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Old 09-27-2021, 12:29 PM   #1
fuquatj
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M.O.C. #19619
Crack At Corner Of Bedroom Slide Opening

The attached photo is of the bottom front corner on the door side bedroom slide of my 2021 Montana Legacy 3781RL. I was wondering if anyone has experienced this issue during the first year under warranty, and if so what was the remedy provided by the dealer and/or Keystone?
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Old 09-27-2021, 03:09 PM   #2
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It appears to be a broken frame behind the fiberglass panel. It will require surgery. Contact your dealer asap about it and document every discussion you have with them and or the factory.
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Old 09-28-2021, 05:41 AM   #3
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I have a similar crack on our 2019 3791RD under the door side LR slide front corner. Still waiting to get fixed under warranty. The crack showed up about 8 months in the first year. I am also waiting for parts to replace a rear axle and some other parts under warranty. Rig is 2 years old next month.
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Old 09-28-2021, 04:48 PM   #4
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Just picked up our 3121rl 2022 legacy and found a similar crack on our bedroom pull out. Was a stress crack. Dealer had it repaired at a local auto body shop in 1 day. Was just a surface crack. Happens sometimes.
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Old 09-29-2021, 04:57 AM   #5
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I'm hoping mine is only a surface crack as well. I put a scope camera in the wall at the slide and I can't see any broken welds. Dealer says they'll have to remove slide and tear into the wall to make sure. They have fixed more than one recently like this.
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Old 09-29-2021, 08:41 AM   #6
fuquatj
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Thanks for the replies. I hope mine is a surface crack also. We are on the road so I wont be able to have the dealer look at it for a couple of weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't get worse as we bounce down the roads of Louisianna.
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Old 09-29-2021, 09:26 AM   #7
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Hopefully these repairs are getting back to the manufacturer, so they can remedy why this is occurring in the first place. Quality, Quality, Quality.
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Old 09-29-2021, 09:58 AM   #8
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Ours has gone from about 2 inches to more than 6 inches in the past several months. We have not been to LA but do travel SC regularly and the roads are quite bad there too.
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Old 09-30-2021, 03:50 AM   #9
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If you have a crack at a front slide out it is NOT going to be "stress or surface" crack... it IS going to be a structural issue and will only get worse as time passes...

The fact that I am seeing new 2021 units with the same crack that has been an issue for over 20 years on fifth wheels amazes me...

The issue should have been corrected by Keystone and Lippert... Several new Jaycos and Grand Designs are also having the same exact cracks appearing on 2020 and 2021 units... Along with Forest river.... and others

The common point between all of them is... Lippert Frame...
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Old 10-03-2021, 07:09 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fuquatj View Post
The attached photo is of the bottom front corner on the door side bedroom slide of my 2021 Montana Legacy 3781RL. I was wondering if anyone has experienced this issue during the first year under warranty, and if so what was the remedy provided by the dealer and/or Keystone?
Notify your dealer in writing with pictures. Have them start the claim process. Document everything with times and dates. Don’t let them slide. There are parts shortages so be prepared to wait, but with documentation your warranty will still be valid even if your warranty expires before work can begin. Don’t wait, notify your dealer asap.
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Old 10-04-2021, 05:39 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by ChuckS View Post
...

The issue should have been corrected by Keystone and Lippert... Several new Jaycos and Grand Designs are also having the same exact cracks appearing on 2020 and 2021 units... Along with Forest river.... and others

The common point between all of them is... Lippert Frame...
While it's true that the Lippert frame is the common link between all of them, aren't the frames actually designed by the RV manufacturers? Or does Lippert tell them what they should and shouldn't do as far as frame design. I just figured that Lippert was just a sub contractor making frames.

I suppose that it's possible that that they have "standard" designs that they own that all of the manufacturers use, with "options" that make up the different designs...
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Old 10-04-2021, 09:35 AM   #12
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Pretty excited about possibly needing this extensive repair to mine as well!! Since we have owned it one month and never taken it anywhere but from Ohio to our property it should be a great man cave until I get ownership transferred and begin the fun of warranty arm wrestling, thankfully it’s winter and no one has their rig in for service.
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Old 11-08-2021, 02:36 PM   #13
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ChuckS is correct. This has been an ongoing problem for quite awhile now across many different RV units. I wonder when it becomes worthy of a class action lawsuit?

