Our camper nightmare

[cakesnkids]

Since I mentioned this a few times, I thought I'd share these pics. My DH took them yesterday at the place we are having FIX our Fourwinds 5ver. Ok, story goes, it was less than 3 years old when we got it last year, and well maintainted. Sidewall started delaminating, and this is what we found. The repair guys think it's manufacturer defect, and the Manufac of course thinks they are perfect. SO..this is what you DON'T want the MONTH BEFORE YOU ARE GOING TO DISNEY!!!
Mind you, my husband is VERY thorough in checking out things before we buy them, and we even had someone on the roof of this one to fix the a/c and STILL noone caught that there was a problem. The previous owner had it at the place he bought it for a new awning, and they didnt' catch it...HMMMM

 

[Camping Cat]

Oh my gosh, I am so sorry you are going through this! I see you are in LA. Where in LA? Could the problem have something to do with Katrina? Could wind driven rain have somehow gotten into the camper? Where did you buy it? Have they told you how long it will take for repairs? I hope this won't delay or cancel your trip!

 

[kmccain]

So sorry for your misfortune

It was really good of you to share it with all of us We can all learn from it.

Like I said before, we had the same problem, water damage. We didn't know it either until we drug a little coming into the driveway and it cracked the wall next to our dinette. That is when we decided go to a brand new unit.

When they get it fixed, it will be like a brand new trailer!

Hope you have a great trip!

 

[FloridaTeacher]

Some friends of ours had a similar problem (different manufacturer), but theirs was too far gone to be repaired. They ended up selling it to someone (who they told about all the problems) to use as a hunting cabin. Ended up losing about $5000. They also bought from an individual who claims to have had no problems and no knowledge of the problem. What's worse is this guy is their neighbor.

Good Luck - hope everything gets fixed in time for your trip.
We'll be back at the Fort in 26 days.

 

[djblu883]

I'm living on the road in my camper for work and the pics you shared made me sick since I know my walls are already de laminated...my repair guy said RUNNNNNNNNNN as fast as you can and sell it...I can't afford to sell /buy for a few more months until after the first of the year...I'm praying my ways stay together that long...what a nightmare...My prayers are with you!!! Janet

 

[OK GRUMPY]

That is awful!! I so sorry that happened to you guys... I hope it gets fixed by the time you go to Disney, at leaset you'll have a safe rig. I'm sure! Hope you all have a good time in Disney. Think Positive thoughts!

 

[cakesnkids]

Well, it was hauled out of the danger zone for Katrina, so that's lucky there. The guy who owned it is my DH's BOSS, so we can't really pitch a fit b/c my DH shares the 2nd in command position with his two other District Cheifs,a nd you can't really fight your Cheif when you're a firefighter.
Oh well, you live, you learn, and you buy a warranty rigth?
It was warrantied, but they guy didn't turn it over in time, thats the other lesson I have learned, FIGHT for people to do their jobs.
Thanks so much. The way we figure it is, we LOVE the camper, it fits us, we'll fix it and keep it forever.

 

[jima53]

I'm living on the road in my camper for work and the pics you shared made me sick since I know my walls are already de laminated...my repair guy said RUNNNNNNNNNN as fast as you can and sell it...I can't afford to sell /buy for a few more months until after the first of the year...I'm praying my ways stay together that long...what a nightmare...My prayers are with you!!! Janet

After reading the above problems with others possibly buying something that the owner might know as defective, I hope you don't take your repairman's advice and sell to someone unless you let them know about the problem. To me it's just a ethical thing that might come back to haunt you.


Jim

 

[djblu883]

I am by no means a person who would sell something to someone without disclosing the condition of what I'm selling. Just recently I took an 800 dollar cut in the sale of a car, by blue book value would have sold for more , because I knew what repairs needed to be done and told the buyer very clearly exactly what needed to be done in advance!!! I just repeated what my repair guy said....I'll sell it to someone who just needs a place to stay warm during hunting season in the deepwoods...not a family planning to go on a " National Lampoon Vacation" and have things go wrong unexpectedly!!! ...give a person a little credit before you jump to a conclusion please! DJ

 

[PenskeSth1]

I know how you feel although our problems were with a brand new 5er though. We bought a brand new 2001 36' signature made by Thor the end of 2000. The first time we drove it the brakes locked up and they caught fire. We took the trailer to the place we bought it and they replaced the brakes. Then a month later we were pulling it up to D.C. from Fl. and it rained almost the whole way there. When we finally pulled into a rest area and I opened the camper door to go in, there was at least an inch of water through out the doorway. The carpet was soaked. As you can imagine by now I was sick. This trailer was brand new. We get to the campground outside of D.C. and DH calls the place where we bought it. They schedule someone to come and look at it. The maint. man tells us the seals on the slide out were put in the wrong place. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! I tell DH I don't want the trailer I want the rv place to replace it with a non defective one. That didn't happen. They tell us they have to try and fix the problem first. Now we weren't going to be back in Fl until Nov. and it was only April.

