Cyberdave

Believe ya'll are missing an important fact. Jack made a you tube video on his chassis and running gear on his latest New Horizon. He goes in detail showing the changes in the chassis to accommodate his design. Point is the manufacturer cannot build his unit without designing his chassis first. Lippert would not know without input from manufacturer about how heavy steel needs to be or any bracing or placement of bays, etc.

Glenn, that is exactly what I was saying when I contacted Heartland.

Kirk: I was referring to Monaco's Motorhomes. In 2002 I toured the factory and asked that question. No, there were no engineers on staff. I was told they outsource. Other MH manufacturers buy their chassis from Freightliner who do all the engineering. BUT most RV mfrs. do have some journeyman electricians in order to comply with RVIA codes. What makes you think that an engineer is needed in a trailer factory. If the chassis is built elsewhere it should be engineered to do the job. The RV mfr. is simply bolting down a floor and installing walls and roof. If you have ever seen an RV in an accident it looks like it was made from toothpicks. They literally fall apart. There are exceptions: Both Marathon and Country Coach did have engineers. AS did Winnie. I don't think Tiffin does.

You want us to believe there are no engineers?? I thought I just put that to bed in post 31. No engineers for structure? Design?

You know, I was thinking of this and thought why not ask? So, I posted the Qs in the Heartland Landmark forum and got this answer from Heartland.

Great question - we have several engineers at heartland and a director of engineering. LCI also has several engineers on staff and reviews our drawings as the come in for structural integrity.

Landmark and Bighorn share the same engineer and we have an engineer for the Big Country and Elk Ridge line. These are the ones I know because I deal with these folks every day. I also know Sundance and Gateway have the same engineer. All of these folks are employees of Heartland and have offices in each plant. I'm sure the other brands are the same - I just have never been to their factories.

I have included Andy from Lippert on this email chain who can tell you what they have for engineers in-house at LCI.

Hope this helps

Glen West: I do not know why you continue to support Lippert. They make a lot of very bad products but the RV mfrs. love them as everything they make is low priced. Most ( maybe all) 5th wheel mfrs. do not have structural engineers on staff. Some would not have ANY engineers on staff. The whole idea of not building the frames in house is so that someone else can do the engineering. In this case it is Lippert who DO have engineers. But this is not like building something at Boeing. 5th wheel frames have been around for over 40 years and until lately there were no frame problems. The Lippert slides are almost as bad as the frames. Lippert means "Junk" in the Swahili language. AS for the welders in the factories: RV factories have never had $35 an hour welders and never will. But there are all kinds of good welders who work for RV mfr. wages in the Indiana area. The auto industry also "farms" out a lot of their production to others such as Magna. The difference is that Magna builds to a proper spec.!

Are you sure there are no engineers on staff at the manufacturers?? Who designs the frames? Who determine the frames specs? Do you think Lippert comes over and designs the frame? I am not defending Lippert at all. The manufacturer bears the majority of the blame for accepting poor welding and not have any type in incoming QA program. Lippert has the responsibility to produce the product made to spec and with acceptable welding.

You can advocate customers driving change at Lippert but IMHO the only thing that will increase quality is by their customers demanding it or by competition.

This thread makes me even happier with our Arctic fox. The frames are built on site at the LaGrande,OR factory. They are very heavy duty accounting for the higher weight

trailers. I have not seen a frame complaint on the Northwood owners site afnash.com . I try to avoid Lippert manufactured parts any time I can.

 

The factory gives tours every day at 10:00 AM. Take a look when considering your next rig.

Totally agreed. Toured the factory a couple years ago and was impressed to say the least. The QA program was the best one of all the three other factories we toured. I like how if an owner had a problem in the electrical system for example and it was an error in assembly that department lost it's bonuses. The build quality and production is held to a higher standard through QA inspections at the end of each station. Too many errors, that station looses their bonus.

My oldest brother was a QA inspector team leader for MacDonald Douglas / Boeing. Part of his job was to insure his team inspected incoming parts supplied by contractors. If a defective part slipped through, the first person in line was his team. Then the manufacturer.

Some of the blame must go onto the manufacturers. They design, set specifications and accept (I would hope) a prototype. Wouldn't you have someone inspect incoming critical items like the frame? The manufacturers are the ones that could improve Lippert's quality quite easily.

I am trying to figure out how this is going to work for me, because we always get our registration sticker in the mail for Sept for the truck and rv. We do not return to Texas until Dec. And that is when our inspection is due in Dec. So are they going to try and make us come back early or force us to drive around illegally for 4 months.

I guess I will be considering South Dakota now for my registration.

If you don't come back until Dec. why do you think you'll be operating illegally if you are out of state?? The other states could give a rats arse about the sticker.