Lippert Frame Failure on 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH

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Hi all! As many of you know, we have a 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH that we live full time in, traveling for Allen’s job as a broadcast tower technician. We bought this camper 3 years ago today!  We thought we made a good choice. 

Since the beginning, we’ve had some problems with the bedroom Schwintek slide (made by Lippert Components).  We stopped at the Lippert factory in July 2016 and Emily, the Lippert/Grand Design rep, recalibrated it for us.  Which is basically just syncing the motors.  With the Schwintek slides, you have to move the slide all the way in or all the way out, or else the motors may get confused and you’ll have problems.  In January 2017, we had the front motor replaced because we were still having problems getting it to close all the way, even with the syncing of the motors, trying to do the manual override, etc.  Lately, the slide has been getting worse and more difficult to close.  So when we had our annual inspection done this year, we thought we would need a new motor again. Schwintek slides are junk in my opinion so I figured the motor was just going bad again.  When the mobile tech came out to look at it and do our inspection, he noticed the wall on the outside flexing when the slide moved.  He said it was a structural issue and not something Discount RV Parts & Service in Hutchinson, Kansas was going to get into.

I called Grand Design and got a hold of Dewayne Jordan.  I relayed that information to him and he told me we needed to take it to a Grand Design dealer for further diagnosis.  We made an appointment with Four Seasons RV in Abilene, Kansas (about 100 miles away) and took it up there on Monday.

They looked at everything and found a crack in the frame.  You can’t see the crack when it’s sitting on the jacks, but when it’s lifted up, as if it is hooked to the truck, ready to tow, it’s visible.  That’s something I would never have thought to look for!  The crack is inside the propane cubby on the driver’s side, under the Schwintek slide.  They said they saw a hairline crack starting to form on the other side in the same spot.DSC01889-min

The outside wall moves up and down as well as in and out when switching from the jacks to the truck.  You can see this up and down movement from the tape lines they drew and also from the trim that separates when the camper is switched from the jacks to the pin.

Under the slide, the black surface material has ripped on the rollers, causing water to get to the plywood.  And on top of the slide, the tape is all chewed up.

The pin box sags a couple of inches after the jacks hit the ground and you release it from the truck.

We had them look at our ramp door also, because the floor of the ramp is bubbling up and when you close it recently, you have to yank it to one side to get it to close, otherwise it wants to go crooked.  They got some photos of that, and photos of the outside, where you can also see it’s rippling, which we didn’t notice either. DSC01937-min

Four Seasons RV sent all the photos to Grand Design and spoke with Dewayne Jordan, explaining what they had found, and they believed it needed to go back to the factory.  They told us it will just get worse the more we move, putting the slide in and out, hooking and unhooking from the truck, and bouncing down the road.  So at this point, it almost feels like a liability…

I called Dewayne Jordan at Grand Design yesterday and left him a message.  I’m still waiting to hear back and see what they are wanting to do.  When I talked to him the first time, he told me the factory was backed up until July.

I Googled “Lippert Frame Failure”… oh my.  I’m wondering what else is broken that we can’t see.

I’ll post updates as we get them!

15 thoughts on “Lippert Frame Failure on 2015 Grand Design Momentum 385TH”

  1. Hope they can just weld it up and get you back on the road. I was thinking where the trim is on the outside of the trailer under the slide is a typical place to have cracking in the fiberglass as well.

    Hoping that is covered under their three year structural warranty. Others have been telling me at least Grand Design is good at working with customers and dealerships compared to other manufacturers whose trailers have the same problems. made more complicated by poor customer service.

    I’ve followed three other bloggers that had frame issues and they all worked out iif that helps.

