Rating of Travel Trailers?

Similar to owning a house, you have to be willing to get down and dirty with your TT, understand the components, and try to fix at least some of the issues that may arise over the years. Remember that your TT will only be under warranty for a fairly short period of time, after which you are on your own. It will get mighty expensive to drop off the TT to a dealer every time there is a small problem. This is even more so if you buy a used TT to begin with. I can't count the number of minor repairs I've had to make over the last 20 years of RV'ing. If I took it to the dealer each time I'd be broke by now. ;)

Ironically, other than checking and adding fluid and changing bulbs, etc, on my cars, I'm not mechanically inclined enough to be able to do most repairs. I gave up doing oil changes many years ago because it just wasn't worth my time and effort.

2012Coleman wrote:
Don't spend your money on any RV consumer report service. I did - before I knew about this forum. Wasted my money.

I started this post in hopes of finding a Free On-line RV rating site but it looks like there aren't any out there. I agree with a lot of the comments...you can find lemons in any RV manufacturers inventory. But I still feel some manufactures are doing a better job of building RV's than others. Whether it is due to their QA program...better training of their workers or better design I am not sure. I currently have an older Nash and am happy with it and for now will keep maintaining it until I find my next 'Dream RV'.

Thanks Everyone for their inputs,

Griz12

Don't spend your mony on any RV consumer report service. I did - before I knew about this forum. Wasted my money.

Excuse? No!. But unfortunately, largely a fact of life.

hddecker wrote:

subcamper wrote:
The problem with travel trailers (and other RVs) is the manual assembly steps at the factory.

If you ever go through a tour of an automobile assembly plant, you will see how engineers designed tooling, bucks, alignment pins, robotic high-precision screw tigthening, etc. this was all done to remove the human element in assembly, especially in critical areas. That's why cars are so consistently built. Every car has a screw in exactly the same place and tightened exactly the same amount.

RVs aren't produced in large enough quantities to justify the expensive assembly tooling that cars use. Therefore the assembly quality is highly dependent on the individual working on it. Esssentially they are "one-offs" built using some general guidelines supplied by the manufacturer. The guy with the staple gun or screw gun might put 5 fasteners or 2 fasteners (and maybe none of them will actually hit a stud underneath). With this type of assembly, it's impossible to produce consistent quality. You might get a "good one", while the next buyer might get a "bad one".

If you could look under the underbelly covering of two trailers of the same model you would see different wire routing, variable number of fasteners and fastener locations, etc.

All this makes it difficult to rate the quality of travel trailers. In some cases a manufacturer might be so sloppy that so many of their TTs are poorly built that it does stand out, but in general all the manufacturers seem to produce TTs of erratic quality. The best you can usually hope for is that the problems aren't major and something you can fix as you go along.

Steve

All very true, but it is no excuse for shoddy craftsmanship.

subcamper wrote:
The problem with travel trailers (and other RVs) is the manual assembly steps at the factory.

If you ever go through a tour of an automobile assembly plant, you will see how engineers designed tooling, bucks, alignment pins, robotic high-precision screw tigthening, etc. this was all done to remove the human element in assembly, especially in critical areas. That's why cars are so consistently built. Every car has a screw in exactly the same place and tightened exactly the same amount.

RVs aren't produced in large enough quantities to justify the expensive assembly tooling that cars use. Therefore the assembly quality is highly dependent on the individual working on it. Esssentially they are "one-offs" built using some general guidelines supplied by the manufacturer. The guy with the staple gun or screw gun might put 5 fasteners or 2 fasteners (and maybe none of them will actually hit a stud underneath). With this type of assembly, it's impossible to produce consistent quality. You might get a "good one", while the next buyer might get a "bad one".

If you could look under the underbelly covering of two trailers of the same model you would see different wire routing, variable number of fasteners and fastener locations, etc.

