30BH Reflection - New Purchase - In for Warranty Work

[mwilliford]

Greetings,

This post is to describe my experience with Grand Designs as a new owner. Overall, I'm still happy with my 30BH, and remain happy with our decision to purchase the 5th wheel.

- Purchased the 30BH from Happy Daze in Livermore, CA about 3 weeks ago.
- Went on 2 trips, 4 nights each.
- Had a great time, family had a great time, and the 5th wheel worked well enough that we consider our first 2 trips an overall success.

To set expectations for new owners and newbies like myself, here is the list of issues I hit:
- Bathroom door does not close and latch when jacks are down (likely the strike plate needs to be moved a bit), no big deal honestly.
- The interior fridge light does not work when you open the door, no big deal.
- When the rear gray water tank is 3/4 full, i see a few drops of water coming from the underbelly near the exit pipe. This needs to be investigated and fixed.
- The main slide broke on the 2nd trip. We spent the entire 4 nights with the main slide-out stuck in the 'in' position. This is a major problem, and likely should not have happened.

Since it is major, I'll explain a little more about the main slide failure:

When we arrived at the campground, I attempted to operate the main slide. The motor made a sound like you would expect, but no movement. We investigated, and found that the emergency operation shaft was spinning, but on the slide-side nothing was happing. I also noticed that the emergency operation shaft was loose, and i could move it in-out-up-down with my hand (hmm). I also noticed a bulge in the underbelly, hmm. So, after using the campground wifi to review lippert electric slide diagrams, I had figured out that possibly the entire motor assembly and gearbox has fallen off. We decided to stay the 4 nights anyways, as we still had access to enough of our storage and kitchen to live just fine. I then drank a beer

The next day, I was able to get in touch with Happy Daze on Saturday, they were very sympathetic, scheduled a maintenance appointment (dropped it off today), agreed with my theory of what might be wrong, confirmed that I could still drive home with the unit in this condition (slide should not come out while on the road), and also agreed with my plan to use shims to support the inside floor edge of the slide so that the family could sit in the chairs and dinette table with the slide in the 'in' position. We had previously been instructed not to put weight on the slide when it is in the 'in' position during the PDI, as the floor edge is unsupported in that position.

Grand Designs also responded to my phone message on Monday morning, put me in touch with the regional manager, and told me that if anything does not go smoothly, to contact them for escalation. They did exactly what they should have done, no complaints.

I don't know if the number of issues I hit is above or below average, but I currently feel like I'm receiving the support that I expect. So, even with these issues, I don't regret the purchase. I was given the advice to expect a few issues in a new RV, and so I already had the mindset that I'd have a Warranty appt at some point. So, for now, we are waiting for Happy Daze to let us know when the repairs will be complete. We are looking forward to getting it back and scheduling our next 4 night trip. The service manager told me that they like dealing with Grand Designs, because they are willing to pay the dealer to perform the warranty work without too much hassle. So, this enables them to give good service to me. He said with many other manufacturers, it is not always the case.

I'll update the thread when I have root cause, in case someone else experiences such a problem. If the slide had been stuck in the 'out' position, without the ability to use the emergency shaft to retract, this would obviously be a much worse situation for me. I am lucky that it broke in the 'in' position.

Marcus

[LCBoyer]

Hey Marcus! I'm real sorry to hear that! I hope Happy Daze gets all the kinks worked out for you.

[Joeyp59]

Marcus, Congratulations on your new rig. Good move taking a couple of short trips right away to shake it down. Strange about the slide...I admit that it is so surprising to hear from owners about the odd things that break or don't work with a new unit. Hopefully, you'll get good service. If you crawled under your unit there is usually an place where you can access and see the slide motor and particularly where the rod for manually operating the slide mates with the motor. On my previous fifth wheel I broke the manual operation rod and had to make and install a replacement. Good luck with your repairs and hope you are back on the road quickly.

[mwilliford]

Thanks, I see. The dealer also told me that they would likely cut an area where the motor mates with the bracket for the repair, and explained that it is not typical to remove the entire underbelly in such a situation. He also said there is some special tape they use to put back the patch. Being new to working on RV's, and under Warranty, I resisted the temptation to work on it right there in the campsite. Normally, I'd dive right in myself . My hope is that it is something simple like bolts not being torqued down and coming loose.

