Shocked at lack of quality

[TheGreatWaz00]

Well, went to look at the Aerolite 315BHSS and 319BHSS this weekend and I was shocked at what I would call lack of quality. Maybe I am looking at the wrong level of TT or have too high of expectations but my observations.

1. The exterior was nice clean, sleek.

2. Fit and finish of the interior was poor. You can easily see where they chalked the ceiling where the nail holes were made. Not just a little but almost every hole.

3. The trim around the wood was loose, flimsy.

4. The bathroom door would not close.

5. Bed mattress were TERRIBLE. Might as well not have one and sleep on wood. A human body would compress them to the thickness of paper.

6. The woodwork finish was low end - the "distressed" look looked like someone took a single chip out of a door corner or a file to the front of a cabinet door.

7. The location of the toilet let little space to finish your job in there - if you know what I mean.

8. The kitchen table, with two legs, the legs were so close to the seat of the U shape table that you could not get your knees and feet past them.


Am I expecting too much??????????????????????




Now as a side note I have a Ram 1500, towing capacity 9600 lbs. The TT dealer was trying to sell me on the 319BHSS at 8300 lbs shipped. What a goof!!!!! He said you would never put 1300 lbs in the and trailer. Well gasoline weights 6 lbs per gallon, 25 gallons is 150 lbs. Family, another 800 lbs. That is before food, clothing, a little water in the holding tank.

[camp-n-family]

camp-n-family wrote:

I think what you really need to do is consider smaller, lighter trailers. Those are way too big/heavy for a 1500 Ram. Never mind the tow rating, you need to be looking at your payload. You will far exceed the payload rating far before reaching the tow rating.

The 1500 Rams have have some of the lowest payload ratings of 1/2 ton trucks. Since you travel with a family I'll assume the truck is a crew cab. Depending on model, payload can be less than 1000lbs, best case around 1500lbs. With 800lbs of family on board you won't have much payload left to carry the trailer tongue weight. The trailers you are considering will have tongue weights in excess of 1000lbs which will put you severely over your GVWR and likely axle ratings too.

You need a much lighter tt or a bigger truck.


Unfortunately, I'm going to have to agree with this one.. If you have the coil spring suspension on the Ram, you are going to be surprised at the bottoming out you are about to do. TONS of power but can't seem to handle any weight.

As for lightweight trailers, don't pass up the Keystone Bullet line.. Ours and many others have been flawless for years now. 31BHPR comes to mind for you.

Agree about the Bullet for quality but the 31BHPR is still too much for a 1500 Ram. Been there, done that. Towed mine for 2 summers with a Tundra, similar power and slightly better payload. We are 7600lbs loaded with 950lbs on the tongue, which is light for the size. Plenty of power to pull the tt but always 400+lbs over payload. (my family is 300lbs lighter than the OP's)

[mtofell1]

Lots of good info here. To summarize in a sentence I'd agree with those that say your expectations are too high and that you need more truck or smaller TT.

Welcome to the world of huge promises and small delivery. With TTs you're eyes are drawn to all the pretty curtains, table settings and bedroom sets in hopes of you not noticing all the particle board, poor design and substandard workmanship (it sounds as if you weren't fooled :)) For trucks you're promised 10,000# tow capacity when realistically a 6000# TT will max you out if the truck is full of a family and some gear.

It's not all bad news.... once you learn how the game is played with all that goes into RVing it's manageable and, of course, lots of fun.

[SabreCanuck]

camp-n-family wrote:
I think what you really need to do is consider smaller, lighter trailers. Those are way too big/heavy for a 1500 Ram. Never mind the tow rating, you need to be looking at your payload. You will far exceed the payload rating far before reaching the tow rating.

The 1500 Rams have have some of the lowest payload ratings of 1/2 ton trucks. Since you travel with a family I'll assume the truck is a crew cab. Depending on model, payload can be less than 1000lbs, best case around 1500lbs. With 800lbs of family on board you won't have much payload left to carry the trailer tongue weight. The trailers you are considering will have tongue weights in excess of 1000lbs which will put you severely over your GVWR and likely axle ratings too.

You need a much lighter tt or a bigger truck.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to agree with this one.. If you have the coil spring suspension on the Ram, you are going to be surprised at the bottoming out you are about to do. TONS of power but can't seem to handle any weight.

As for lightweight trailers, don't pass up the Keystone Bullet line.. Ours and many others have been flawless for years now. 31BHPR comes to mind for you.

[PAThwacker]

I'm attending the Allentown PA Show this weekend. Spend six bucks, look at garbage and feel good about it. I could be staring at the woodstove all weekend or going to movies $$$$.

[tatest]

You are looking at the wrong level if your want quality. Let us just set aside manufacturers and brands for a moment. 'Ultralight' and its various spelling permutations points in the direction of "flimsy." Most manufacturers lighten a RV by lightening every piece they control that goes into it. Then, the brand you are looking at is entry level, built to meet a lowest possible price point, thus labor time has to be minimized. There is seldom enough time to do anything right, let alone time to worry about final product cosmetics.

The tricky part for RVs is, when you move up the price scale, it can go in the direction of real build quality, or it can go in the direction of glitz, additional features, increasing the count of slideout rooms and using flashy but equally cheap materials, still poorly built.

