Frame broken

[Artemus Gordon]

quote:Originally posted by bncinwv

And what was the repair cost? Partial information leads to confusion!!
Bingo

Including the new "Murtle Coupling", with labor and all little over $11.00? I learned my lesson "wink"! Lol. Things on the thread started to get "too serious"?

[WeBeFulltime]

I was considering a swivel wheel....no more! I see you added the Lippert leveling system to the 3500. Do you think that leveling with the loaded swivel wheel on the unit might have contributed to the frame failure? Not an engineer...just guessing.

[Rondo]

Sounds like you had frame flex and why your dealer could not find it is beyond me. I'm no engineer or RV tech and I could spot it. Seen a few both at our dealer and at Keystone shop when on tour of the plant! It shows up two ways--1. gapping in the outer nose cone joints and 2. if you take the front nose off, it shows up quite easily on the frame with cracks or weld breaks. All you have to do is hook up the unit to a TV or pick it up with a forklift on the hitch pin and raise it a little then inspect it for cracks in the welds or joints. Either way this is fixable and there have been many posts on here about such a fix! I just don't think your dealer wanted to go to the trouble looking for it or they just wanted to sell you a new unit! So what are they going to do with the old unit? Did the insurance company sell it back to the dealer after totaling it? If so, then the dealer is going to do a temporary patch job and put it back on the lot for some sucker to buy and have trouble with down the line!! Hope that is not the case!!
Anyway, good luck with your new unit and remember you can still be a member here. You just have to become an SOB(some other brand) owner.

[bethandkevin]

quote:Originally posted by Rondo

Sounds like you had frame flex and why your dealer could not find it is beyond me. I'm no engineer or RV tech and I could spot it. Seen a few both at our dealer and at Keystone shop when on tour of the plant! It shows up two ways--1. gapping in the outer nose cone joints and 2. if you take the front nose off, it shows up quite easily on the frame with cracks or weld breaks. All you have to do is hook up the unit to a TV or pick it up with a forklift on the hitch pin and raise it a little then inspect it for cracks in the welds or joints. Either way this is fixable and there have been many posts on here about such a fix! I just don't think your dealer wanted to go to the trouble looking for it or they just wanted to sell you a new unit! So what are they going to do with the old unit? Did the insurance company sell it back to the dealer after totaling it? If so, then the dealer is going to do a temporary patch job and put it back on the lot for some sucker to buy and have trouble with down the line!! Hope that is not the case!!
Anyway, good luck with your new unit and remember you can still be a member here. You just have to become an SOB(some other brand) owner.

Rondo, if this were the case, in Michigan at least, the vehicle would have a salvage title after being totaled by the insurance company and then repaired by the repair facility. It would then have to be inspected before it could be licensed. I have seen salvage titled rv's before. The owner of the salvage auction down the street has had numerous rv's for sale out front in the past.

[steelpony5555]

All this thinking and figuring is making my hair hurt......lol

[MIMF]

Hey Tom, you gonna' put that trailer on the back of the Cedar Creek?

[ctomwood]

The dealer that quoted repair dose not sell campers just excellent repair shop. I'm will probity put trailer on new camper. Looking at how to attached hitch to frame.

[MIMF]

OK. Was just curious. I am fairly certain that the '08 Montana had a 10" I-beam frame. They are now being built with 12" I-beams. Most manufacturers are doing that, including Cedar Creek. Question.....since you take the scooter with you, have you considered a toy hauler? Could save you further frame issues on the Cedar Creek. Just sayin'.......

[Irlpguy]

quote:Originally posted by pineranch

I guess this is where I ask all you barnyard engineers this question.

You are all on board when you put 6 hydraulic pistons on the frame then put the entire 14-15k rig in the air. Don't even try and convince me it does it perfectly level all the way up.

Let someone put 300 lbs on a hitch in the rear and you are all over it as the cause of frame problems, hang nails or whatever.
Mike

I am in complete agreement with pineranch on this one. Lets for a moment consider my 2012 - 3402RL which came equipped with a crap hitch rated for 250 lbs maximum. If I put 50 gal of water in my fresh water tank @ just over 8 lbs per gal and add 200 lbs on my hitch I have added at least 600 lbs of weight to the back of my Montana. For all the barnyard engineers that is more than the scooter weighs that ctomwood was carrying on a swivel trailer that distributes the weight between the swivel wheel and the hitch, usually on a 50/50 basis.

