Suspension Woes

[Roll With The Changes]

Yesterday was suspension maintenance day; you know, pull a couple bolts, clean them up, a lil' grease, good to go. Wellll....

The wet bolts were installed at Lippert with no grease, so it turned into a replace everything job. I just don't understand. This RV that someone paid $80k to $100k for three years ago has a completely worn out suspension with no more than 10k miles on it. There is just no excuse for a manufacturer to assemble their own product incorrectly. We have to stop accepting this as normal or we will continue to pay way too much for poor quality. Rant over. For now...

Lippert and all the rest.... Are you listening?

[Wicked ace]

I certainly hope they are listening. I have had issues too. The first time after four months and 3000 miles owning it I found there was no grease in the bolts from the factory. After a go-around on warranty coverage I pointed out the clause on workmanship to the Customer Service rep. GD paid labor to take care of four bolts that didn't take grease.
Before I left in February I greased the wet bolts for the second time since I bought it last April. This time there were six I couldn't get. The original four and two others. Also this time I went to Dexter for help. They shipped 8 new wet bolts to my home to replace the ones I mentioned with two spares. They also gave a recommendation of a local trailer vendor that I never thought of for RV work, Cargo Trailer Sales. Not only was that shop much closer, like 10 minuets away, they were good at what they did, no nonsense. In at 8:30AM and a phone call to come get it at 2:00PM. It was a good thing Dexter sent two spare bolts. The shop went and took each out to clean and inspect, then replacing 8 total that were worn.
I asked and Dexter customer Service has agreed to cover labor charges for the work when they are back from the Virus shutdown.
I'm glad things were fixed and I will be made whole but if the investment in training and QC that GD is so fond of promoting were done, none of the trouble or consternation would have happened. I also would have been a much happier customer.

[powerscol]

Yesterday was suspension maintenance day; you know, pull a couple bolts, clean them up, a lil' grease, good to go. Wellll....

The wet bolts were installed at Lippert with no grease, so it turned into a replace everything job. I just don't understand. This RV that someone paid $80k to $100k for three years ago has a completely worn out suspension with no more than 10k miles on it. There is just no excuse for a manufacturer to assemble their own product incorrectly. We have to stop accepting this as normal or we will continue to pay way too much for poor quality. Rant over. For now...

Lippert and all the rest.... Are you listening?

GD and Lippert do not monitor this forum anymore. Best to email your thoughts directly to them, or give then a call. I also found my wet bolts dry. I also learned all grease guns are not the same. I too had issue greasing until I got a good 12,000 psi gun. Greasing is much easier now. If you cant get grease in, spin the bolt 1/4 turn and try again.

[Roll With The Changes]

GD and Lippert do not monitor this forum anymore. Best to email your thoughts directly to them, or give then a call.

I'm not expecting a response from them. I'm just venting here because I know many here share my frustrations. I'm just tired of having to fix things that weren't done right the first time.

I also know that if we keep buying these products they have no incentive to change anything. Maybe trying to rally the troops? I don't know what the answer is, but... Ugh!

[FT4NOW]

RVs and boats are in the same category. Either be handy or have a lot of money to pay someone that is. It's a shame that this is "accepted", but unless everyone bands together and stops purchasing RVs nothing will change. Maybe some non-domestic company will start building RVs and create some competition similar to what happened with the auto industry (I've heard anyway....before my time) which will drive some standards in the Indiana RV district.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[SGT ROC]

What bothers me more than anything is the seeming inconsistency. Actually it doesn't seem inconsistent - it is! Knock on wood - no issues with my rig yet. Others have had multitudes of issues. Either the labor force moves a lot, or supervision is not driving the quality. It isn't just management at the top levels, although it does start there. Middle management has a huge role in it (I was there in middle management in different roles for 40 years). Unless the workforce is changing a lot, and it could be, then there are other factors. Not removing substandard workers from the job is big. Saw it my whole career. People not being held accountable. I'm not talking about being a total d#*K, but you have to get peoples attention. Let them know what is and is not acceptable. Bend the rules to help them when you can, but let them know there are limits, and they need to perform. It really has nothing to do with cheap parts. Every manufacturer uses them. It has everything to do with the installation/build. That's a person or persons - no robots to blame here.

