Trailer construction quality question?

rbpru wrote:
As far as I can tell most trailer manufacturers use the same major components from just a couple of sources. If you are looking for a cost competitive model that is head and shoulders above the next you probably will not find one.

From what I have seen there is more difference between a company’s low end models with few amenities and trim and their high end models with all the trimmings; than there is between manufacturer’s models in the same price range.

When you have the same components, work force, and construction techniques between companies there is not a lot of room for cost variance. Stick and tin, fiberglass or the various composites all have advantages and disadvantages.

Contrary to popular belief RV are not rat traps held together with bubble gum and angle dust. They are designed to be hauled down the road at high speed, in wind, rain, and heat and cold. Try that with your house. They are however pounded out as quick as possible with little concern for let’s say old world craftsmanship; from materials purchase from the cheapest bidder.

I am really not looking for anything but information. I already bought a trailer and I like it very much except for the bedding situation. This is the first trailer I have personally owned, not the first trailer I have used. When I was just 5 years old my family (5 people) lived in a 1960 something 19ft Shasta that we drug all over the country from Florida to Michigan and down to Guatamala and back. It's life ended when the front axle of our truck broke in half at 60MPH just outside of Pairis, Texas on highway 82. Are truck flipped end over end and the Shasta rolled 6 times and came to rest out in a cow pasture. It was severally damaged, but still towable and still in one piece. Our truck on the other hand was destroyed and we all only survived it because of God's protection.

My dad owns a 1996 Fleetwood Wilderness 29S. He bought it used in 2001 and it has been to Alaska and back, and then up to the Northwest Territories of Canada, and then all over NWT all the way up to Inuvik on gravel roads where it spent three year on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. In 2008 it came back to Texas where I lived in it for two years and went through multiple hail storms with hail up to baseball size, and wind storms with wind in excess of 80MPH, after which my sister lived in it for a year and now I am fixing it up for my son and his fiance to live in after they are married (they are both in collage and need to save money). It is beat to pieces on the outside but everything still works and has never had water leak. The only thing that we have had to replace on it was the rooftop AC, but that was only because I backed it into a carport that was about 2 inches too short and my back up guide got distracted and let me run into the carport and crush the AC unit.

I really don't know how you could ask for better quality then that Wilderness. If my Kodiak is only half as good as it, it will be all I need for the light service I require from it.