The Maint. RV man put new seals on in the proper place and Thor paid to have the carpets completely cleaned (They were covered in road grime). I wasn't happy.It ended up that the vinyl under the slide ended up coming unglued and ripped. When we got back to Fl. the RV place replaced the underneath vinyl and replaced the main carpet (not the carpet in the slide) a they also did a prick test on the floors and said that there was no damage. HU!! This wouldn't bother to show up for awhile, the floor is just thick partical board (I don't know the technical term for it)... And by the time it did, Thor said that the warranty for that was expired. So now we have a camper that the floor is rotten around the slide out where the water came in.


I wrote a letter to Thor stating my displeasure with them and of course they gave us the sorry about your luck letter. We couldn't afford to sue them either. Warrantys seem to only cover certain things for so long. We found out later that this particular model had quit a few problems. It just happened to be that we ended up with one of them. It's a beautiful trailer to bad it is crappy workmanship. JUNK JUNK JUNK

New trailers are nice but unfortunately you can have problems with them too. We have had a couple used RV's and if there was any problems DH would always pull out the tools and fix it up like new. When you pay all that money for something new you don't expect horrible stuff to happen. I would take a used trailer over a new one any day. We will never buy new again.

I know when you bought your trailer you didn't expect to have this happen. Hopefully you didn't pay two arms and a leg for it.

I hope you can get your camper fixed before your vacation.

 

[cakesnkids]

Interesting, Thor makes Four Winds also, and they are perfect supposedly, but here you are saying they are obviously not.
We paid $14,000 for it I believe.

 

[PenskeSth1]

We are trading out 5th wheel in for a USED motor home. It WILL NOT BE ONE THAT HAS THE NAME THOR on it...

 

[djblu883]

also made mine when partnered with Chateau....my repair guy told me a few horror stories about that partnership!!

 

[cakesnkids]

man oh man, makes booking a Value look better and better huh...but man I hate the thought of sleeping in hotel beds, it's just not my style.

 

[rzcamper]

Cakes, don't feel bad you have plenty of company. I have a 98 thor class C that has delamination issues at both rear windows. This is not an uncommon problem with filon side walls, and if you look on the internet you will find many many post on this issue. I will begin repairs on the side walls in the off season, already repaired the back wall.

 

[F4disneyfan]

man oh man, makes booking a Value look better and better huh...but man I hate the thought of sleeping in hotel beds, it's just not my style.

Yep a hotel is ALWAYS the better choice IMHO.

 

[cakesnkids]

I just don't like hotels, it's easier to camp with kids in my opinion. In the days prekid, when I could afford $300 a night for a bed and breakfast, I was in heaven, but I'm not into hotels.
Oh well, it'll be fixed soon!!

 

[allisophie]

Picked up our 4 winds.. they had to replace the floor in the kitchen AGAIN(front) they "missed" a spot on the front corner part. this time they put more adhesive stripping/caulk .. around the edges, along the AC vents,bathroom vent.. They claim it was from the last"hail storm" we had here.. we didn't see any hail dings in the fiberglass...but since this was their "oops" they had to fix it...

Good luck Cakesnkids.. I hope you get your 5er back in time for fortwilderness.

counting the days..

 

[F4disneyfan]

I just don't like hotels, it's easier to camp with kids in my opinion. In the days prekid, when I could afford $300 a night for a bed and breakfast, I was in heaven, but I'm not into hotels.
Oh well, it'll be fixed soon!!

Not fans of teh B&B even when we don't have the kids with us they just never did anything for us. With DVC it is a breeze for rooms with our kids I am not to sure how the kids are going to adjust to staying at WDW in the trailer at a resort with no themed pool and no pool slide like the other resorts we stay at LOL. My youngest DD calls the resorts her Disney home with cool pools and slides my son loves the big icons at teh All Star Resorts and my oldest DD loves to walk around the BW.