What's wrong with TrailManor?

[scrubjaysnest]

We went from a pop-up, 25 feet open to a TM. For us nothing changed, beds, refrig,(well a little larger), battery duration while boondocking.
Pros: setup breakdown is a little quicker.
toilet beats a five gallon bucket and a shovel
Cons: poor quality workmen ship. We have owned 3 pop-ups, two TT and one class C motor home NONE had the workmen ship problems of the TM

That said would I buy another TM you bet without a second thought.

Originally Posted by scrubjaysnest

We went from a pop-up, 25 feet open to a TM. For us nothing changed, beds, refrig,(well a little larger), battery duration while boondocking.
Pros: setup breakdown is a little quicker.
toilet beats a five gallon bucket and a shovel
Cons: poor quality workmen ship. We have owned 3 pop-ups, two TT and one class C motor home NONE had the workmen ship problems of the TM

That said would I buy another TM you bet without a second thought.

What are/were some of the specific problems with the workmanship?

[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by BamaFlum

What are/were some of the specific problems with the workmanship?

So far I lost my break lights and left turn signal due to improper crimps of the bullet connectors under the refrig.
Propane line against the Refrig flue, even with insulation it gets quite warm
Power tongue jack doesn't always work, fuse lead to power lead twisted with wire nut so corrision (sp) formed.
I am in the process of redoing all splices. My method is non-insulated butt connector. Tin wires(solder), crimp butt splice then solder. use heat shrink over the butt connector. Two thoughts here. If the splice is exposed to the weather, seal with silicon and after it sets up then use the heat shrink.
Second Make sure your crimper is made for your butt splices or you may not get a good crimp.
Where wire size is marginal for the current pulled the next larger gauge may be needed. #4 gauge from the converter to battery and battery to the TV is the minimum size I would suggest.
Use ring lugs crimped and soldered at the battery.

Last item: I have found no one else with this problem on the forums with this problem: The lights in the vents on our '11 2720SL rubbed the rear shell when closed. They were held to the vent screen with a piece of plastic, I replaced this with a u bracket made with scrape one inch aluminum flat stock and inch and 1/4 aluminum angle. Pop riveted the two pieces then pop riveted the u bracket to the metal support bracket in the vent that has the crank handle. This pulled the lights further into the vent and keeps them from moving up and down.

Having just rejoined the group here I too have some issues with workmanship and service. Quality of components vary from very good to cheap.

One of the problems I keep running into are the large number of things using staples. Granted most of these are the brad type and are used where brads might be used, they have the pesky habit of vibrating loose, especially on the wardrobe. The good news is that the adhesive use is not that strong so very small fasteners can be used to replace the staples.

Since I have the buffet table in my 3326 I have discovered that the wall near the door really needs strengthening. It likes to back away from the bench and if you do not detect this problem quickly you will need to remove the bench and try to figure out how to fix the wall so that the screws will hold. There really needs to be a metal bracket to give the wall the extra strength it needs to bond with the door side bench.

The table itself is rather ricketity. It is only secured with velcro and wobbles quite a bit. It needs a catch on the bottom of the table to stabilize the table.

Why the ac even has heater strips is an enigma to me. I think you could probably run them on a hot day not raise the temperature in the trailer by one degree. It does serve as a decent dummy load for the genset!

The bathroom is pretty darn good. It delivers excellent hot water. The toilet is OK though some of the new toilet products leaves the water brown instead of a pleasant blue. I need to pull the toilet out and work on it, but it is almost 5 years old and has been used a lot. I wish it had better seals and its own vent.

Manufacturer service & customer service.
Trailmanor service is sporatically mediocre. When I first bought the trailer I was amazed at their speed at delivering me a part. I was impressed.

Now they do not deliver promised parts. After trying for 3 months to get the glide for the king bed and being promised it would be delivered, I have decided to just fix the old one as best I can. TM also outsources the bathroom walls. When the mirror came loose we could not get any wallpaper to replace the damaged wallpaper from TM.

I would also like to have the lifts adjusted, but it seems there are very few places that might be able to do this short of the factory. I am not interested in doing it myself. I would much rather have someone who knows how to do this right.

The refer seems somewhat lame. On warm days the interior only cools down to about 50 degrees and once the sun goes down it freeze the eggs.

My feeling is that the 3126 is probably TM's best in the folddown trailers. The 3326 is nice, but I think the frames flexes too much.

Still the thing to remember is that in this economy/deficit enviroment the TMs have significant advantages over many other trailers due to the likely prospect of $100/bbl oil during the next calendar year. Unlike the last time this happened you won't be able to force oil prices down due to a drop in demand (demand is still low). TMs may still be able to hit the road where otjher peoples toy haulers & 5th wheels may be stuch at home.

[ThePair]

The heater in the AC works well, enough for us that we don't drag along a separate unit. We don't do winter camping, but for spring in the upper midwest, it gets chilly and the AC heater keeps us warm without firing up the furnace (never been used.)

[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by ng2951

The refer seems somewhat lame. On warm days the interior only cools down to about 50 degrees and once the sun goes down it freeze the eggs.

First welcome to the group.
We have the Carrier with heat strip, we haven't used this one yet but in our pop-up, same unit only ten years old, it worked great.

If you have the Norcold 3 way refrig the flue needs cleaning annually or you may get the conditions you report. We did on our smaller version in the pop-up. Haven't had the new one long enough to say. The Norcold manual goes over some of your symptoms. It will also tend to freeze when ambient air temps start dropping below 40 deg F. That has been our experience and that is also in the manual.


Hope this is of some help

[Mr. Adventure]

Remember that the refrigerator control works completely differently on gas than it does on electricity (on electricity it is a thermostat, on gas it just cranks continuously in proportion to the position of the dial) (yes, it's been pointed out that it seems unusual, but Norcold makes the refrigerator, not TrailManor, so I suppose we should be asking them).

Heaters
We've always used 2 small electric heaters in all of our RV's. It saves propane, allows more uniform heat distribution (it's a 2 zone system!), and is quieter than the AC fan.

I guess folks that have had problems make the point of quality consistancy. I bought a 2009.5, 2720 and the only problem I have had (several trips and 2 years later) is a faulty hot water heater element that came cracked-nearly broken in half- from the factory. Otherwise I am very pleased. While I can't speak to the issue of quality over time, thus far seems like a well built trailer that if maintained, should last for a long time.

[T and C]

Folks,

A while back I ran my front, driver's side, hold down latch into a sort of stump. It bent the lower part and pulled out or broke off the lag bolts that hold the strap that holds the latch pin in place.

I ordered parts from TM, which arrived in a week or so. The other day I went out to do the repair work. When I took the strap off I discovered that the factory had drilled the front two holes, then drilled the back two holes about 1/4 inch too close to the front ones. Then after the guy saw what he had done, he drilled two mores holes in the correct place, where the holes in the front shell match the holes the bolts go through in the strap.

No harm done on the factory installation. I would never have noticed it if I had not hit that stump. What it looks like is that someone goofed and then covered it up, not mentioning the problem to anyone.

That's why I said that the QC department at TM is probably not much more than the foreman watching the workers. They could use a QC checklist before a unit goes out the door.

Tom

[T and C]

BTW, when you talk to "Eddie in parts" he refers to the sides of the TM as the "doorside" and the "offside", not the driver's side.

Tom