There are few brands in this industry that I would trust for attention to build quality, fewer still that provide value for money. I won't get into brands because for most people here the brand they bought is either the best or worst.

[mosseater]

I attend the Hershey show about every year, and yes, OP, you're expectations are too high. Even at the higher end, trailers still boil down to varying degrees of junk. Airstream comes to mind as one I thought seemed of higher quality, but the proof there would be in the pudding as well. Some of the things we all take for granted as "just the way it is" are many times just poor execution rather than downright junk. Everything is hurried and slapped together, but truthfully there's only so much "quality" you can expect at the typical price point. It's still a trailer that gets dragged down the road. After 6 years and many miles our entry level is still holding up pretty well, but we've had several issues, too. No one is immune.

[spoon059]

In the lower price point ($15-30,000) I find that Jayco's feel the best. Go to an RV show and walk around and look at these trailers. Walk in them, open cabinets, open doors, look at floorplans, try the lights, bounce on the steps. I found the Jayco JayFlight to be consistently better than anything else in that price point.

I saw trailers that had huge cabinets next to slide outs. You couldn't use the cabinet when the slide was closed, and when it was open you could barely open the cabinet because it hit the trim hiding the slide seal. There is no way that cabinet is useable.

The trailer steps flexed under my 250 lbs, but also my wife's 130 lbs. That feels cheap to me. The JayFlight didn't have flex.

The lights were cheap and starting to burn through lenses by the end of the weekend show in most trailers. JayFlight uses LED lighting inside.

The frames on a lot of these units had the a-frame mounted underneath the main trailer frame. That is a LOT of weight focused on a couple of small welds. The JayFlight has an integrated a-frame.

A lot of floorplans make it obvious that they were trying to cram features into square footage. You can't see the tv from the couch because it is directly next to you. You have to really struggle to walk around the "walk around bed" because they only give you 8" of space between bed and wall (hard to do with size 12 feet...). You don't have any place to hand a toilet paper holder in the bathroom because the walls are so small because the bathroom is cramped. You have no way to dry off in the bathroom because you only have 9 square feet of space outside of the shower.

Dollar for dollar its hard to beat the JayFlights.

[x96mnn]

Quality cost two things, payload and price.

Manufacturers have their process of building these thing down to a point there can be little to no cost savings found in the production. Only way to cut cost is to cut material quality and use less. The RV industry has grown close to 300% in the last 5 years primarily becuase of the cheaper made RVs. They are not for everyone but have their own/created a new market which can consumes people who think they want quality. People have a hard time understanding the difference in the exact same floor plan trailer by two lines, one weighs 5500pds and retails for 18900 while the other weighs 7300pds and retails for 28500. They forget to pay attention to the details and become alarmed with all these quality issues they experiance.

[atreis]

I was wandering through new trailers recently (not looking to buy, just bored) and was surprised by the combination of low price and relatively decent workmanship in GulfStream trailers (Amerilite Superlite). The materials looked the same as others, and the workmanship wasn't super great, but was noticeably better than most others I've seen in their price range.

[chevyman2]

Well Aerolite has 2 problems 1-"lightweight" and 2-THOR industries.

Yes I know a big part of RVs are THOR products, but THOR in general is at the bottom of the food chain. Even though AIRSTREAM is THOR, I dare anyone to compare a new Airstream to a "pre-Thor" Airstream. There is a huge difference.

[GilliedogKiwi]

We are on our 3rd Jayco TT and have found the quality to be very good.

[camp-n-family]

I think what you really need to do is consider smaller, lighter trailers. Those are way too big/heavy for a 1500 Ram. Never mind the tow rating, you need to be looking at your payload. You will far exceed the payload rating far before reaching the tow rating.

The 1500 Rams have have some of the lowest payload ratings of 1/2 ton trucks. Since you travel with a family I'll assume the truck is a crew cab. Depending on model, payload can be less than 1000lbs, best case around 1500lbs. With 800lbs of family on board you won't have much payload left to carry the trailer tongue weight. The trailers you are considering will have tongue weights in excess of 1000lbs which will put you severely over your GVWR and likely axle ratings too.

You need a much lighter tt or a bigger truck.

[4X4Dodger]

I spent months researching TT's and looking at them and the ones I found that impressed me with their Design and Build Quality were:

Jayco

Gulfstream (Innsbruck)

These have real truss type roofs, good floors, strong frames and the interiors were well done.

I am sure there are others but You have to narrow the field at some point.

[Major_Dad]

I have seen the Aerolite products at Camping World, and had the same impression of their quality.

We went to the RV show in San Antonio last weekend; just looking and not shopping since we just bought our Roamer in August. Of all the lightweight models we looked at, the Lance seemed to stand out for build and practicality. I would have liked to have seen a Northwoods product as well, but I have never seen one at a RV show here. If we ever downsize to a 1/2 ton towable someday, we'll start by looking at Lance.

[2012Coleman]

bogeygolfer wrote:
We too were frustrated by the poor quality we saw in most new trailers when we were looking for a new one back in 2012 - especially relative to the price of a new unit.

X@ - I guess things haven't improved much, unfortunately.

Not only fit and finish, but quality of materials used in construction.