Author: lostagain
Subject: shower walls bubbling, ripped caulking
Posted: 03 Jun 2017 at 8:51am
From the little experience I've had with travel trailers, none of them seem to be very well built. They necessarily use light and flimsy materials which always leads to things falling apart. But weight is their bane and if they used stronger stuff, the trailer would be much more costly and/or heavier. As for electrical and plumbing quality, there is no excuse for lousy workmanship except that they are pushing for fast assembly and that inherently leads to errors. I doubt any of the manufacturers pay very well, so pride of workmanship is also wanting.
Subject: shower walls bubbling, ripped caulking
Posted: 03 Jun 2017 at 8:51am
From the little experience I've had with travel trailers, none of them seem to be very well built. They necessarily use light and flimsy materials which always leads to things falling apart. But weight is their bane and if they used stronger stuff, the trailer would be much more costly and/or heavier. As for electrical and plumbing quality, there is no excuse for lousy workmanship except that they are pushing for fast assembly and that inherently leads to errors. I doubt any of the manufacturers pay very well, so pride of workmanship is also wanting.
The wiring quality reminds me of cars built in Detroit before the Japanese manufacturers started competing in the US. They get away with it because they all do it and no one seems to care. If a company followed a Japanese car model for electric components (and plumbing too), we'd probably see neatly tucked wiring harnesses and such instead of the rats' nests that are commonly found. But the wiring harnesses are costly to manufacture in a low volume environment, so they're no likely to use them because it will push up their price points.
The aluminum frame is a good trend and much stronger than the old stick, glue and staple systems still found on many TT's. Now they need to figure out how to cheaply and efficiently build the cross framing in aluminum.
Bottom line, TT's will always be a little flimsy and prone to breakage.