[WhittleBurner]

GD and Lippert do not monitor this forum anymore. Best to email your thoughts directly to them, or give then a call. I also found my wet bolts dry. I also learned all grease guns are not the same. I too had issue greasing until I got a good 12,000 psi gun. Greasing is much easier now. If you cant get grease in, spin the bolt 1/4 turn and try again.

The pitiful part is that we were making the same complaints about various suspension components back when they GD was participating. The same issues remain since 2014. It made no difference then, likely will make less now.

[Roll With The Changes]

Good stuff here. Maybe not solutions, but at least intelligent conversation.

@FT4NOW
I suppose I should consider myself lucky to be one of the handy ones. I'm thinking of setting myself up as a mobile RV handyman to help subsidize full time RV living. It's not the most glamorous, but it might be a way to make a living.

@SGT ROC
You have some good points Sarge, but I am of the school that the captain is responsible for everything that happens on the ship. Mid level management is accountable to, but also gets its guidance from upper management. As you know, sh&t rolls downhill, so if you have it at the top it will be at the bottom.

@WhittleBurner
That really is the heart of the matter. "They didn't care then, so why should they care now?" The really sad part is that the RV and apparently the boat industries are just more examples of... 🤐

Rally the troops. We want better! With everything!

[lastrideout]

Where are these "wet bolts" located? Pics?

EDIT: I found a youtube video that answered my question. I'll do this maintenance on my 31MB every 3 months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=397y3vC19Qk

[Steven@147]

We have all been there, really good discussion on this topic multiple times here on the forum but it doesn't make it any less frustrating that the manufacturers cant get it right, don't care to get it right and probably don't even care its an issue.

I've been there with both of our RVs, first with our Imagine 2950RL that did not have wet bolts at all ,with nylon bushings that ware out after 3000 miles. Its just being cheap on the lower end GD RVs. Installed MorRyde wet bolts and bronze bushings on that unit along with the HD shackles.

When we got our Solitude I was happy they used wet bolts and bronze bushings on the suspension but was disillusioned again when I found they did not install wet bolts on the spring end hangers, again that is just being cheap. When greasing the wet bolts that were there, yup I found a lot of the wet bolts would not take grease with weight on the suspension. This is because they failed to install the wet bolts properly, clocking the grease hole on the wet bolt to 3 or 9 oclock. This is just being uneducated, lazy, stupid or don't care at the factory.
So others reading this will understand, if the wet bolts are installed with the grease hole at say close to 12 or 6 oclock, the matching suspension component with weight on the RV puts so much pressure on the bolt it closes off the grease hole (there is only one grease hole in the wet bolt shank) so no grease will flow through the bolt (without high pressure or weight off the suspension) and onto the bronze bushing.
Its not advisable to just loosen the nut and try and turn the original wet bolt to get it to take grease unless, you press the bolt out @ 1/4 inch to disengage the knurled end of the bolt next to the head from the hanger or assembly. Then turn the bolt, and press it back into the hanger or assembly. The whole idea of the knurled end of the bolt is to capture the bolt in the hanger or assembly to keep it from turning and closing off the grease hole. You should also be aware the nuts on the wet bolts are single use only once properly torqued from 40-50 foot pounds. The nuts also tighten up against the shoulder of the wet bolt and not necessarily up against the suspension hangers or components. If you reuse the nuts they could loosen up on you.

So, anyway I bought a new MorRyde wet bolt kit (along with HD shackles) and did the job correctly on our Solitude. Why I bought a whole new kit was because I knew that probably a lot of the wet bolts never got greased properly when assembled and the original bronze bushings were probably wore down, which some were.
Why I used a MorRyde kit is because the grease zerks are screwed into the head of the wet bolt. Cheaper wet bolts like from e-trailer, have the grease zerks loosely pressed into the head of the wet bolt and some reported the zerk fitting pulling out and sticking in the end of the grease gun.

The manufacturers will never do the assembly right. Even if they trained the assembly workers to do it right, they just don't care enough. Slap it together and move it along. Really there is no incentive to do it right because they know that most people are oblivious to the issue. The people that are aware of the issue probably will not balk at purchase just because of this, and they know it. Its just one of those small issues that they don't care about. They will just keep cranking out poorly assembled units and its left up to the owners and dealers to deal with it.