Who makes, and stands behind, the best trailer?

[Oak]

So after reading horror story about air getting under linoleum(see post from Jdees) I am wondering.
What brand has the best rep? What company stands forward and backs their product?
I would not but a Keystone after reading that post about the linoleum if you paid me (well maybe if you paid me enough  ), but how do you know what somebody's customer service is like?

So a poll..
What is the opinion of the group?
Who makes, AND BACKS, the best trailer on the market when bought new?

Oak

 

[Hammster]

I've been wondering the same thing. Service after the sale is more important to me than anything up front. Lance seems to have a good reputation so we are leaning in that direction.
We used to have Road Ranger trailers and even when they were several years old we could get good service from them if we felt it was a design or workmanship defect. Sadly they are no longer around.

 

[steveblonde]

jayco has a two warranty  grand design has a great reputation a lot has to do with the dealership itself there are good and bad

 

[donn]

My ten year old  Cedar Creek has never been to a dealer for warrenty work.
Northwood is a family owned company that makes stout trailers on an inhouse frame.

 

[Wigpro]

I have two friends - one with an Arctic Fox and the other with a Nash and they have both had good service when needed, but primarily they have not needed much which says a bunch...

They are both made by Northwod MFG....

They are first on my list, next time around...

Jim

 

[donuts]

Northwood has a good reputation. Their service has been good for the most part when I have contacted them.

Stan

 

[Gsport]

Check out Grand Design. They have the best customer service I've ever seen, period. I've had a couple of things taken care of while out of warranty with no charge. We just attended a GD rally in August. They were there taking care of anything that anyone had problems with, again, no charge.  I myself had a creeping slideout, they replaced the hydraulic ram, fixed, no charge. I really can't say enough good things about Grand Design. I'm a GD customer for life. Over 20,000 miles in less than three years

 

[8Muddypaws]

Arctic Fox and Nash might not be the fanciest looking rigs but they are solid. 

We had an Arctic Fox TT for 6 years, sold it to our son who kept it for 8.  In all that time it went in the shop one time for a simple electrical problem I could have fixed with a screwdriver.

 

[SuwanneeDave]

Airstream

 

[schrederman]

I've been looking for a while. I would love to look at some trailers from Outdoors RV but the closest dealers are about a thousand miles away... So we've been looking hard and have narrowed it down to Winnebago Ultra Lite, Grand Design Reflection, and Jayco Eagle... in no particular order. I am going to put my trailer up for sale soon and the choice will probably come down to the one I like best on the day we decide to buy... I was hyped up on the Winnebago but I'm seeing 2 different wood stains in some of them and it's not to my taste... so I'm back to waffling between the three... And now... Winnebago is about to introduce yet another travel trailer brand, called Instinct, and it looks like they will be very nice... The RV show in our area is just after New Year  and I'm going to look really hard at these brands that weekend.

 

[grassy]

After the warranty is over, why bother going back to a dealer ? There are other repair shops that are keen to do a good job and much of the stuff in a RV is generic.

I now know of 2 AF that have been rolled..and are still in use.

We put 5K miles on our new to us AF (on rough roads) this summer and my only complaints were the cruddy ST tires on it (remedied really quickly)  and how to light the pilot light in the oven.

Oh, the nearest AF dealer to me is 1K miles (in another country).

Good luck..the search is half the fun..

 

[GypsySooners]

We've had five RV's in the past twenty years.  We purchased all new.

Our first was a little '96 Coleman pop-up.  We only kept it a couple of years because we decided to move up.  No problems at all with it.

We moved up to a '98 Itasca Spirit Class C.  The only problem we had with it was delamination.  We didn't notice it until a fellow camper pointed it out.  That was three years and a month after we bought it new.  The warranty against delamination was three years and Itasca refused to help us.

We traded the Itasca for a new 2001 Monaco Monarch Class A.  This was the worst RV, and company, of all.

Then we bought an RV lot and bought a new 2007 Hitchhiker Champagne Fifth Wheel.  What a nice unit.  Now we only took it on one trip but had no problems with it but we lived in it full time for over a year.  My only complaint was a silly dump system that would blow fuses if you held it too long.  Give me handles to pull any day.

We now have a StarCraft Travel Star hybrid that we bought new two years ago.  This is proving to be a very solid, well made, unit and we love it.  We try to camp four nights about once a month in it and have had to problems of any kind.  It has a two year warranty that just ran out but the tents have five more years.  Great little camper!

