]

Reminds me of the "made in china ****" so prevalent in our retailers.

In other words, Sum Ting Wong.

And no, I'm not saying this fake leather was made in china. I'm saying that todays mass retailers, and pretty much all retailers, are selling **** made in china that falls apart quickly. Junk, not quality, Sum Ting Wong.

[ScottG]

So far our TP stuff is holding up great (knock on vinyl covered wood) but I've read far too many posts about it coming apart.
Does anyone have a pic of a failed item?
I'm just curious what it looks like. It would also be helpfull to know what the first signs of failure are.

[Bruce_Brown]

pigfarmer wrote:
You are right, Bruce. That is what Bradd and Hall told us. We've just had some bad "happenings" with our Fleetwood. Added all together makes us think 'no more Fleetwood'...This is our last motorhome anyhow, due to our ages, not the motorhomes'...but if we were to get another one it would NOT be a Fleetwood.

While ours was many, many years ago, our second MH was a Fleetwood. Had it been our first MH there never would have been another one - it was that bad.

With that said, Fleetwood today is an entirely different company than it was when we owned ours.

It is sad people have issues with any brand. Thankfully since we traded our Fleetwood for our first Newmar things have been **MUCH** better. We're on our 3rd Newmar, if we ever buy again it will be another.

Good luck with yours.

[GDS-3950BH]

Bruce Brown wrote:

down home wrote:
Our 2005 has the ultra leather and is in great shape. A year or longer later they started using a cheaper ultra leather, or polyurethane I think it is. it was on these forums and others.
We looked at Winnebago, some American Coach and the others and their seat covers feel like the really cheap car seat covers from Japan 30 years ago as well as the seats being smaller and hard and not fitting us.

The stuff in our '08 is still good, thankfully.

In the OPs case I can't say he would have had any different result had he bought another brand. They all pretty much use the same suppliers.

And that would be LCI. The furniture they manufacture, or have manufactured under the brand name "Thomas Payne" and prior under other names, is absolute junk from the upholstery to the framework, and almost every manufacture uses it /them. Somehow they think the name Thomas Payne reflects quality in furniture LOL. I don't know how, Thomas Payne was a patriot and was a stay maker by trade, which is a person who makes corsets.

It all follows the LCI business model. Build it cheap, make any replacement parts proprietary, then price them 4 times what they're worth. They do it with everything.

You can go on any RV brand specific forum and find hundreds if not thousands of posts regarding the cracking and peeling pleather.

Cracking, Peeling,More peeling, And more peeling, More peeling, And even more peeling and cracking!

It amazes me this industry gets away with what they get away with. I have already come to the conclusion I will be replacing or reupholstering the balance of stuff in our 2020 Grand Design if I keep it long term. I was lucky with our 2014. It was just starting to show cracking and peeling when traded last year. In actuality the pleather was @ 4 years old or a little less.

[pigfarmer]

You are right, Bruce. That is what Bradd and Hall told us. We've just had some bad "happenings" with our Fleetwood. Added all together makes us think 'no more Fleetwood'...This is our last motorhome anyhow, due to our ages, not the motorhomes'...but if we were to get another one it would NOT be a Fleetwood.

[Bruce_Brown]

down home wrote:
Our 2005 has the ultra leather and is in great shape. A year or longer later they started using a cheaper ultra leather, or polyurethane I think it is. it was on these forums and others.
We looked at Winnebago, some American Coach and the others and their seat covers feel like the really cheap car seat covers from Japan 30 years ago as well as the seats being smaller and hard and not fitting us.

The stuff in our '08 is still good, thankfully.

In the OPs case I can't say he would have had any different result had he bought another brand. They all pretty much use the same suppliers.

[Horsedoc]

UV light is murder on that stuff. Good reason to keep the windshield shade and night shades closed when you are not using the coach

[jorbill2or]

Ultra leather and all the other cute names in almost all coaches /rv’s aren’t “real” cowhide. They are synthetic. In most cases it will do ok. For several years all the manufacturers used a “bad run “ of the stuff. It wasn’t just Fleetwood. Flexsteel I know used it , not sure about the higher end Villa manufacture. This has been , as said , known for several years with several threads in it in all the forums. There has been some luck getting it fixed in the past but word is those days are past.