Broken weld and great customer service

[WhittleBurner]

When we parked here in FL Gary noticed the tires were close together on the drivers side as we were setting up. He thought the equa flex had flipped. Being parked for several months he didn't feel rushed to look at it .
We finally got to looking at it , Gary jacked it up to flip the equaflex and we found the spring hanger seperated from the trailer . To us this looks like a weld failure not a break. My phone pic isn't to good but it shows the seperation.
It appears to have just seperated showing rust under that whole area. We emailed GD service and got a response from Scott and they reached out and contacted Lippert who after a series of emails and pictures is sending a field tech out to repair the suspension!!


FastForward to today... (this all transpired in 2 weeks !)

The tech was here today (at our site) and replaced the hanger with a new one and checked the other hangers. He said it likely came completely off as we backed into our spot that the tail would have been wagging on the freeway and we'd of noticed it.
He also confirmed a bad weld also showed and told us it has been holing on by a small spot for a long time.
We were certainly lucky to have made it this far without loosing it on the road.


If any of you have to have Lippert service come to you in the Tampa area if they let you, request Mel. He is not only a very nice guy but knowledgeable on all the components and knew what he was doing. Mel measured in every possible direction more than once to get the placement correct. He didn't just weld the old bracket on (that went back to Lippert so the weld could be examined) he used a new one . For a 5 minute weld he spent 4 hours cleaning measuring and double checking himself. When done he even painted it.
Also fixed some pinched wires for the brakes. When we pull out on the 30th we can do so feeling pretty good about not losing our axle.


SO once again A BIG shout out for both Grand Design and especially Lippert for stepping up and fixing a bad weld on a 2014Reflection.

[TucsonJim]

But, but, but it's out of warranty. GDRV comes through again.

Jim

[Agpopp]

Wow! That is service right theren and I'm glad you weren't rolling because that could have gotten pretty hairy for sure. Weld looks too cold from the factory, or failure to prep and grind correctly. I'm sure that's one of many defective welds that hopefully make it through their lives without coming apart.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Cate&Rob]

Marcy & Gary - A big problem with a great solution. Have a safe drive home!

Rob

[WhittleBurner]

But, but, but it's out of warranty. GDRV comes through again.

Jim

can you believe it

[WhittleBurner]

We have nothing but great thing to say about this whole experience. At first we were trying to find a mobile welder as well as a call into GD. They came through fairly fast and first. Left a voice mail on a Fri afternoon and had a call back on Monday.

One thing to note is Mel gave a bit of advice if this ever happens on the road, weld or broken hanger. Take a small come along and a block of wood. Attach to a crossmember above the coroplast and the spring. Put the wood between the spring (size the wood to correct height ) and frame , cinch it up tight as you can and that should get you off the freeway or even to your site if it isn't to far away.

[Cate&Rob]

I’m reminded of the video we discussed on this forum quite a while ago. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp5iRVPwYZg. The LCI video is about their EquaFlex system, but the really interesting (concerning?) part is watching the flex of the hanger. It’s a wonder these things don’t fail more often than they do.

Rob

[JCZhome]

A few cases of bad welds in the past couple of weeks on the fb group. They've taken two Momentums back to the factory and have taken the skins off of both sides of one, up around the 5th wheel hitch on the other.

[offtohavasu]

First: Great response by both teams, so I wanted to address that first.

Second: The welds. This seems to be an ongoing issue with Lippert. My Uncle has SOB 5th wheel that's about 5 years old. They're were coming back to So Cal from Montana and were about 75 miles from home and he noticed something wasn't tracking right with his trailer. Looked underneath and everything looked ok so he continued home. He took it to the dealer and 90% of the cross bracing welds and snapped. He being a rodbuster knows how welds should look and he said everything to the frame was a surface weld and there was no penetration to the frame. Insurance was going to total it. He was upset because he'd be upside down at that point. I told him call LCI and get them in the loop immediately. LCI told him to get it to their facility in Ontario. They agreed there was a problem BUT was off warranty. They worked something out with insurance and insurance agreed to pay LCI for the repair. The replaced all cross bracing and my Uncle inspected the welds and were to his satisfaction. So the question is, what is going on with their welding?

[TucsonJim]

First: Great response by both teams, so I wanted to address that first.

Second: The welds. This seems to be an ongoing issue with Lippert. My Uncle has SOB 5th wheel that's about 5 years old. They're were coming back to So Cal from Montana and were about 75 miles from home and he noticed something wasn't tracking right with his trailer. Looked underneath and everything looked ok so he continued home. He took it to the dealer and 90% of the cross bracing welds and snapped. He being a rodbuster knows how welds should look and he said everything to the frame was a surface weld and there was no penetration to the frame. Insurance was going to total it. He was upset because he'd be upside down at that point. I told him call LCI and get them in the loop immediately. LCI told him to get it to their facility in Ontario. They agreed there was a problem BUT was off warranty. They worked something out with insurance and insurance agreed to pay LCI for the repair. The replaced all cross bracing and my Uncle inspected the welds and were to his satisfaction. So the question is, what is going on with their welding?

Curtis - I've been following another user on the FB page. He apparently has a major frame failure due to a weld behind one of the walls. The aluminum welds are now breaking and the fiberglass has cracked the length of the wall. He just got it to the GDRV shop in Middlebury last night. He's thinking that the work might be so extensive to fix it that they may have to total it too.