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  2. We believe we have a similar problem with ours as when we put the weight on the bed of the truck the whole front of the pin box shoves up into the front cap. The trim then breaks apart and the whole underside of cap lifts up and leaves a big gap. We took it to dealer after having it looked at by a speciality RV place who looked at it and refused to touch it saying they feel our trailer is going to split in half due to frame compromise. Took it to dealer after completely emptying it to lighten load on frame. Dealer looked at it and agreed something is not right, sent pictures to Lippert and via pictures, as Lippert would authorize nothing more, said our trailer is fine and safe to tow. When I asked for that in writing everyone dealer and Lippert refused. We were then asked to come pick up our trailer as they couldn’t/wouldn’t help us. We have a 2013 Cedar Creek Silverback 35QB4. We have towed this trailer maybe 3000 miles and no accidents what so ever, only left the state of Michigan with it once to Indiana and then down to North Carolina rest all travel in Mi. I’m glad they are helping you as they blew us off. Good luck and best wishes.

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    • Wow! That’s completely not acceptable by any means. I hope they help us. We barely made it inside of our 3yr warranty period so we got really lucky there. I don’t feel too safe now knowing ours is broken, but yours sounds like it’s a whole lot worse. Good luck to you as well… Stay safe.

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      • Our only option at this time, as we still owe a lot on this, is to park it up at a campground we are members of and leave it. Traveling with this is not an option, so we are loading it with the bare minimum to keep weight down and very carefully towing it up there. At least that way we can still use it a little instead of being stuck in our driveway.

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    • I’m sorry I misread the last part. Let me change my statement I hope they are more helpful with you than they have been with us. At least your dealer was willing to tear it apart to get to the bottom of what is going on, ours wouldn’t without the go ahead from Lippert so we have no idea where our trailer is failing up front just that it is. Best wishes to you.

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      • Oh, the dealer wouldn’t take it apart. They refused. They just looked and took pictures of what they could see from the outside. It’s yet to be really looked into. The crack we saw was inside the propane cubby door. So I’m a little nervous what else they’ll find once they get the outer skin off.

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  3. I am dealing with the exact same issue, also dealing with Dewayne Jordan. How did this all get resolved? Right now I feel hopeless and far from confident in the repairs. The Houston dealership tried to repair it 2 times lippert frame welder was involved. It failed again after the 1st repair on a 100 mile round trip. The dealership opened the front end again and the lippert welder was back and repaired the crack again. This time the fiberglass walls on the front end shifted and nothing lines back up. The dealership does not want the liability and refused the repair under the conditions Grand Designed offered. The cost has been all on grand design so far. With the dealership refusing the conditions Grand Design had no other choice but to bring it up to Middlebury Indiana from Houston to repair it themselves. I have no real recourse but to wait and see how the 3rd repair pans out and see if all the other problems developed from the frame crack (misaligned cabinets, walls inside and out of alignment with damage the dealership did tearing the camper apart for the repairs) get repaired. I believe the issue was there from the start, I failed to notice it. Doors would not close, cabinets doors would rub, paneling would rip at the seams, a solid wood bar cracked the screws backed out around the slides, the trip pieces fell off all within the first few months. Please let me know how it all worked out so far any pointers to help the process. The camper has been in the repair lot since August 2018, and from now forward we are looking at 4 more months to get it to Indiana repair it and get it back to me. 1 year without the use of a new camper. Paying the notes, paying the storage and insurance and noT being able to use a new product is not heartwarming.
    James

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    • Hi James. I’m really sorry you’re dealing with this. “We reaches an agreement with Grand Design that resolved any issues between us”. Have you checked out the FaceBook group “Grand Design RV Owners with Issues”? There are a lot of helpful folks there. The search option will also give you more info than I can legally provide currently. Wishing you the best of luck. Don’t give up, even when you feel like you can’t deal with it anymore.

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      • Rachel I just happen to stumble upon your blog as I am looking at purchasing a basically brand new 2015 385th. I am a little concerned with the stories about the frame failures and was wondering if you still have yours and what you would recommend?

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      • We do have ours. After 7 months of fighting, they “fixed” it. I would honestly recommend crossing your fingers with whatever you decide on… The 2015 won’t have a structural warranty, so make sure you have good insurance just in case!

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  4. I’m going through the same problems now on my 2015 and Lippert and GD are not backing there product even with it being a common problem Lippert is supost to be giving me a price to fix the problem we will see

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