atreis wrote:
A lot of the fiberglass trailers are decently made - Scamp, Casita, BigFoot, EggCamper. Lance are decently well made. Northwood has had a good reputation in the past, but there appear t be some questions now. Haven't heard from someone that has one though. AirStream are still reasonably well made. (BTW - all of these brands have something in common - they're all significantly more expensive for a given size trailer. Yes - you do have to pay more to get a well made trailer - it's an industry who's primary cost is labor.)
My trailer isn't bad, but that's more luck than anything else. :) I think I got one made on Tuesday.
I have a 2013 Northwood Fox Mountain. I think I got in on the 1st or 2nd year of the down turn in quality. I will say that some of the issues aren't really all that bad as far as common issues go.
I had a very slight water leak at a manifold connection. Super easy to fix. The duct work that feeds the bedroom floor vent made noise when you stepped near that vent. Also an easy fix with some DIY duct from Home Depot.
Those are the only two issues that are Northwoods fault. I think that's a pretty good deal.
However we've had a few other minor/major issues that aren't Northwoods fault. Or you could say they are since they bought them and installed them.
The major issue is the front cap has faded. That's an industry wide problem. The kitchen and bath faucets broke. Again not Northwoods fault. The Shurflo water pump quit 11 months in. Northwood sent me a new one free of charge to install myself. The tech guy actually helped me via phone to do some circuit testing before he sent the new one.
I've had it for going on 4 seasons. Put roughly 10,000 miles on it. Nothing else has quit. All the cabinets are still solid. No cracks or anything. A few door hinge screws have loosened up. No biggy.
Over all we have been happy campers as far as the Northwood end goes. All elec, cable/sat, lights, fans, etc have all worked as planned.
Why do I think I got in on the early part of the quality down turn? Well prior to buying we looked around and Northwood seemed to make the perfect trailer. It seems that prior to 2013, most owners had very little problems either from outside products or from Northwood themselves. I don't consider the two issues concerning Northwoods assembly to be all that much of a problem in the industry wide realm of problems that others have. I think we are either lucky or something. But combining all the issues either caused buy Northwood or just being associated with Northwood we don't feel we have the perfect trailer we thought we would be getting.
The other problems like the faded front cap, faucets, water pump can happen to anyone. So maybe the thinking that Northwoods quality has dropped has more to do with outside purchases.
I know from reading on the NROA owners forum that others have had different issues than I've had. But from reading other brand forums I very rarely ever see big issues that are directly caused by Northwood.
