Travel Trailers.....what brands to stay away from??

[imq707s]

I'm looking for a nice used bumper pull travel trailer....something 5 years old or newer, and in the 22-25ft range.

I've looked on CL,on rvtrader, and at dealers......I never knew there were so many different brands of campers. If someone told me it was in the hundreds, I would believe them. Many of them look identical inside and out....but just have a different name.

Are there some quality brands that stand out above the rest? What about crappy ones that are build really cheap that need to be avoided???

Any help would be great!

[Bumpyroad]

Boon Docker wrote:

2oldman wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:
Why "bumper pull" ? ... old terminology from yesteryear? :h

Yep.

C'mon people lets be politically correct. It is a RHP trailer. (receiver hitch pull trailer). :B

my Toyota Tacoma manual refers to "bumper Pull" but only if it has a metal bumper. guess they don't trust plastic.
bumpy

[aclay]

coolmom42 wrote:
In no particular order, these are some of the better quality brands:

Lance
Nash
Arctic Fox
Jayco

I agree with this. We've owned a Jayco and liked it. We are looking at Arctic Fox (Northwood builds AF & Nash) or Lance for our next one. I would look at Jayco too if they had a floor plan I wanted.

We own a Keystone Sprinter. It's not terrible, but I wouldn't buy another Keystone, and I'd be hesitant about any Thor product the more I look at them and do research.

[Boon_Docker]

2oldman wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:
Why "bumper pull" ? ... old terminology from yesteryear? :h

Yep.

C'mon people lets be politically correct. It is a RHP trailer. (receiver hitch pull trailer). :B

[LVJJJ]

I'd much rather have an aluminum roof than the rubber stuff they use now, doesn't tear or get black or leak (as much), lighter weight too. I LIKE the sound of rain on the roof.

As most have said, every manufacturer (good or bad) produces good ones and lemons. Even if you inspect the TT carefully on the lot, it could fall apart on you after a couple of trips. For us, the most important aspect of a TT is the floor plan.

So go from there, find one u like, show up in the morning to give yourself time to go thru it carefully (ask the salesman to leave you alone), or take a good trailer mechanic with you to check everything. Have them plug it in and put propane in the tanks and turn on everything. If they will let you, hook it up and tow it on the nearest freeway. However, most dealers won't let you, but at least ask. I only had one dealer that let me, turned out it was too heavy for the TV. Good thing I got to try it.

(btw, if the spare has cover on it, take it off, we ended up with one that had had the sidewall half scraped off, but didn't find it out till after the purchase).

We used to buy new TT's all the time and were lucky to always get good ones. After going too deep in debt doing that, we worked hard to get out of debt and now won't finance anything, all cash now. So, we only buy used. Since I know what to look for (and am good at fixing things, even bad water damage), when we find a decent clean, straight TT we negotiate a price and pay cash. Our current TT is a 22' 2004 Tahoe Lite by Thor of California. We knew that these TT's had terrible problems right out of the factory and couldn't believe the horror stories that were told right here on RV.net.

By the time we bought it a couple of years ago, all those problems had been worked out, so now it's perfect and everything works good. Somebody had replaced the entire floor and fixed some front end leaks. There were and are no other leaks anywhere. All appliances work, we like the floor plan and it tows great and straight.

[Bumpyroad]

don't they store all of those old airplanes out in the desert under those conditions 24/7/365?
bumpy

[JIMNLIN]

I guess we had the opposite experience with an aluminum roof. We had a 1988 Jayco 2850 FW with an aluminum roof. I barely maintained it, and it never had a problem for the 15 years we owned the trailer and stored it outside through 15 Michigan winters.

Actually my experience came from working on dozens of different aluminum roofs of all ages over several years period and not just owning one RV with a Aluminum roof.
Trailers in places like NM/AZ southern CA where the sun is intense have the greatest stretch/shrink problems that gave the old galvanized steel and later aluminum roof material the greatest maintenance issues.

[sky_free]

Bumpyroad wrote:

chr$ wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
avoid anything with a rubber roof.
bumpy

Well, that's pretty much all of 'em except an Airstream and maybe an alumalite...

nonsense, there are TPO, aluminum, and fiberglass available.
bumpy

Bigfoot, Escape, Casita, Oliver and Scamp are the major Fiberglass TT manufacturers currently, but these are all on the small side compared with what people on this forum are usually looking for.

Rubber can last a long time if you treat it right. The biggest problem is the Dicor used on the seams which degrades very quickly. For lazy people like me that is a problem as I don't want to go up there every year to re-seal. My TT had a very fragile roof that you could not walk on, making the job even more difficult.

Fiberglass TT's still have to be sealed around vents, but it's a much smaller footprint of possible failure, and a vent leaking is usually not as catastrophic as a longer seam on a rubber roof. Escape builds in small drain holes in the underside to evacuate any water that finds it's way in.

