Soft floor in 95 Winnebago?

HarveyP · 12-09-2005, 05:19 AM

We looked at a 95 Vectra yesterday that had a soft floor in living room and kitchen area. A 94 Chieftan on the same lot had the same soft floor. The salesman and service manager claimed that it was a factory issue of shims between the floor and frame that had slipped out of place over time. Their claim was that it was an easy fix, but labor intensive because someone had to crawl into the storage bays and push shims back into place. Is this anything you have heard of, or is it just hot air? Thanks, HarveyP

HarveyP · 12-09-2005, 05:19 AM

We looked at a 95 Vectra yesterday that had a soft floor in living room and kitchen area. A 94 Chieftan on the same lot had the same soft floor. The salesman and service manager claimed that it was a factory issue of shims between the floor and frame that had slipped out of place over time. Their claim was that it was an easy fix, but labor intensive because someone had to crawl into the storage bays and push shims back into place. Is this anything you have heard of, or is it just hot air? Thanks, HarveyP

TXiceman · 12-09-2005, 05:38 AM

Sounds like a major heat wave, but it could be possible. If it can be fixed and the coach is good otherwise, have him make the repairs BEFORE you sign on the final sale. Make the contract contigent on the repair.

Ken

Hitchhiker · 12-09-2005, 08:24 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Their claim was that it was an easy fix </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

My hunch is that if it were really an "easy fix', they would have already fixed it so potential customers wouldn't get turned off with the soft floor.

kenbt · 12-09-2005, 09:58 AM

Have heard of some floor material such as plywood becoming delaminated (bad glue) and the floor needing to be replaced

Mushroom · 12-09-2005, 11:24 AM

Yes Kenbt, I have just that problem on a 93 vectra. Let me try to explain, in the bathroom, under the carpeting, there is an obvius 'wave' when you walk on it. It feels like the top laminate of a piece of plywood. Other than that the wood it solid. I have been tempted to drill through the carpet and top laminate in several places and inject glue. I just don't think it would end up totally flat.

ottoracefan · 01-12-2006, 06:34 PM

Harvey,

I had the same problem on my '95 Itasca Suncruiser. This seems to be a common problem on '90's Winnebago products.

The soft floor is a result of delaminated "sandwich" floor material, which is 3/4" styrofoam glued between two layers of plywood. The root cause is inadequate supports underneath the floor.

There are two basic repair methods. The preferred method is to install better supports, you can do this in many ways. I ran two 13' pieces of 1 1/4" square tubing inside of the two existing support rails, which were more than 3 feet apart. Now my flooring only spans a little more than 1 foot and is solid.

The other method used for areas that cannot be accessed from basement storage areas is to remove the floor covering, cut out a piece of the top layer of plywood, cut out a smaller piece of the styrofoam, then glue plywood pieces back in the holes using a construction grade contact adhesive.

I called Winnebago Customer Service and they faxed me their floor repair instructions which go into more detail than I did above and include some drawings.