Arctic fox: you should be ashamed of yourselves!

[westkill]

I have an 01 1150 model for the last few years
. Love the unit and have done repairs such as rebuilding the entire bunk area to fix the balsa wood, scotch tape and bubble gum the factory used. It no longer sags and rests on the roof of my truck. This year I tackled the giant belly under the slide out. I disassembled and removed the 2x3 they felt would support the entire weight of he slide,dinette and fridge. It now has a steel beam wth welded uprights going right to the roof. Even after this, the right rear still sagged and would Almost rest on my bed rails. Today I removed the lower 1\4" piece of plywood that slides along your wheel wells and was crushing to reveal not rot, not water damage or broken struts. The factory put absolutely NO framing there. There was nothing to keep the bottom of camper from crushing right up other than
N the. 1\4" plywood! In the pics you can see the water tank that was just bouncing around there with huge belly in between each of the 2 strts they put in.. there was NO insulation in the floor. So much for a 4 season camper! Where the rear sawhorse is is where the end f my truck bed is. The rest is overhang. .there is no structural support at all. A high school shop classs would frame it better.
I am adding a solid 2x10" in the open area going rearward. I have already framed in the area in front of the water tank and mounted that properly. Of course the rear was sagging, there's NO wood there! Needless to say my opinion of this manufacturer is zero! Look at he right front corner, they didn't even put wood on the corner!!!!!! Who the hell does that? So if you have a heavy camper with a big rear overhang this is why,absolute garbage construction and quality. Pics are below the next response

[mkirsch]

They're not designed to last 16+ years. It's supposed to fall apart just before you make the last payment, so you go back to the dealer and trade it in on a new one.

Sure they can build them better but it's going to cost you. They know you'll never pay 2-3 times as much for a good design. Proof positive is all these flash-in-the-pan RV startups who produce a good product but can't even begin to compete on price. They go broke after a year or two. Heck even the ones that make the rehashed garbage have problems staying afloat.

[macdale4]

I don't know how AF and Lance keep reputations as making quality products when they haven't made quality products
in years. I've got a 19 year old Lance and am now much happier than I was with a new AF.

[Kayteg1]

It is not imperfection that annoy me, but pure idiotic build.
Lance put metal angle channel along slide support. Than they put steel angle channel vertically where the jacks have big machine bolt, that clamp the wood wall between jack bracket and the chanel. But those 2 pieces of steel are 2" short to meet, so it is wood staples that hold the corner together.
Would Lance add 2" of the metal and put self-tapping screw there, the most common problem on the camper would never exist.
Other issue is that metal chanel under the slide was thin-metal with not much structural integrity. How much additional 3 lb of steel would cost?
Talking about complains on aged RV?
Mercedes has several things on their vehicles that have 15 years warranty and occasionally they will do goodwill repair on 17 years old vehicle that has evident design flaw.
Isn't Lance a "Mercedes of campers"?

[JimK-NY]

I do not think anyone is even remotely close to expecting "perfect" products. What we get from the RV industry is poor design, minimal engineering and shoddy construction. I think the situation is analogous to the US auto industry in the '60s. It is past due for some serious competition and products that are reasonably well built. I would love to see some foreign competition shake up the industry. There are endless horror tales due to poorly designed and built units. It is almost expected that there will be a host of issues that will require dealer repairs on even new units. Those are just the minor issues. Often there are serious flaws hidden within the walls as in this case.

[Reality_Check]

Hmmmmm... interesting how folks think about things. Without bashing or defending the constructions practices of this particular subject, I find it confusing how the buyers demand more product, customer service extending into the decades, perfect products without problems and the lowest price. No thought ever to why some (many..?) RV companies went out of business.

No product is ever perfect... most go through improvements over time. It stems from experience; failures, R&D, customer feed back, etc. What a concept, eh??

Imagine... every company that ever had a failure is labeled a failure forEVER. Especially for something done 16 years ago.

Just pointing out the obvious, and perhaps why not everyone will join in on the bashing wagon.

[westkill]

Yes I am complaining about my 16 year old design because it is proof of piss poor construction. All they had to do was put a few 2x3 uprights and it never would have happened. Arctc fox hater? Hardly, hater of companies who do total garbage work and charge us a ridiculous amount of money for their ****. YES!

[JimK-NY]

Troutguy wrote:

jimh425 wrote:
You are complaining about your 16/17 year old design?

Looks like it held up pretty well for its age.......and the design. Let's hear it from all the Arctic Fox haters! You know who you are..........:R

This is just plain nonsense. The OP has clearly pointed out serious design and construction flaws! These should never have occurred. Sadly the same sorts of sloppy work continue in the RV industry.

[Troutguy]

jimh425 wrote:
You are complaining about your 16/17 year old design?

Looks like it held up pretty well for its age.......and the design. Let's hear it from all the Arctic Fox haters! You know who you are..........:R

[jimh406]

You are complaining about your 16/17 year old design?

[Kayteg1]

Good thing we can deal with it.
I feel for folks who quit RV becouse they could not do the repairs.
Than in Lance forum you will find few guys who spend in the range of $15k to have the camper professionally restored.
Different strokes for different folks.

[westkill]

Yea under my full wall slide is now a 3" X1" "c" channel. That whole length is now arrow straight

[Kayteg1]

This is what I did in the corner. I scarped the plywood from siding, so with construction glue it should all come even with original siding.

Click For Full-Size Image.

[Lwiddis]

Did you contact Arctic Fox?

[Kayteg1]

I like metal, so going to HD I found aluminium 2x2 angle chanel for the outside and 1.5 x 1.5 steel chanel for the inside.
Wood under the load always sag, unless you oversize it badly, what is not possible on camper.

[westkill]