We laughed a bit at the situation, with the image of how much luxury we still had compared to a tent. We suddenly realized that having a floor plan that allows you to access and use the kitchen in this situation is something to consider when purchasing.

[perfpix]

I'd much prefer to fix stuff myself rather than deal with having to get the trailer to the dealer for warranty work.

We had the same problem with the bathroom door on our 30BH. I had to move the strike plate about 1/8 inch. We had a few other small problems that I fixed myself. However, I would never attempt to mess with the slide mechanism problem like you have unless I found a you tube video on how to fix a known or common problem.

My last camper was a Jayco travel trailer and the electric tongue jack lasted only 1 camping trip. The dealer just dropped shipped me a new one and I replaced it myself. Took me about 30 minutes vs. a 2 hr round trip and a several hour wait at the dealer.

Best of luck getting yours fixed. We just lover our 30BH!

John

[caguth333]

I have not had those problems and my local service department has taken care of the minor issues and completed customized requests. My biggest problem is the oven is always 50 degrees off. Stilll working on that one!

[J&G garage]

I had a similar problem with the bathroom door. I found the door knob was loose in the hole in the door. There was enough slop in the hole that the knob dropped down throwing the latch out of alignment. The knob did not appear loose until I shook it up and down. So give the knob a shake and see it it's loose.

[mwilliford]

Status Update:

- The fridge light and bathroom door issue, not really worth discussing, super minor. The dealer is fixing.

- The main slide-out is fixed. The issue was due to a setscrew coming loose, allowing the motor and main shaft to separate. I didn't get a picture, so I don't know exactly what it looked like, this is what the dealer told me over the phone. They said they put it back with thread-locker, so it should not come loose again. I'm glad it was not anything major, and the root-cause will likely not happen again.

- The leak near the aft gray tank has been reproduced (took some time for the water to start dripping), they are dropping the belly tomorrow to isolate the source of the leak. I'm glad they believed me, and took the time to reproduce it. I'm glad it was not dismissed to my imagination or condensation.

It looks like the dealership is doing exactly what they should, and so far they are easy to work with.

Marcus

Marcus

[terryannbautz]

Marcus: I realize it has been some time since your issues, but can you tell me what they found with the gray tank leak? We are having a similar issue, however we cannot figure out what's going on. I posted a topic on it about a month ago, and thought we had figured out the problem. However, it is still a problem we can't quite figure out. Short story, we had water in our underbelly, RV tech came out and cut flaps in it and drained it, thought maybe one of our tanks has a leak in it. We tested all the tanks by adding 30 gallons of water, each one separately, and no leak. We figured then that we just must have overflowed the kitchen sink one time and the water went into the underbelly...but we just arrived at another campsite, and a few days later, all of a sudden fluid came gushing out of the flap area when the RV tech cut it. At this time we had the two gray tanks and the black tank valve closed and they may have been about half full. We are now keeping the gray tanks open.

I think we may have a different problem than you but would like to hear what they found on yours. Thank you

[WhittleBurner]

Marcus: I realize it has been some time since your issues, but can you tell me what they found with the gray tank leak? We are having a similar issue, however we cannot figure out what's going on. I posted a topic on it about a month ago, and thought we had figured out the problem. However, it is still a problem we can't quite figure out. Short story, we had water in our underbelly, RV tech came out and cut flaps in it and drained it, thought maybe one of our tanks has a leak in it. We tested all the tanks by adding 30 gallons of water, each one separately, and no leak. We figured then that we just must have overflowed the kitchen sink one time and the water went into the underbelly...but we just arrived at another campsite, and a few days later, all of a sudden fluid came gushing out of the flap area when the RV tech cut it. At this time we had the two gray tanks and the black tank valve closed and they may have been about half full. We are now keeping the gray tanks open.

I think we may have a different problem than you but would like to hear what they found on yours. Thank you

Terryann , A little forum tip, when you are directing a question at a particular members post use the reply with quote button on the lower right of the post box and that person will get an email alerting them they have been quoted so they can look and possibly reply.

As for you leak it is more often than not a faulty seal in one of the gray dump valves. You or a Tech will have to remove the coroplast to know for sure.

This member hasn't logged in for 2 years so a reply from them may not ever happen either way