Also the trailer swivels up/down at the mounting points on the towing vehicle's hitch, the full weight of what is being carried cannot be transferred to the pulling trailers hitch therefore that full weight cannot be transferred to the 5th's frame.

There have been many documented frame flex, weld breaks at the front of some Montana's. I have had the so called repair and I can tell you it did nothing to stop that flex. The problem ctomwood has belongs to Montana design, the Lippert frame and the disgusting condition of our highways, not because he added approx 300 lbs to the back of his trailer.

I suspect some of the comments made here may not have strayed to the absurd if he had not said he was getting rid of his Montana and had bought something else. Being disrespectful to someone who has had a bad experience and chosen to go down a different road is not what I as a Montana owner wish to be associated with, most of my good friends own something other than a Montana.

Good luck with the new unit ctomwood, that is one interesting scooter you carry around.

[dieselguy]

For the past several years we have read posts from a good number of Montana owners who have had severe frame issues ... some requiring trips back to the factory for the fix others at authorized service centers. I don't recall one of those previous posters who advertised pulling a thing behind their fivers. Now a guy with a swivel wheeled trailer hauling a touch over the equivalent of a full fresh water tank has his unit totaled. It appears to be a frame issue in the same general area as all the other posters and the chicken hawks start circling hollering it's the trailer ... it's the trailer. Boy Howdy ... let what I just wrote soak in a few minutes before we flog this one to death. Swivel wheeled trailers are pretty widely used and endorsed in my circle of RV owners.

[jsmitfl]

Amen!

[pineranch]

Put me 4 square in your circle.
Mike

[HOOK]

So, I'm confused. A Lippert frame in one brand is better than a Lippert frame in another brand?

[Phil P]

quote:Originally posted by HOOK

So, I'm confused. A Lippert frame in one brand is better than a Lippert frame in another brand?

Hello HOOK

It could be I was told by one of the high end builders out in Kansas that uses Lippert that the trailer manufacturer dictates a lot of how the frame is built.

I did inspect their frames from Lippert and they were much heavier than what you see under the low end trailers of the same sizes.

Phil P

[Hooker]

quote:Originally posted by JandC

I guess there is a good reason Keystone voids the warranty when you put a hitch on the back and start pulling stuff with it. Just because the frame failed toward the front doesn't mean the extra stress on the back didn't contribute to it.

That about covers it.

[pineranch]

Just because you tow a trailer doesn't mean that caused the front frame to seperate.
Makes about as much sense as above statement. Plus I get the feeling that if we don't agree with the non traler towing crowd, we are considered to be dead wrong. I'm done.
Mike

[dieselguy]

Larry ... buying the SOB might have been as simple as the SOB offered a way better deal. The OP has moved on in life and left the forum.
Mike ... A certain MH owner lingering on this website has always beat the tambourine against pulling stuff behind our Montanas, yet he fails to acknowledge that of all the frame failures cussed and discussed, this is the first known time anyone has been pulling anything. He just won't let it go that several of us double tow for years without issue any more than I won't let go pointing out his flawed lack of evidence conclusion. Like I stated earlier, since the failure was in the general area of several noted frame failures discussed in recent years on the MOC ... why does this automatically make the swivel wheel trailer the culprit? Whether yeah or nay to the "why" ... I doubt if the OP will add any more info nor care to.

[Tom S.]

quote:Originally posted by pineranch

Just because you tow a trailer doesn't mean that caused the front frame to seperate.
Makes about as much sense as above statement. Plus I get the feeling that if we don't agree with the non traler towing crowd, we are considered to be dead wrong. I'm done.
Mike

While I seriously doubt towing the trailer had anything to do with the frame cracking, it is still something the factory recommends we don't do.

[richfaa]

Well I am no engineer and far be it from me to question any of our fine experts here. keystone says do not do that. Lippert says do not do that so not being any kind of expert I do not do that. My frame broke up front and we never had anything but a couple of bikes on the hitch. I don't know what that means. We do not put a lot of weight on the rear of the 5th wheel, we do not double tow .There are a lot of things we do not do with our Montana's and they still break. I do not know what that means.

[Hooker]

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

...Well I am no engineer and far be it from me to question any of our fine experts here. keystone says do not do that. Lippert says do not do that so not being any kind of expert I do not do that...

dieselguy...I assume your diatribe was directed at me...didn't know I was "beating a trambourine", all I was doing was reiterating what Lippert and Keystone have been saying for years...and richfaa noted above.