Travel Lite TC Owners?

[languiduck]

I feel like I'm the only one on this forum. The search I did only came up with a couple owners who had issues with their Travel Lites. I know that every brand has it's issues and each camper is different depending on who put it together, and lots of times the only time you hear from someone is when there's a problem. So I was wondering, who else around has a TL TC and is having a great time with it? I hope there's more. It'd be nice to hear the good and bad, and share common problems and fixes with each other.

[Stars101]

Travel Lite agreed to fix it under warranty, but I had to bring it back to IN.

700 miles later I arrived back at Travel Lite. It was there 4 days and they had about 30 hours of labor into fixing it. The entire passenger cabover side was black with rot (wood framing). This "leak" (I call it a manufacturing defect) did not happen in the one month I had it uncovered this year. It was obvious it had been leaking since Day One. It had bright yellow wispy fungus growing 1" thick on the wood framing under the bed. I had pulled the trim piece off and seen a small amount of this yellow stuff. It looked like pink fiberglass insulation. I was PRAYING it was just yellow colored fiberglass... Nope, it was a funky fungus.

The scary part is that no leaks were visible inside these units! Not. One. Drop. No mildew smells or wetness. Nothing. The interior looked brand spanking new and smelled new. The only time I saw any moisture was when it began leaking from under the siding and, at that time, it soaked the mattress inside.

The Warranty Manager did fit us in immediately to fix in under warranty. 3 guys worked on it, including the (new) factory Foreman. He didn't have to do that, but he did. And he is a new hire (like within the past month!), so it wasn't even his fault that this was built so bad. We stayed and watched it being fixed and the workers were very friendly and conscientious and did a terrific job for us. They answered my questions and did an all around wonderful job.

PM me if you want any further info. b/c I only TOUCHED on some of the issues. It was so bad that it was almost funny/unbelievable b/c it was like Keystone Cops... you just couldn't believe the cascade of problems from large to small.

From what I learned there was a time in 2013-2014 that they lost their long-term Factory Foreman and apparently had a run of units that had some serious defects (lack of caulk, lack of ANY butyl tape on parts, wiring issues (wrong gauge-too small to handle the load), plumbing leaks, refrigerators installed wrong - mine never did keep cold - it routinely heated up to 50 degrees inside so we carried 2 coolers, but I wasn't going to saw anything) kinked lines, etc. Those are just what happened on my personal unit).

OK, enough bad stuff. Here's the good:

Travel Lite did fix it under warranty.
They did fix it within 2 weeks of when I found the problem.
They seemed to do good work (this time.
Their new Factory Foreman is very experienced and also a d*mn nice person and a stand up guy. I think if he stays he will get things under control and Travel Lite will go back to being a good, solid entry level TC.

The interior finish work is perfect. No gimp, quality material (for the price) and nicely put together.

I love the inside!!!! I LOVE the layout and the size/weight of the unit. Perfect for my family. Travel Lite is the ONLY TC I found with the dinette seats located on the Left (single) & Right (double) - across from each other straight ahead against the cabover. The 770R design is amazing b/c it feels like you have so much room in it b/c of the placement of the dinette benches. No more "hallway" down the middle. 2 adults and a child can comfortably move around inside (albeit in a little ring-around-the-rosie manner LOL). But no one has to jump on the bed in order for the other person to leave the camper 🙂

Now if they can just get the outside to hold up for more than one year everything will be great 🙂

I wish them all the best b/c they are a small company and I hope they have identified and fixed their build issues. And I wish I could recommend their camper, but until they get some time fixing their problems I wouldn't be able to. But I LOVE the 770R and plan on keeping it.

P.S. - I did hours of online research before I bought this camper and up until 2013 they had a wonderful reputation and I only found one "bad" Travel Lite story online. Now there are a lot popping up from the 2013-2014 period... so hopefully this will be self-limiting and they will get back on track.

[Stars101]

I have a 2014 Travel Lite 770R. Nothing but problems... I bought it new in May 2013. It had 3+ gallons of water in the cabover nose less than one week after delivery (special ordered new from factory so it's not like it was sitting out at the dealer for a year). It pooled under the bed and bowed the siding down so far that it touched the roof of the truck. When you pushed up it sounded like water lapping against an aluminum boat! I thought I was at the lake LOL. I did get a new unit due to the fact that even though I waited 2+ months for a special order they did not install the special ordered items! Did. Not. Install.

The water was running out of the cabover, gushing out from the jack attachment bolts and running down the jacks, running out of the siding at every horizontal seam (I have aluminum siding) as far back as BOTH side windows! Um, people, that's about 1/2 way on my TC. I put a bucket under it after about 5 min. of staring in shock and collected 3 gallons just from under one jack, so you KNOW how much water was in that unit. No way was I paying for this.