All this makes it difficult to rate the quality of travel trailers. In some cases a manufacturer might be so sloppy that so many of their TTs are poorly built that it does stand out, but in general all the manufacturers seem to produce TTs of erratic quality. The best you can usually hope for is that the problems aren't major and something you can fix as you go along.

Steve

All very true, but it is no excuse for shoddy craftsmanship.

The problem with travel trailers (and other RVs) is the manual assembly steps at the factory.

If you ever go through a tour of an automobile assembly plant, you will see how engineers designed tooling, bucks, alignment pins, robotic high-precision screw tigthening, etc. this was all done to remove the human element in assembly, especially in critical areas. That's why cars are so consistently built. Every car has a screw in exactly the same place and tightened exactly the same amount.

RVs aren't produced in large enough quantities to justify the expensive assembly tooling that cars use. Therefore the assembly quality is highly dependent on the individual working on it. Esssentially they are "one-offs" built using some general guidelines supplied by the manufacturer. The guy with the staple gun or screw gun might put 5 fasteners or 2 fasteners (and maybe none of them will actually hit a stud underneath). With this type of assembly, it's impossible to produce consistent quality. You might get a "good one", while the next buyer might get a "bad one".

If you could look under the underbelly covering of two trailers of the same model you would see different wire routing, variable number of fasteners and fastener locations, etc.

All this makes it difficult to rate the quality of travel trailers. In some cases a manufacturer might be so sloppy that so many of their TTs are poorly built that it does stand out, but in general all the manufacturers seem to produce TTs of erratic quality. The best you can usually hope for is that the problems aren't major and something you can fix as you go along.

Steve

I drove 300 miles to buy our Northwood Fox Mountain. Northwood will authorize other shops to do warranty work. You just need to make arrangements before hand. IMO Northwood is one of the better warranty handling RV makers out there. Yes others have similar experiences and that's good as well. Read the forums and call the RV maker and ask them about warranty work out of town. I have no dealer closer than 75 miles from my house. Didn't like them so drove the extra 225 miles. A lousy dealer and lousy TT can make for an unpleasant experience.

I have a 1996 sunnybrook. my first trailer. newbe. got it about 2 years ago. solid, knock on wood never had a problem.

Save your money, "quality" is subjective, what is deemed good by one person will be another persons "lemon". You can drive yourself nuts worrying about perceived quality of a supposed high quality brand.

EVERY RV manufacturer turns out some "lemons" it is bound to happen when you build THOUSANDS of "copies" every year, there is no exceptions to this rule.

Rather than torturing yourself pouring through thousands of pages of "opinions" (aka reviews) find the layout that suits you and buy that one. All with the understanding that there is a chance that something can or will go wrong that may need to be taken care of under warranty.

Absolutely, good advice....

... been camping since '75... tents, popups, TT's, 5th. wheels... shop around and notice things that relate to better workmanship... cabinets, heated tanks, black tank washouts, duct air and heat, insulation packages, window treatments... so many things that can make for a better camping experience. 'Window dressing' makes many look great but look past the "bling"... do a bit of research... my newest will be picked up next week... just bought a Forest River VLight 30fkss with a 'diamond package'... I could have spent more money but all in all I am satisfied with the unit and with a full bumper to bumper 7 year warranty (which I think is a good idea) I think it will fit my bill nicely. My previous camper was a Keystone Montana 5th. wheel that I had for almost 6 years... took it all over the country and only had very limited trouble... took a 3 month cross country with it and it never gave us a minutes trouble and yet, I have talked with folks that say they had a lot of trouble with their Montana... so, who is to say... just pick one that fits your requirements and keep it properly maintained... keep it up to date and watch for signs of trouble... most any will give you good service if you work to keep them ship shape... that is my opinion only and I am sure others will have alternate advice... believe no one, not even me... do your research and have a good camping experience.;)

Recommend buying used -
1) Save money (many people pay too much for new RV's)
2) Any bugs and/or design/build issues will have surfaced and possibly fixed.