 

[Oak]

Well, it would seem that the best reputation goes to Northwood. (Arctic Fox, Nash & Snow River).

Thanks to those who answered, maybe we'll get more feedback as time goes on.

Oak

 

[BruceinFL]

  My only complaint was a silly dump system that would blow fuses if you held it too long.  Give me handles to pull any day.

The instructions specifically say to hold the switch no more than 2 secs. The valve takes about 1 second to open and close. Everybody has their own preferences so I love those electric valves. Almost makes dumping fun.

By the way, when all else fails, RTFM.

 

[robertusa123]

Airstream. No question.  But you pay for that quality

 

[Arch Hoagland]

Had a Nash 22h. Excellent trailer.

So I vote for Northwood.

 

[Lou Schneider]

In 2000, I bought a 1999 Arctic Fox that had flipped onto it's side from a salvage yard.  The yard welded a new hitch coupler onto the A-Frame (the old one had twisted in the accident) and I towed it home.

You could tell the house flexed in the accident, one wall to ceiling joint in the bedroom swallowed it's gimp trim and there was a gash in an interior ceiling panel where the corner of the bathroom door was driven into it.  But the structure returned to square once the trailer was righted, the frame rails remained straight and true with all of the doors and windows opening and closing as they should and the slideout worked perfectly.

The awning was missing (I never replaced it) and after a good cleaning to get rid of the desert dust, patching some holes in the exterior Filon and removing scrape marks where flying objects hit the interior walls, I used that trailer fulltime for another 6 years without any problems.

I've seen pictures of similar accidents where the trailer simply disintegrated.

I only had to contact Northwood Customer Service once, to get a replacement VIN plate as the original faded over time and became hard to read and they promptly sent a replacement. 

My vote is also for Northwood.

 

[Arch Hoagland]

In 2000, I bought a 1999 Arctic Fox that had flipped onto it's side from a salvage yard.  The yard welded a new hitch coupler onto the A-Frame (the old one had twisted in the accident) and I towed it home.

You could tell the house flexed in the accident, one wall to ceiling joint in the bedroom swallowed it's gimp trim and there was a gash in an interior ceiling panel where the corner of the bathroom door was driven into it.  But the structure returned to square once the trailer was righted, the frame rails remained straight and true with all of the doors and windows opening and closing as they should and the slideout worked perfectly.

The awning was missing (I never replaced it) and after a good cleaning to get rid of the desert dust, patching some holes in the exterior Filon and removing scrape marks where flying objects hit the interior walls, I used that trailer fulltime for another 6 years without any problems.

I've seen pictures of similar accidents where the trailer simply disintegrated.

I only had to contact Northwood Customer Service once, to get a replacement VIN plate as the original faded over time and became hard to read and they promptly sent a replacement. 

My vote is also for Northwood.

Wow. That's impressive. No wonder they weigh more, pretty sturdy.

 

[Lou Schneider]

Arctic Fox isn't much heavier than competing trailers, it just seems that way if you go by GVWR.  What makes them seem heavier is the larger difference between the dry weight and GVWR ratings due to the heavier running gear installed by Northwood. 

For example, my 26x (26 ft long) had a 10,600 lb GVWR, significantly higher than the typical 8500 lbs GVWR of other trailers with similar floorplans.  But it could carry over 3200 lbs payload, giving an unloaded  weight of 7400 lbs.  This is within a few hundred pounds of other similar trailers.

Since there's no way I could put 3000 lbs of stuff in that trailer (believe me, I tried) I wound up at about 85% capacity on the tires, springs and axles instead of running them at full rated loads.  That 15% cushion made a big difference as I never had any tire or spring problems.

 

[Happy Biker]

I have a 2013 Keystone Raptor toy hauler.    I would not recommended Keystone as a manufacturer who stands behind their products.  During the first year Keystone covered all the items that I returned the trailer for without question.  But, when the trailer was two years old we had a catastrophic frame failure.  The frame failure was caused when the welds attaching two cross members to the frame broke loose and the the frame buckled under one equalizer bracket.  The frame failure ruined two tires,  both axels,  four spring assemblies, shackles and bolts.  Keystone paid to repair the frame and re weld the cross members but nothing else.  It cost me nearly $5000 to make the repairs caused by the frame failure.  I contacted Lippert who supplied the chassis, but they blamed Keystone.  After over three months working with Keystone they refuse to help further and they told me I was just luck they help as much as the did.  Do not buy a Keystone product if you expect good customer service.