The problem on our 2020 3701LK frame was discovered at this years MOC Rally in Goshen by Keystone techs performing other minor repairs. Julie from Keystone came to the rally to verify the work and scheduled us for repairs at the factory commencing the last day of the rally and taking 3 business days to complete. We could then resume our trip schedule. Long story short, rather than do the repair at the factory, they subbed the repair to Affinity (who did a great job) but the repairs took 10 days to complete and due to other Keystone SNAFUs we were without our RV for a total of 3+ weeks. We are full timers so were out of pocket for lodging and food for that time. A few other minor repairs not necessarily warranty were performed as a sort of semi-appeasement for those issues. When we finally got our unit back, there was a significant gouge in the linoleum from a loose nut. By now, Julie has moved on and Amanda Looker is the service writer for our repair. Last week she emails us to go to a dealer for repair rather than her schedule one of Keystones national floor and furniture repair vendors to come to us with their mobile service. I complain we have already been without our place to live for more than 3 weeks and our RV spending more weeks waiting at a dealer to have repairs that can be performed at any RV park, is unsatisfactory. So after another 3 weeks, she evidently decides she doesn't wish to complete this task and today emails that any further communications should go to Owner Relations at their main 866 phone number. If you ever deal with calling that main phone, you will appreciate the frustration of being on hold forever and having to go through multiple staff and phone calls to get anything done.

It would be different if this were the only warranty problem we ever had with our now barely 2 year old unit but we have had a litany of poor workmanship problems that were finally reconciled after much "gnashing of teeth". In my opinion, Keystone was redeeming themselves for past issues with the way they now approached the repair at the rally so we were considering moving up to a new large Fuzion toy hauler. The unwillingness by their staff to follow thru is again burning that bridge and over such a minor issue. Penny wise, dollar foolish or maybe they just dont care.
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Old 11-08-2021, 06:30 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan & Jan View Post
ChuckS is correct. This has been an ongoing problem for quite awhile now across many different RV units. I wonder when it becomes worthy of a class action lawsuit?

The problem on our 2020 3701LK frame was discovered at this years MOC Rally in Goshen by Keystone techs performing other minor repairs. Julie from Keystone came to the rally to verify the work and scheduled us for repairs at the factory commencing the last day of the rally and taking 3 business days to complete. We could then resume our trip schedule. Long story short, rather than do the repair at the factory, they subbed the repair to Affinity (who did a great job) but the repairs took 10 days to complete and due to other Keystone SNAFUs we were without our RV for a total of 3+ weeks. We are full timers so were out of pocket for lodging and food for that time. A few other minor repairs not necessarily warranty were performed as a sort of semi-appeasement for those issues. When we finally got our unit back, there was a significant gouge in the linoleum from a loose nut. By now, Julie has moved on and Amanda Looker is the service writer for our repair. Last week she emails us to go to a dealer for repair rather than her schedule one of Keystones national floor and furniture repair vendors to come to us with their mobile service. I complain we have already been without our place to live for more than 3 weeks and our RV spending more weeks waiting at a dealer to have repairs that can be performed at any RV park, is unsatisfactory. So after another 3 weeks, she evidently decides she doesn't wish to complete this task and today emails that any further communications should go to Owner Relations at their main 866 phone number. If you ever deal with calling that main phone, you will appreciate the frustration of being on hold forever and having to go through multiple staff and phone calls to get anything done.

It would be different if this were the only warranty problem we ever had with our now barely 2 year old unit but we have had a litany of poor workmanship problems that were finally reconciled after much "gnashing of teeth". In my opinion, Keystone was redeeming themselves for past issues with the way they now approached the repair at the rally so we were considering moving up to a new large Fuzion toy hauler. The unwillingness by their staff to follow thru is again burning that bridge and over such a minor issue. Penny wise, dollar foolish or maybe they just dont care.
My unit is at the dealers for broken welds at the back sidewalls. The service manager said they have good aluminum welders now since there are a lot of cracks like mentioned above!!! Seems like the dealers even know there are issues.
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Old 11-18-2021, 11:22 AM   #15
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A followup to my previous post: Amanda at Keystone has arranged for an onsite repair of our linoleum and has sent a replacement piece of flooring to accomplish the task. This is a significant burden off us to perform the repair at our location rather than the hassle of our 5ver sitting at a dealer until they can work on it. We are very grateful for this turn of events especially right here at Thanksgiving.
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Old 11-19-2021, 07:50 AM   #16
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It appears that most of this cracking is due to keystone's lack of basic engineering. I wouldn't blame lippert for this one. Designing a square cornered opening near a flexing point is about as ignorant as one can get. What I don't understand is their ongoing use of this design. Until you follow the money and find the answer. Keystone, I dare you to chime in and shed some insight to this matter.
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Old 11-19-2021, 08:17 AM   #17
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Originally Posted by Montana Man View Post
It appears that most of this cracking is due to keystone's lack of basic engineering. I wouldn't blame lippert for this one. Designing a square cornered opening near a flexing point is about as ignorant as one can get. What I don't understand is their ongoing use of this design. Until you follow the money and find the answer. Keystone, I dare you to chime in and shed some insight to this matter.
While I don't blame Lippert either, I'm not for sure how much of it is Keystone's "fault" either.

