[RipNC]

No, that is just the way these slides work. In order to get (somewhat) flush to the interior floor they must drop down when extended and conversely need to ride up and over that white guide strip, then, as they come in they reach the tipping point (think see-saw or bongo board) until they pull tight against the side of the trailer. Slides on rollers and schwintek slides operate straight in and out.

I think it is a combination of factors that can cause the crowning - slide adjusted incorrectly, weight (our issue was under the residential fridge) and the outer arm being too thin. I think our slide was never adjusted properly and when closed the inner arm was pushing against the top of the outer arm - it made creaking noises as it went out. That noise has gone away since using the slide pads shown in my post #15 above, the pads actually stop the inside edge from angling down as the slide reaches that tipping point on the way in and keeps it more level on the way out helping the rack stay pressed to the gear pack.

Lippert did change the outer arm from a single wear guide at the top to 2 wear guides but they only allow the inner arm to slide more quietly and don't prevent crowning. The crowning happens slowly, our rig is a 2021 that we are longtiming in (we were fulltime for 10 months but now own a home in FL). Look at where the inner arm is when slide is closed, it should not be pushing up against those wear guides on the outer arm (per Lippert). Maybe hard to see but it you can slide something thin (feeler gauge) freely between the inner arm and the wear guides your slide is adjusted ok (at least as far as this issue goes). There are lots of adjustments that can be made on these slides and Lippert has lots of info out there. They do have a video on through frame hydraulic slide adjustment, but the slide has interior rollers where ours have the white plastic glide strip (to allow the "flush" slide floor). Some info in that video is very wrong for our slides, specifically the use of measurements from the slide floor to the inner and outer arms. DON'T follow that measurement advice with flush floor type slides (I also confirmed this with Lippert).

Lastly, be careful using any techs to mess with your slide! Before I really dove into the details of this issue and started addressing it myself, I had a mobile tech come out and spend 2 hours and only managed to actually break a tooth on the gear pack. Sent him away and started down this rabbit hole on my own. Installing the new gear pack and using the slide pads were intended to allow us to get our rig to Morryde for our IS installation (6 cycles of the slides over 1 week period) snd the slide pads worked way beyond my expectations. Slides actually worked better on that trip (week of 5/14) than they ever have.

One note about the slide pads: the opposing slides work on path of resistance when you open and close. When using the slide pads the resistance is lessened to the extent that the slides may not open in the same order as before using the pads and may both move at the same time.

This the end of my "stream of consciousness" on this question, sorry for rambling...