Lug nuts, mattress and awning

cgoodnight

Senior Member
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Joined
Sep 27, 2013
Messages
169
Location
Amarillo, TX
Thanks to all of the forum who share info. about their trailers.

Lug nuts--checked one of mine after reading about the 2 piece nuts. Replaced mine yesterday with chrome ones a little longer than the original. Also found out that Discount Tire puts the weights on the inside of the wheels like we have.

Mattress--put a foam topper on the original mattress for 1 night and then took the mattress out. Used 1 from our guest bedroom for a month-long trip to Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming. Put is back in the guest room when we returned and purchased a foam one. Tried to give the original mattress to Goodwill (they don't take mattresses)and Habit for Humanity (it had a few tears on the back from the side of our utility trailer so they wouldn't take it either). We cut it up and put in the dumpster. Black Label, pillowtop--totally composed of layers of batting. Cannot imagine a cheaper, sorrier mattress.

Awning--I looked at a lot of trailers and their awnings during the last month. All of the awnings I saw roll up against the side of the trailer and the outer arms completely cover the inside arms. I ordered my 337 last Oct. after looking at a 303 for 10 minutes or so in Oklahoma city. Did not notice that awning. I would not have bought this trailer if I had been aware of the problem with the awning. I did contact GD customer Service and received 10 rivets for the awning. At the same time I ordered some from a source listed on the forum. They came in first and I installed those. Will add the GD rivets also. Don't mind doing that, but that does not fix the basic problem with the awning.
 
What was the specific problem with the awning? Am interested to know if it is the same thing I see on mine.

I have a Reflection 337RLS I took delivery on a month ago.
Had it back to the dealer yesterday for some work on several things.
I mentioned to the salesman/delivery dept when I did my PDI that I thought the awning was not folding up all the way against the side wall. This is the first automatic awning I have had and I just noticed that the outside frame does not fold up all the way over the inside frame against the sidewall. I couldn't get the salesman at PDI interested in checking it out. Yesterday, as I was going over the other issues with the service advisor, I mentioned the awning (even though it was not on my list to be fixed.) He readily agreed that it did not look right. The service techs and shop foreman looked at it and ultimately told me it is working the way it is supposed to. It appears to be securely attached to the sidewall and there is no give & take when it is folded up. It just doesn't look right to me and is different than any other (manual) awning I have looked closely at.
 
I think that what you see is normal for a Solera awning and their awning arm design. I'm not familiar with Carefree or Dometic electric awnings, but I guess that they're different...my Dometic manual awning arms nested together. As long as the outer awning arm on the Solera is parallel with the inner (mounted) arm, it's fully retracted.

The other awning issue that's been posted here is the awning attaching rail separating from the wall at each end and fixing it by replacing the mounting screws with special rivets. GD has been installing the rail with rivets at the ends now in production and supplying the rivets to the dealer or owners to install. If you search 'awning separating' on here, you'll find more info.

Dave
 
The problem with the awning is that because it does not roll tight against the side wall, as you go down the road air catches under the exposed small part of the awning and tries to pull it away from the wall. There are postings on this forum reporting how their awning rails have pulled away from the wall. There is a picture or two showing this. The rivets should help with this.

Long term effects are uncertain. I did look at other Solera awnings this summer on trailers from companies other than Grand Design Reflections. Those awnings were all tight against the trailers.

Robert
 
If you are still not happy, I suggest contacting JD or Ryan at the Grand Design RV Warranty department. They are great guys and should be able to help you more with your issues.
Happy Camping
Aaron
 

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