The reason that I say that is that we as customers like these floorplans. While you can argue that customers don't have any responsibility in the design, once we start buying floorplans that have features like the front slides, it become harder for the manufacturers to design around it. If they do NOT offer those floorplans, they lose sales.

At the end of the day, one thing that I think that we can 100% agree on is that it is NOT a good design to put a SQUARE hole in the middle of a high stress area.

My wife and I are in the market for a new unit, probably SOB. I've watched quite a few videos on different builds, and frame designs, and one thing that I don't think is a great design either is the drop frame. Again, we as customers all LOVE our drop frames, and it's what we've demanded from the manufacturers. That "drop" design makes the lever arm on that problematic square hole front slide 10-12" longer, which makes the stress even greater.

So, as long as we as customers "demand" this stuff, the manufacturers are in a tough spot, IMHO...
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Old 11-19-2021, 08:33 AM   #18
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Montana Man said - It appears that most of this cracking is due to keystone's lack of basic engineering. I wouldn't blame lippert for this one. Designing a square cornered opening near a flexing point is about as ignorant as one can get. What I don't understand is their ongoing use of this design. Until you follow the money and find the answer. Keystone, I dare you to chime in and shed some insight to this matter.

I agree. Look at my illustration below. Units that have a slide-out located forward where my red lines show have very little structure under them at the flex point (pink area). The slide in my unit is located much farther back and is surrounded by a bit more "meat" in the structure. This is pure speculation on my part. I'm sure there are ways they could engineer the pink flex point to provide more rigidity and strength...but apparently they have not followed that path.
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Old 11-20-2021, 02:13 PM   #19
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I've posted on this before. Here's what I did to strengthen the front slide:

https://www.montanaowners.com/forums...10&postcount=2

The picture below is the top of the vertical angle spline I added that goes from the bracket that bolts to the frame all the way up the side. I had to cut one leg down to clear some of the interior trim when the slide is out.

It's been a 1.5 years and has about 3000 miles since I repaired. No movement at all. I have the Reese Goosebox which adds a little more movement and I also double tow my jet skis.
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Old 11-20-2021, 05:14 PM   #20
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so simPle but so diFficult

Quote:
Originally Posted by CADman_KS View Post
While I don't blame Lippert either, I'm not for sure how much of it is Keystone's "fault" either.

The reason that I say that is that we as customers like these floorplans. While you can argue that customers don't have any responsibility in the design, once we start buying floorplans that have features like the front slides, it become harder for the manufacturers to design around it. If they do NOT offer those floorplans, they lose sales.

At the end of the day, one thing that I think that we can 100% agree on is that it is NOT a good design to put a SQUARE hole in the middle of a high stress area.

My wife and I are in the market for a new unit, probably SOB. I've watched quite a few videos on different builds, and frame designs, and one thing that I don't think is a great design either is the drop frame. Again, we as customers all LOVE our drop frames, and it's what we've demanded from the manufacturers. That "drop" design makes the lever arm on that problematic square hole front slide 10-12" longer, which makes the stress even greater.

So, as long as we as customers "demand" this stuff, the manufacturers are in a tough spot, IMHO...
Nah.... just beef up the areas of concern. I all works sitting still but when it starts to move it falls apart. Have you ever seen a car carrier going down the road full of cars, the frame moves up and down do you think they have not identified the weak points in the frame and strengthened those areas early on in the original design. . I guaranty the people that make their living hauling cars would not buy the brand trailer that breaks from nothing more than moving down the road. If I were Lippert I would insist that they be allowed corrected this issue as it gives Lippert a bad name not Keystone.
Some day this will come to roost and the powers that be will fix it but not until people stop putting up with it and quit buying the junk. Yeh, like that`s going to happen.
My camper costs now some where around $100,000 dollars and $ 300.00 dollars worth of metal and labor isn`t worth it correcting this? I`ll pay $100,300.00 any day, ask anyone that this has happened to. Like me......
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