I am looking at a 2022 Winnebago. But the rear outside back wall has a slight bulge in the the fiber glass from side to side right through the center the house heater cover. Is this a manufacturing error or a de-lamination? If so will Winnebago repair it under the 36 month guarantee?
Which of the over 40 Winnebago models are you speaking of? Winnebago is everything from Travel Trailers, to Vans, to Class Cs and Class A motor coaches as well.
So, we have no idea what you're looking at.
PS: Most Winnebago models have a 12 month warranty. And it's for the first owner only.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
I would guess the odds are good that it is delam and quite possible from the window above not being sealed, letting water go in and down to delaminate or rot the wall.
It may seem like a good price but consider WHY? If the current owner doesn't want to deal with it, do you?
There are way too many ways for warranty work to go off course and delamination is a big one. Just the time involved to get it in and expect to get it done on schedule is enough for me to move on to one of thousands of RV without obvious problems.
Example?
What if you get a "bargain" with the idea that Winnebago may do it for free. But when you are committed and have no other options, what if they discover the problem was not a defect, so not covered.
Maybe the shop you took it for repair says the cause of the problem was a former owner backed up next to a tree that poked a small limb into the seal around the window. The owner did not fix the leak and it rotted the rear wall and that is not a warranty item! But they did cover the hole---after the wall went bad enough to spot!
Every item, being sold cheap and the current owner not fixing it, will have a story of some sort. You will not often get that true story!
I see items on Craigslist all the time that advert., "easy fix"! So if it is such an easy fix, why did they want to sell it instead of fix it?
I do not buy into "easy fix" if I can't see how to fix it myself BEFORE I buy it. I leave it to be their problem! I got enough of my own!
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Richard
Why no RV year, make and floorplan on MY signature as we suggest for others?
I currently DO NOT have one!
Really tough to say without a photo. The rear cap is one piece molded fiberglass and not really prone to delaminating. The sides of the body are where delamination is an issue. And, just to complete the tour around the RV the front cap is, like the rear, a one piece molded fiberglass piece.
Knowing it's the rear cap of a Vista motorhome makes me worry much less about that issue. And, it very well could be a manufacturing error and not delamination at all.
See, 4-years ago I backed my motorhome into a post holding up the roof of the storage space I was renting. This unfortunate accident "popped" the rear cap loose on the sides but not at the top. In essence the cap was then hinged at the top and I could pull the entire cap away from the motorhome to look behind it.
The rear cap is just a body panel for beauty's sake. The RV has a rear wall and the cap simply is glued and screwed over it.
So, I looked on RV trader and I've either found the Vista you're looking at... or others have the same bulge on the back at the heater outlet.
PS. I looked at others on RV Trader... and I think they all have it.
Here's a photo - and I wouldn't worry about this at all.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
Okay, I will go with the above! I was assuming the panel to be what I have had or seen on Winnebago and it was a sandwich of interior on foam and fiberglass over the foam all bonded together.
On my 2015 Vista, this back wall was prone to letting water get in around the rear taillights and then follow the wiring through the sandwich until it got into soaking into the inside layer.
We were lucky that our storage was the next thing inside and that let us "repair" the problem by just adding a layer of thin sheet metal over the damage, rather than having to rebuild the rear wall. We found the bubbles in the rear wall inside the storage before there was true damage, just bubbles in the wallpaper type cover. Since this was a space for bulky items like lawn chairs, grills, and firewood, a metal cover to protect the wall was a natural!
Had it been an interior wall, we would have been in a tough spot!
If this is just a fiberglass panel with no wood support or inner layer of foam to delaminate, that would be a far different question.
Are you able to flex the fiberglass to confirm there is nothing underneath? That would be one way to cross check what we are now saying? If it flexs, it may simply be a small point where the furnace, etc. keeps the rear cap bowed/sticking out and not a real problem.
That sort of bow due to the precise location of the furnace might be a logical things to see on the whole run of RV! If on all of that model, I don't worry, if on one out of dozens, I get more critical!
