2007 Country Coach pre purchase inspection issue

[jphilsousa]

Ok. So we have a contract to buy a 2007 Country Coach Tribute 260 pending inspection.  We had our inspection today and the inspector could find little wrong with the coach, except for a roof issue that I would like some guidance with.

On an estimated 50% of the perimeter of the coach, the fiberglass roof seems to be separated from the substrate about 6" from the edge of the roof.  If it's stepped on, it crackles and then returns to it's previous position.  It seems to be more prevalent near the slides but not limited to those areas only.  There is one roof vent that is a couple of feet from the edge and the roof is solid until the 6" mark is reached there as well.  There is no indication of any water damage inside and the roof is in good condition otherwise.  The roof wraps around the sidewall about 3" so it seems unlikely water could have entered and then gone upwards.

The NRVIA inspector said he had never seen this before.  Don't know how long he's been doing it though.  The owner said he's been on a lot of RV roofs and they all do that.  Will take that one with a very large grain of salt. However, the owner has had the unit stored outside, so my thought is if it was going to leak, it would have by now.

Any opinions on what possibly caused this, but more importantly, are we looking at some issue that's going to rear it's ugly head and cost us large $$ to repair?  As I mentioned, the coach is in mint condition otherwise.  We ordered oil  and coolant tests for both engine and generator as well as the transmission oil and should have those results within a week.  There's only 24K miles on the unit so the chassis parts should not be too worn.

Don't think you can tell much from the listing photo of the roof but included it anyway.

I look forward to hearing comments from the wise forum members.

Thanks in advance.

Dave

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Tough to assess from that limited description ("stepped on, it crackles").  I've seen (and owned) fiberglass roofs that simply aren't 100% glued down.  The sheet moves up and down, essentially a semi-flexible bubble. The manufacturers insist that is not a concern, and my own experience agrees with that, but I hate sloppy workmanship. Always leaves me with a nagging concern that maybe a hurried or unhappy worker screwed something up. Something important.

At the end of the day, all that matters is whether it is waterproof or not. If there is no way for water to penetrate (seams and openings), then it's essentially just a cosmetic problem.  If the seal at the seams and any openings are well caulked, it should be ok. The question would be whether that section flexes enough to eventually open a crack somewhere.

 

[youracman]

Dave- For add'l exposure, you might want to cut and paste your post to the Country Coach owner's group here: http://www.irv2.com/forums/f112/

Should catch the eye of a lot of CC owners.

Best....... ed s

 

[Isaac-1]

I would definitely seek the advice of Country coach owners on this, as this may or may not be an issue, it is hard to say more without knowing how Country Coach installed their roofs.  Keep in mind that 90%+ of RV's use a membrane roof of some type (TPO, EPDM, etc), most of the rest use a combination of Aluminum, or Fiberglass, which may be flat or peaked, may be attached or floating, so unless this particular inspector has experience inspecting this particular brand of coach I would take his statements as cautionary, but not as a show stopper.

 

[jphilsousa]

Thank you, Gary, Ed, and Isaac.  I will post to the other website, but your comments make me feel more comfortable with finalizing the purchase, pending the fluid sample results.

 

[jphilsousa]

I just received the video that the inspector took of the issue with the roof.  I have already gotten positive responses from folks on the other website that this shouldn't be a problem.  But now I have some more data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_XgwJzRHu8&feature=youtu.be