[Winged_One]

JIMNLIN wrote:

chr$ wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
avoid anything with a rubber roof.
bumpy

Well, that's pretty much all of 'em except an Airstream and maybe an alumalite...

Yeah thankfully we don't see many aluminum roofs anymore and fiberglass roofs are far and few between.
Having been in the rv/mobilehome repair business I avoid all metal roofs if possible on rv trailers.
My '97 32' trailer has a rubber roof with no issues and much less maintenance issues than some of my previous aluminum roof rv truck campers and rv trailers.

I guess we had the opposite experience with an aluminum roof. We had a 1988 Jayco 2850 FW with an aluminum roof. I barely maintained it, and it never had a problem for the 15 years we owned the trailer and stored it outside through 15 Michigan winters.

[JIMNLIN]

chr$ wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
avoid anything with a rubber roof.
bumpy

Well, that's pretty much all of 'em except an Airstream and maybe an alumalite...

Yeah thankfully we don't see many aluminum roofs anymore and fiberglass roofs are far and few between.
Having been in the rv/mobilehome repair business I avoid all metal roofs if possible on rv trailers.
My '97 32' trailer has a rubber roof with no issues and much less maintenance issues than some of my previous aluminum roof rv truck campers and rv trailers.

[Bumpyroad]

chr$ wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
avoid anything with a rubber roof.
bumpy

Well, that's pretty much all of 'em except an Airstream and maybe an alumalite...

nonsense, there are TPO, aluminum, and fiberglass available.
bumpy

[chr_]

Bumpyroad wrote:
avoid anything with a rubber roof.
bumpy

Well, that's pretty much all of 'em except an Airstream and maybe an alumalite...

[dcg9381]

BB_TX wrote:

And you will invariably find someone who says never buy so and so brand as they had nothing but problems with it. And then there will be another who says they had that same brand and it was the best rig they ever had. One will say brand X had the worst customer service ever, followed by another who says brand X customer service was great.

Most of these are made the same way by human beings. Some manufacturers (perhaps most) pay for speed, not quality. I agree that all manufacturers can build a trouble-free until or a lemon-law dog.

What I don't agree with is that customer service can't be pre-judged. Simply take a look at BBB complaints - not the quantity, but the response from the company. It's pretty easy to come up with serious differences between manufacturers on how they handle consumer issues. Companies that properly allocate resources to solve their customer's problems are a good thing.

[DutchmenSport]

~DJ~ wrote:

PaulJ2 wrote:

~DJ~ wrote:

coolbreeze01 wrote:

trail-explorer wrote:

coolmom42 wrote:
In no particular order, these are some of the better quality brands:

Lance
Nash
Arctic Fox
Jayco

Ditto.

There is no guarantee of a trouble free unit. They are all a **** shoot. Good luck.

cool breeze said it best. "they are all a **** shoot"!!

In 2010 when I wanted to go to a smaller TC for off road we also bought TT for DW when she wanted to go. The TT was a new '10 entry level 18' Springdale. Great trailer!! Only one trip back to the shop to trade it in 5 years later for a bigger and nicer(?) TT.

We bought a new '15 Nash 23D with slide. It does have a nicer interior/exterior but that's where it stopped. It was back to the shop no less than 8 times the first summer from fixing a chattering slide that I swear was going to rip the trailer apart when operating it to a leaking slide and a myriad of electrical problems including the brakes.

I won't go thru the long list of electrical problems except of the one they still can't fix!! The tv goes to scramble when outside the city AFTER you turn on an interior light. Works fine in the city and in their shop so they can't duplicate it. So, out camping you watch tv in the dark or not at all. I fixed it myself with a DISH Tailgater!!

So even the mighty NASH can have problems!!

LED lights will cause RF interfearance in a tv/radio signal. Works fine in the city because tv signal is strong. As the tv signal gets weaker farther from the transmiter the RF signals from the light/s dominates and takes over. Thats my theory. Find the bad light.

WOW!! I did not know that. Apparently no one at the Dealership does either as the Nash came from the factory with LEDs throughout. Ever single light in the whole TT disrupts the tv. Then again, I shouldn't be the first or only one with this problem. I think I'll see if I can change one back to regular and test your theory. Thanks!!!

The exhaust vent fan in the bathroom in my Outback causes television interference also. No LED lights in mine, but turn on that fan and the television (both of them) get scrambled and pixeled images. We don't run that fan very often as you can expect!

[93Cobra2771]

Bumpyroad wrote:

93Cobra2771 wrote:

Is owner willing to let you walk on the roof and inspect? (if not, then it's a leaker or he knows the roof hasn't been maintained).

That's just a few things.

no way in heck would I allow somebody to walk all over the roof of my TT, it can be inspected from a ladder on the side.
bumpy

If it isn't a walk on roof, I can understand that. If it is a walk on roof, no reason to disallow that. While searching for my first camper, I discovered two with soft spots by walking. You won't find those spots from a ladder inspection.