Corelle Explosion

[Okie Guy]

I am about to decide the 330RKBS TT was a better traveler than the 3000RK. The 5th wheel kitchen is having a massive bouncing problem. I can't keep anything in the cabinets above the sink still. I travel smooth roads(well by Oklahoma Department of Transportations standards).
This morning when I pulled the unit home I forgot to put the strap on the cabinet above the sink.

I opened the door to the trailer and noticed something white lying on the floor. I stuck my head in and there is was. The majority of my corelle dinner plates shattered in a million little pieces. It was like someone walked into the middle of the trailer and blew up a box of plates. I spent 3 hours picking up shards of glass and vacuuming everything in sight. I have wiped down every possible surface and I am still finding little bits of glass. Tonight I have to get ready for tomorrows trip so it’s going to be a long night just to get up and have the kitchen bounce down the road again.

The thing that hurts the most is the fact I left a glass sitting next to the sink and it never moved! ARGH!!! I don't understand why a glass in the bedroom on a counter is perfectly fine but everything in that one cabinet flew out and shattered. This is so irritating to me.

I think its back to plastic dinnerware for a while until I figure out the bouncing problem.

Phil AKA...The Grumpy Okie Guy

[bsmeaton]

Those dishes shoot off the top of the stack like clay pigeons on a trap shoot, and they explode!

I lost the whole stack out of the last Monty, and it wasn't even the rear kitchen. The dishes put a dent in the counter, then two of them exploded sending shrapnel everywhere. I told the DW to be very careful not to let any shards fall into the sink drain because they will ruin the garbage disposal. She hit me in the back of the head about a year later when she put two and two together that the Monty didn't have a garbage disposal .

We now strap most of our kitchen cupboard doors shut using the handles. More for protecting the slides than the cupboard contents, but the same protection none-the-less.

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

OKKK,I have some experience with rear kitchens bouncing.

The solutions for our 3295 were:

1.) the Isolator, this stopped about 85% of the problem.

2.) Those Equaflex things on the axles. That fixed remainder of problems.

since the addition of both of these, we have almost NO movement in the back of the trailer. I even left something on the kitchen table (in the back) and it stayed there all day.

BEFORE the Isolator, I had a large bottle of Dawn dish soap, which was pretty much full, jump OUT of the kitchen sink, ONTO the counter top, made a dribble, then to the floor where it made a VERY large dribble.

Also had the dishes go right on by spring bars, movement was from the back to the front, not side to side.

The only doors that we tie shut are the ones on the end (back) of the unit. Not sure I need to any more, but, I still do.

Spring bars are also useful.

BUT, I had spring bars and I had velcro and that did not solve the problems, what worked were the Isolator and Equaflex.

ON EDIT: I also use that foam slipnot stuff between the dishes and bowls, I feel that helps them stay put, cause they stick together right good with that stuff!

[Parrothead]

Corelle does break or shatter when thrown. We had a similar incident in a previous 5er. Lost almost a whole set. We velcro all cupboards. Use Corelle and real glass wine glasses.
Happy trails........................

[exav8tr]

Phil, We have gone to an air ride hitch (TrailerSaver)and a Mor-Ryde hitch pin. This fall, at the rally, we will be changing suspension to the Mor-Ryde independent Suspension. We plan on keeping our unit for many years and want the best we can get. Granted this is a lot of money to protect the Corelle, but perhaps we can get ten years out of it....We'll see.

[dieselguy]

I used to have a 2850RK Montana ... I seldom had any problems with stuff flying around in the rear kitchen. Perhaps I was just lucky. Pin weight, how you have the fiver loaded, suspension mods on both truck and fiver, and personal driving habits all contribute to a given situation. Try moving things around some to load or unload your pin weight ... add more water to your fresh water tank ... take some out from what you normally carry. Change a hole up or down on your fifth wheel hitch if possible ... be sure the pin centerline on your hitch is located above or slightly ahead of your truck axle and not behind ... be aware of how fast you change lanes ... cross rough rail tracks and or other driving habits. Any one of these could help your delima over and above velcro on the cabinet handles or padding between your dinnerware.

[Glenn and Lorraine]

Rear kitchens are notorious for glassware taking a beating. The aft end of any vehicle, especially those with an overhang from the rear axle to the rear cap, have a tendency to ride harsh. When you go over a bump in the road, the front of the trailer may drop we'll say an inch but when that inch is transmitted to the rear it becomes inches. When the front drops down an inch the rear rises even higher. Once the bump is cleared, the rear now drops back down sometimes leaving the dishes suspended in mid-air. Granted, suspended just for a spit second. Now what goes up must come down and those dishes are no exception and without padding expect damage. The best suggestion I can give you is, like Carol said use the Slip stop shelving material between the dishes. This will not only stop the dishes from sliding about but as it is foam rubber it also adds a cushion. For glasses, besure they are well packed and never set one glass inside another without some sort of cushion between them and always with the heaviest end down.