I finally got it sorted out between the dealer and manufacturer. I had to drive to IN to pick up the new one, but counted myself lucky I had something to camp in for the remainder of last year.

Very pleased with layout and new camper for the 4 months I used it. thought I was golden, just bad luck that I bought the "Friday Afternoon Special" last year. Pure fluke I got such a lemon...

Not so fast happy camper. The new one began leaking 1 month after the 1 year warranty period ended! Same d*mn problem in the cabover. I was livid. I used the camper June, July, Aug, and Sept of 2013. It had been stored inside under cover from Sept. 2013 until July 2014 (late start camping this year). It began leaking in Aug. of this year. I only had it out for one darn rain storm between July and August! OMG, I am beyond angry by this time.

Contacted Travel Lite.

[exhaustipated]

So does mine, languiduck. Looks like we're going to have to keep an eye out for this type of problem.

[languiduck]

Interesting, and that's good to know as my bath floor looks very similar to that.

[EricCO]

I have a 2007 Travel Lite. It took a lot of work right when I got it to stop it from leaking on the roof and to replace OEM stuff that didn't work.

Travel Lite forgot some screws where the cab-over meets the roof. Putting more screws in the joint and then covering everything with Eterna-bond tape solved the problem but not before the nose cone was completely warped and delaminating.

We had to replace the Reico Titan jacks and the propane regulator.

Right now I had to rip the bathroom floor out because the bottom of the black tank rests on a wooden platform and the bouncing caused the corner of the black tank to crease and eventually crack. We had black water running down the floor of the camper coming back from Michigan a few months ago. YUCK!!!!

The floor and blank tank come as a pre-manufactured part. It looks like this

[vanderjw]

I have an 875 PSBR. It just had its 3rd birthday and really no issues to complain about. No leaks so far, but I store it inside. Travel Lite makes a decent camper for the price point. Mine was 9K new, so not really a high end unit. I like it for what I do with it.

[Driftwood132]

I have a Travel Lite 800sbx 2006 . As for a whole, the TC has been ok, nice inside and no problems with inside stuff. I have had a couple of leaks but hope I sealed them . One was troublesome on passenger side wing where the jack is mounted .After a hard rain it was always wet inside where the dinette cushions were. I caulked and caulked. I even called to talk to someone at Travel Lite but he acted like I had a antique,suggested I buy a new one. I finally got the leak stopped.
Sounds like a quality control issues with Travel Lite. I have a friend that bought a new TT (not TL) a few months ago and had leaks in the water system. he fixed all of them himself because he was taking it out camping. For the most part the RV industry needs to step up and do a better job in quality control!

[shellbackcva59]

I've got a 2013 770 SL. It was 5 months old when I got it from a couple that had never even used it. Fortunately I got a very good buy price wise. Unfortunately it's been a nightmare! They might possibly be a good camper, but whatever crew put mine together needs a foot where the sun never shines! Side trim where the wing bottom covers the side paneling overlapped by less than 1/16 inch. Due to the natural flexing running down the road, the trim was pulled lose exposing the camper to water intrusion. Leak over rear door. About a 1 inch area where there was no caulk. One year later,plywood under bed delaminating due to a leak. Had to remove and replace the plywood under the bed. There's a piece of trim that covers the seam where the rubber roof meets the metal nose up front. Well they started the trim about 3/4 of an inch from the side trim on the passenger side, so when they got to the driver's side, what did they do? They left it too long and ran the side trim up over it leaving a big gap underneath. Of course their solution was a big goob of caulk to seal it. Guess what it didn't work! Also discovered that the metal roofing on the nose was cut too short to meet the side near the top. More caulk was the fix for that also. Maybe my camper was built by some hack that just didn't give a darn, and hopefully has since been fired. But from my personal first hand experiences with a Travel Lite build, I'd recommend staying far away from them. PS, I also had the bubbling issue with Dicor and the roofing material when I installed a Fantastic roof fan. It took quite awhile, but it did finally shrink back to a near normal position.

[languiduck]

Our conversation is what compelled me to see who else is out there. I'm interested to see how this turns out for you.

[exhaustipated]

You know I've got one, languiduck, and love it. I've taken it through nine states and seven thousand miles since April. Never had any trouble with it at all until now and that's because of some roof issues I'm having to deal with due to the Dicor sealant not being compatible with the roofing material. Other than that it's been great.
You might want to touch base with steve68steve from Pennsylvania (2013 Travel Lite 960RX) and tktplz from Louisiana (2010 Travel Lite 690FD) to see how they like theirs and if they are having any problems. I hope you can get other TL TC owners to respond to your post.