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Richard
Why no RV year, make and floorplan on MY signature as we suggest for others?
I currently DO NOT have one!
If this is just a fiberglass panel with no wood support or inner layer of foam to delaminate, that would be a far different question.
I was going to suggest that that "bulge," since it's on every other same size Vista I can see photos of, is actually a support beam. So, it may be the only part with much behind it.
My rear cap had three smaller supports in that same area between the body and the back of the cap to hold the cap in place. That's part of what broke in my accident. In the repair they had to reglass that support to the back of the rear cap
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
If one got close enough, one "tell" might be looking at how the rear window is made to fit.
It makes sense there would be a beam just inside those air vents for the furnace as the furnace does need some solid support for bouncing down the road.
But if the rear panel is only a single layer of fiberglass and that lets it show a bump where it lays over something, what do they do around the window? If the rear window framed up someway in the inside to fill the gap between the inner wall if it is a separate layer than the outer?
I normally think of RV windows as a single unit, all built together, that slips into the hole in the wall.
Did they built it as a special deep unit to bridge the gap or something different? Is the rear window sill normal looking or is it something more like 4 inches deep?
Interesting! Very interesting!
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Richard
Why no RV year, make and floorplan on MY signature as we suggest for others?
I currently DO NOT have one!
The rear wall of a Vista is not a fiberglass cap, it is a flat one piece Filon panel made the same as the sidewalls. That said it is not structural, that is it is not carrying the weight of the roof of the RV. So, I'd personally not be concerned about the problem being anything other than a cosmetic issue.
That said, it is very important that the back wall to roof seam be re-sealed and if there is a window above where the issue is being seen as well that that be re-sealed, too.
Also, if like my Vista, there is a high center brake lamp that could also be a water entry point in the middle of the back wall that should be re-sealed, too.
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Randy - Manhattan, Kansas
2015 Vista 27N
2020 Ford Escape Hybrid
Looking at the different 2015 Vista that have been mentioned, it seems they are different and it seems the size is one point that makes them different.
My 31 KE was certainly different than what the other folks have found in their Vista.
My back wall was thin ply material covered with thin plastic feeling "paper" that I might call wallpaper over plywood, something like 1/8 thick. This layer was then bonded to about 1-1 1/2 foam board with the fiberglass outer bonded to the outside!
Keeping the rear lights, etc good and sealed tight was a job as I soon found the mounting screws were only held by the thin fiberglass and sticking in foam.
It started with rubber gaskets but getting the screws to hold long enough to compress that gasket was not going to work with only the fiberglass holding the screws. I finally solved the problem of the lights breaking the seal by adding 3/4 inch thick blocks inside the fiberglass at each screw to give it something worthwhile to grip a screw.
The back wall was made the same as the sidewalls which seems to work well enough as long as there was no need of mounting anything in a different location than where they had placed wood to back the item.
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Richard
Why no RV year, make and floorplan on MY signature as we suggest for others?
I currently DO NOT have one!
Per the original post, it appears to be a bulge in the rear wall that runs horizontal at about the same level as the RV furnace location. I made a copy of Creativeparts' photo and highlighted the area. On that photo, if you look at the reflections, it looks like there is a slight bulge in that area on that motorhome.
My 2021 Vista 35U has a slight bulge in the backwall similar to that but it is a little higher up and aligns with the interior floor of the motorhome. I got drawings from Winnebago and can say that the back wall is similarly constructed to the sidewall but not identical. Instead of an interior frame made of aluminum tubing, there are wooden "studs" that make up the frame.
__________________ The things you own control your life.
2021 Winnebago Vista 35U towing a 2022 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk 2010 Cadillac SRX 2003 Itasca Sunova 30B
I am looking at a 2022 Winnebago. But the rear outside back wall has a slight bulge in the the fiber glass from side to side right through the center the house heater cover. Is this a manufacturing error or a de-lamination? If so will Winnebago repair it under the 36 month guarantee?
Unless you're the original owner, in my experience a manufacturer's warranty does not transfer.
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