[boylanag]

We use the 5th Airborne pin box and stack the dishes in drawers instead of cabinets with the rubber non skid material or paper towel between the plates and this has saved our dishes.

[blarkman]

I iliminated the problem of breaking dishes in our 3000rk by installing shocks. I know a lot of people will disagree but after going to Yuma and back to Oregon on non freeways, and three trip sover to the coast. No more breaking dishes or picking up off the floor
bob

[HughM]

The back of a RV is known for its bounching when traveling. While I don't have a RK we do have RL and several times we have opened the RV door and found our chairs upside down. It's the nature of the beast and others have offered valuable solutions that I hope will help you with your "flying dishes" problem.
Hugh

[sreigle]

We broke two correlle plates when we opened a cabinet door and they fell out and shattered. That day we'd been on some of the worst roads we've ever traveled. Other than that we had no problems with our rear kitchen 2003 3295RK or our mid-kitchen 3400RL. We have the standard OEM pinbox and a normal hitch.

Okie Guy, when I hear of someone having problems with bouncing I have to wonder if there's a seriously out of balance tire or two or three or four or an axle problem. I have no idea but this is all that comes to mind as to why some have problems and others don't. It's awfully hard to tell from the cab whether there are tires bouncing back there.

We have never put any kind of padding between our Corelle dishes. We do between glass mixing bowls and the like but not the dishes. Also, when getting ready to hit the road, Vicki moves things around to fill any empty holes so glasses and dishes don't move around a lot. And she puts refrigerator bars across the door openings so they don't fall out when we open the door.

[greener]

I had a Corelle plate explode falling from a cupboard to my counter top. It shot pieces about 20 feet down the hallway. If one of my children had been in the line of fire they would have lost an eye. I wrote a very nasty letter to the company and only recieved a new plate and no other response.

[MIMF]

Grumpy,

What Carol said!!

The smartest thing I ever done was to spend the funds to have the TrailAir L05 pin box and the TrailAir EquaFlex supension put on in place of the standard axle equalizers. It has helped immensely in the ride inside the cab and shaking things up in the coach. But most importantly is the piece of mind it has given me in that I'm not beating the upper deck frame up because the 70 or 80 lbs of air pressure in the bag is taking it all.

When the Challenger has served it's time, you can bet the farm the new unit we get will have this equipment on it. And that won't matter what we buy!

[mtheo]

We have a 3000RK and had the Correll disaster also, wife about cried. Had dishes in cabinit above sink and went down some of the worst roads you could find. After that dishes went in cabnit above table and I got a 5th airborne pin box. Better ride and never had a problem after that.

[hazmic]

What Carol and Dale have posted is very correct. I went with the Trailer-Saver hitch but I do not have a rear kitchen. I also have Equa-Flex. We can leave things on the counter and not worry about it being on the floor and broken. Iowa also has bad roads and the hitch or pin box with Equa-Flex or Mor-Ride is the way to go. I don't think you will be sorry.

[exav8tr]

We don't have a rear kitchen, but we do not "stack" our dishes. We have a dish holder that stores the dishes upright in an individual slot for each one. It is one of those plastic wrapped wire doo dads from Lowes or Home Depot. Takes up a little more room but no disasters. We store them in the cabinet over the kitchen table..... We had a couple accidents coming from Alaska last year until I learned to slow down and heed the little flags on the side of the road (frost heaves).......

[Allen in MT]

Yes we went thru the same thing and those little glass splinters can hide every where.
We have now equipped the the Monty and slide in camper with an array of Melmac dishes Boonton ware, Texas ware, Dallas ware.
Tough to find the complete sets, but no more glass.
Allen

[sailer]

Wwe have a 300RK and have never lost dishes or anything except when the cab doors are not velcro shut yes we cary 5 glass wine glases but only broke those when i forgot to velcro that cab shute ,,, sailer

[Parrothead]

This is another hint. Look at the plates when purchasing. Some are almost flat. Some are higher on the edges than in the middle. These will not slide and fly as easy as the flat ones.
Happy trails.................

[Trailer Trash 2]

Our last 5er was a rear bed room with 2 closets. the bouncing was so bad that what ever was on a hangers was on the cabinet floor when we reached our destination, but with the Monty's middle kitchen cabinets we have very good luck with little or no breakage, but the cabinets over the back window are another story, heavy items will end up on the floor, so the only thing that goes in them is chips, crackers, tisues, you have the idea, we also have invested in child proof door catches that will prevent the doors from opening and allowing the contents to fall. also I have noticed that when going up and down driveways to fast will cause a lot of wip and cause movement of property in the cabinets.
We have learned that after a trip it is always wise to open cabinets doors slowly, so you can prevent that specal wine glass from falling out and shattering as I have done before, which I didn't mind to much because we had to go back to the winery and get another.

Don